Los Angeles County prosecutors have launched a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of voter fraud and conflicts of interest involving municipal business in Bell, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Tuesday.
In an interview with The Times, Cooley described an investigation considerably larger in scope than previously acknowledged by prosecutors, saying that it was "multifaceted, rapidly expanding and full-fledged." Investigators have been gathering evidence since March, he said.
Until now, prosecutors had said only that they were looking at the $100,000 annual salaries paid to four of the five Bell City Council members and were seeking to determine if the payments were larger than allowed under state law. The voting fraud claims and allegations of possible conflicts of interest in city business add significant new issues about how government operated in the small working-class city where top city officials were among the nation's highest paid.
Cooley also said investigators were looking at whether council members had received pay for meetings they did not attend or meetings that lasted only a few minutes. Most of the pay that Bell council members received came not from their City Council salaries, but as stipends for serving on the boards of city panels, such as the Public Financing, Surplus Property, and Solid Waste and Recycling authorities. City records indicate that those boards performed little work and that their business was routinely conducted during council meetings. In some cases, the board meetings would last no more than a minute, according to the records.
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