LA Councilmember Curren Price faces new corruption charges

L.A. City Councilmember Curren Price, who represents the city’s 9th Council District (CD-9), has been presented with corruption charges. 

Price, who oversees South Central Los Angeles, a neighborhood with one of the largest Latino and Black populations in the entire city, was charged on August 12 with two additional public corruption charges, in addition to the embezzlement and perjury charges he has been facing since 2023. 

The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday that the charges came after uncovering new evidence that the city’s housing authority and L.A. Metro paid Price’s wife more than $800,000 at the same time Price voted to award the agency's multimillion-dollar contracts.

“Embezzling public funds and awarding contracts for your own financial gain is the antithesis of public service.” L.A. County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement. “Our communities expect and deserve better from their public officials.” 

Despite the open case, Price, 74, is still sitting in office and has represented CD-9 since 2013. His current and last term ends on December 14, 2026.

The felony counts allege that between October 2019 and June 2020, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) allegedly paid Del Richardson and Associates, a company owned solely by Price's wife, Delbra Pettice Richardson, approximately $609,000 in consulting fees, while Price had voted to support a $35 million federal grant and a $250 million state grant application for the agency.

In addition, from October 2020 to October 2021, it is also said that L.A. Metro paid the consulting firm approximately $220,000. Price then brought forth a motion to the council to award L.A. Metro $30 million.

Prosecutors claim that in both cases, Price's staff had flagged the potential conflict of interest before the votes, yet the plans continued and the money was granted. 

Allegedly, Price also took advantage of his position to award city lease agreements and more than $2 million in federal COVID-19 grants to the nonprofit Home at Last, a tenant of the Urban Healthcare Project, where he served as chief executive officer.

These are additional charges to his already 10 felony public corruption-related charges, including five felony counts of embezzlement, three felony counts of perjury and two felony counts of conflict of interest, all of which he pleaded not guilty to. 

Price is expected to be arraigned on the new charges tomorrow, Thursday, August 14, in downtown Los Angeles.

Price's attorney, Michael Schafler, called the case against the councilman “weak,” saying it woudn’t hold up to scrutiny. “More than two years later, the DA's amended complaint is nothing more than an attempt to pile on to a weak case,” Schafler said in a statement. “They have gone back as much as six 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 council member Price was aware of the alleged conflicts when he voted for the agenda items.''

If convicted, he would face up to 11 years and four months in custody, including up to nine years and four months in state prison and up to two years in county jail, according to the District Attorney's office.

“Self-dealing and pay-to-play politics will not be tolerated in Los Angeles County,'' Hochman said.