L.A. County prosecutors plan to file additional corruption charges this week against City Councilman Curren Price, who is already facing multiple counts of grand theft and perjury for allegedly voting in favor of projects his wife had a financial interest in, multiple sources told The Times.
The charges were expected to be made public Thursday during a pretrial hearing in downtown L.A., according to three people with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about an ongoing criminal case.
In June 2023, Price was charged with 10 counts of grand theft by embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest. Prosecutors said Price’s wife — Del Richardson, founder of the consulting company Del Richardson & Associates — received “payments totaling more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before [Price] voted to approve projects.”
The perjury charges stem from a claim that Price didn’t list his wife’s income on disclosure forms. Prosecutors also accused Price of theft by embezzlement for bilking the city out of tens of thousands of dollars by placing Richardson on his city-issued healthcare plan between 2013 and 2017, before they were legally married.
Price’s attorney, Michael Schafler, called the new charges “nothing more than an attempt to pile on to a weak case.”
“They have gone back as much as 6 years, combing through thousands and thousands of votes, to find a couple more allegedly conflicted votes, hoping that the public will overlook the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that Councilmember Price was aware of the alleged conflicts when he voted for the agenda items,” Schafler said in a statement.
The original criminal complaint was filed roughly four years after a Times investigation found Price had repeatedly cast votes that affected housing developers and other firms listed as clients of his wife’s consulting company.
The new charges relate to similar conduct related to votes that Price cast, according to two of the sources. One of the sources said the votes related to contracts for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city’s housing authority.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said a press release would be issued later on Tuesday.
In an October 2023 motion seeking to dismiss the charges, Price’s legal team argued prosecutors failed to show the payments to Richardson had any influence on the councilman’s votes. Many of the votes described in the criminal complaint were also approved by an overwhelming majority of the council, meaning Price did not swing any one decision that could financially benefit Richardson.
Schafler also argued the embezzlement charges are invalid because Price did not have control over the funds used to pay for Richardson’s healthcare, which is a required element of the crime under California law. Price’s conduct might meet the definition of grand theft, Schafler wrote in 2023, but the statute of limitations for that crime had long expired.
A judge rejected Schafler’s motion. Price is expected to face a preliminary hearing later this year.
Price, who was first elected in 2013, must leave office due to term limits at the end of 2026. Several candidates have already launched campaigns to replace him in a district that stretches from the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown to 95th Street in South L.A.
Times Staff Writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.