Ex-City Attorney, Palisades Resident, Sentenced To Home Detention For Extortion: Reports

LOS ANGELES, CA — A former top lawyer in the City Attorney's Office will spend nine months confined in his Pacific Palisades home after pleading guilty to a federal charge stemming from a Department of Water and Power extortion scandal, according to reports.

Thomas H. Peters, 56, was sentenced to nine months of home confinement as part of his larger sentence, which includes three years of probation. The sentence was announced in federal court on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. He was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The U.S. District Court's Probation Office had said that Peters should serve 41 months in prion, but prosecutors asked the judge for an abbreviated sentence due to what they called Peters' "substantial assistance" investigating a scheme revolving around the 2013-14 DWP over-billing scandal, NBC 4 reported.

Peters admitted in a plea agreement that he aided and abetted the extortion scheme, which involved Peters threatening to fire one of the city's lawyers unless the lawyer paid off someone who was threatening to reveal damaging information about how the city handled the DWP billing mess, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Peters is the third city employee sentenced in the corruption case.