Fifth and Final Bell City Council Member Sentenced

By FRED SHUSTER
City News Service

Former Bell Councilman Victor Bello was sentenced today to a year in jail, ending what prosecutors called the largest public corruption case in county history.

The 55-year-old Bello -- the last of seven convicted former Bell officials to be sentenced -- was ordered to complete 500 hours of community service and told to pay more than $177,000 in restitution for misappropriating public funds by accepting money for serving on various city boards that rarely met.

Bello was placed on probation for five years and will get credit for 340 days of jail time. He was ordered to surrender Aug. 29 to serve the remaining weeks of his sentence.

Deputy District Attorney Sean Hassett said that with the conclusion of the biggest public corruption case in county history, “the people of Bell can now move forward.”

Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy dubbed the case “a poorly written soap opera.”

Bello, along with former Mayor Oscar Hernandez, ex-Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo and former Council members George Mirabal and George Cole, were convicted last year of stealing a total of nearly $1 million from public coffers.

The five hiked their pay by unanimously voting for illegal raises and creating sham boards and commissions that never met or convened for only minutes a year.

“I apologize for what happened,” Bello said, telling the court that the rampant corruption among Bell’s administrators was “something I should’ve looked more into. That’s what I was trying to do.”

When Bello first became a Bell councilman in 1998, he earned $434 a month. Before he resigned his council seat in August 2009, he was earning nearly $100,000 annually for the part-time job and kept that salary when he transitioned to a job at the local food bank.

“The raises had been going on for so long it was business as usual,” Kennedy said.

Jacobo was sentenced to two years in state prison. Hernandez and Mirabal were sentenced to one year each in county jail. Cole was sentenced to 180 days of home confinement with an ankle monitor. All were ordered to pay hefty restitution amounts to the City of Bell.

“All of them deserved four years in state prison,” Hassett told reporters.

The main architects of the scheme that left the city of 35,000 near bankruptcy were sentenced in April. The city’s former chief administrative officer, Robert Rizzo, was sentenced to 12 years in state prison and ordered to pay $8.8 million in restitution. His assistant, Angela Spaccia, was sentenced to 11 years, eight months in state prison and ordered to pay $8.2 million in restitution to the city.

Together, their sentences represent the longest prison terms for convicted public officials since the District Attorney’s Public Integrity Division was established in 2001, the agency said.

Hassett said that Bello approached the district attorney’s office with allegations of financial wrongdoing in 2009 -- a year before the scandal came to light.

“His complaining about the corruption sets him apart,” Hassett told the court.

The prosecutor said Bello had alerted the district attorney’s office in 2006 and 2007 to “petty disputes” he was having with his fellow council members, but asking him to reveal his salary during a March 2010 taped interview with investigators “was like pulling teeth.”

Bello and the rest of the city council “clearly conspired to hide their salaries from the public,” Hassett said.

“They never thought the public deserved more, never thought the council deserved less,” Hassett said. “They stole from the people of Bell for years.”

Bello’s attorney, Leo J. Moriarty, said outside court that his client was indigent and received disability for psychiatric issues.

Moriarty, who also represents Jacobo, said he planned to ask the judge to reconsider the two-year prison term handed to Bell’s former vice mayor.

During the trial, prosecutors contended that the council members were paid illegal salaries for sitting on four city boards that rarely met, with their salaries reaching $100,000 in a city that was 2 1/2 square miles and where the median household income was $35,000.

Defense attorneys countered during the trial that their clients were wrongly accused, arguing that they worked diligently for the city and earned their salaries.

One former councilman, Luis Artiga, was exonerated of all 12 charges against him.

Rizzo pleaded no contest last October to all 69 charges against him.

Spaccia, was convicted last December of 11 felony counts, including misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest. Jurors acquitted her of one count of secretion of a public record involving former Bell Police Chief Randy Adams’ employment contract, and deadlocked on another count -- misappropriation of public funds involving an alleged $75,500 loan of taxpayer money in 2003 -- that was eventually dismissed.

Spaccia is appealing her conviction.