Supporters have helped the councilman amass nearly $1.5 million, allowing him to hire a legal team that has won courtroom victories for Google and Kaiser Permanente.
When a federal grand jury indicted Mark Ridley-Thomas on corruption charges, the veteran Los Angeles politician protested his innocence and vowed to fight.Ridley-Thomas had few assets beyond his home and a rental property in Leimert Park. The lifelong civil servant lost his income after the City Council suspended him, and the city controller halted his salary and benefits. And under city rules, he could not find another job without resigning from office.
“Having been his friend for more than 15 years, I believe in him, his innocence, and am confident he will be exonerated,” Biondi said. Of the more than 63,000 federal criminal cases that were resolved in 2021, more than 90% ended in a guilty plea, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. The data show that the vast majority of cases that go to trial result in convictions. For many, trial is a gamble not worth risking, given the potential of a lengthy prison sentence and the high price of private attorneys.
“It would cost a couple of million dollars — minimum,” said Peter Zeughauser, a Newport Beach attorney who advises international law firms on strategy. Several L.A. attorneys put the price tag at $3 million to $5 million, not including the 16 months of legal work the council member’s defense team has already put into the case.
Thomas Safran, an affordable-housing developer in Brentwood who gave $6,600 to the defense funds, also said, “I don’t know the details of what’s gone on.” But he was effusive over Ridley-Thomas, adding, “I think the world of him.” Prominent L.A. lawyer Patricia Glaser gave $5,000 to the defense fund. Glaser is not a lobbyist, but her Century City law firm, Glaser Weil, is registered to lobby for a slew of developers as well as the owner of the Beverly Center.
Ridley-Thomas has said he was in particular need of donations after then-L.A. City Controller Ron Galperin revoked his pay and benefits. “Because I won’t give up my seat and turn my back on my constituents, I am prohibited from earning outside income,” he told supporters last year. “At the very moment I really need resources for my legal defense.”
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