$800K-a-year town official gets 12 years
The former city administrator of working- class Bell, Calif., who became a symbol of government corruption when news surfaced of his annual salary of about $800,000, was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison, officials said.
The former city administrator of working- class Bell, Calif., who became a symbol of government corruption when news surfaced of his annual salary of about $800,000, was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison, officials said.
An apologetic Robert Rizzo, 60, who pleaded guilty last year to 69 state counts - from perjury to misappropriation of funds - also was ordered to pay $8.8 million in restitution to the city, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office.
Rizzo went from earning a City Council-approved salary of $300,000 in 2004 to $800,000 in 2010, when it was revealed how he illegally inflated his pay, prosecutors said. He resigned that year. - Reuters