OpenCDA

April 11, 2014

Memorable Comments From the Judge and the Con Artist

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: — Bill @ 8:12 am

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Yesterday’s OpenCdA post titled Prison for Former Kootenai County Finance Director linked to the preliminary story from the LA Times reporting that former Kootenai County finance director Angela (Sheffield) Spaccia had been sentenced to 11 years, 8 months in California state prison for her role in the Bell, California, corruption scandal.

Today’s Los Angeles Times story headlined Former Bell second-in-command gets 11 years in prison for corruption elaborates on yesterday’s story.  In today’s story there are some telling comments from both Spaccia (Sheffield) and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy.  Some of Spaccia (Sheffield)’s comments have been reported before by the Times, but of course Judge Kennedy could not comment until after the trial was over and the sentence had been imposed.

OpenCdA hopes readers will read today’s LA Times article and pay close attention to the comments from both Judge Kathleen Kennedy and the convicted con artist, Angela (Sheffield) Spaccia.  They reveal the mindset of not only the con artist Spaccia and her fellow con artist City Administrator Robert Rizzo, but also the Judge’s now much clearer understanding of the complicity of Bell’s then-mayor and all but one member of Bell’s city council.

Midway through today’s article, Times reporters

We can’t help but wonder if Spaccia (Sheffield)  at that moment might have  been wishing  she had stayed in Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County, Idaho.

The corruption that nearly bankrupted the City of Bell, California, had been going on for years.   Reportedly some of Bell’s residents had complained to authorities, but who among them was willing to listen to Bell’s citizens who don’t pay off public officials with large campaign contributions or get their names and pictures in the newspapers’ society pages?   In fact, even the Los Angeles Times didn’t pick up on the consumptive corruption in Bell until its reporters started sniffing around in some neighboring cities and were pointed toward Bell City Hall.

But once the LA Times began to write story after story about Bell, its citizens became vocal.  Their outrage at the sweeping corruption at Bell City Hall fueled even more newspaper coverage.  Eventually, even the state and federal governments could no longer ignore the rampant corruption in Bell.  State and federal authorities were, apparently with some reluctance, forced to do their jobs.  But they did do their jobs.  And the LA Times continued to report the news.

The Bell, California, corruption story will begin to wind down with the conviction and sentencing of con artists Robert Rizzo and Angela (Sheffield) Spaccia and with the guilty pleas and sentencing of Bell’s former mayor and all but one member of its city council.  Swept up in the story of Bell, however, are a former Bell city attorney who had advised the mayor and council, a former police chief, and the accounting firm that audited the City’s books and so badly failed to perform their duties.

At least the people of Bell had a newspaper willing to write the stories exposing the corruption rather than ignoring it to cover it up.  And they had a county prosecuting attorney willing to pursue cases of public corruption.  And they had a state Board of Accountancy that was willing to discipline the accounting firm for “rubber stamping” audits of Bell’s finances.  And they had Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy who took the case in 2011 and whose judicial performance seemed to have been summarized by these lines from today’s LA Times article:

Kennedy said initially she knew little about how a city was run and didn’t fully comprehend the relationship between the council and administration.

“It was totally foreign to me and I spent years understanding the evidence,” Kennedy said. “I went through every single exhibit in an effort to understand what was going on, what happened here.”

What it came down to, she said, was unchecked greed.

Yes, right about now, Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County, Idaho, are probably looking a lot better to Angela (Sheffield) Spaccia.

4 Comments

  1. This brings to mind the trials of Sherry Carroll and Sandra Martinson.

    Comment by Susie Snedaker — April 11, 2014 @ 10:18 am

  2. Susie,

    Yes, and as I noted in my OpenCdA post on December 10, 2013,

    What makes the Bell/Spaccia corruption intriguing to OpenCdA is that during Sheffield’s two years (1998-2000) as Kootenai County Finance Director she was working closely with Sandra Kay Martinson, who served in the Kootenai County Clerk’s Auditor’s Office from July 22, 1985, until November 19, 2010. Both Martinson and Spaccia (Sheffield) were subsequently convicted of theft.

    Comment by Bill — April 11, 2014 @ 11:07 am

  3. As sad as it is see that Ms. Spaccia who was more about public corruption then doing an ethical job worked closely with Sandy Martinson who also was more about public corruption then doing a ethical job. A scary parallel for sure but in my mind more so when the current finance director worked much more closer and longer with Sandy Martinson even taking part in operating illegal bank accounts after Martinson left her position.

    Two very illegal bank accounts outside the BOCC and Treasurer’s control were accommodated and operated for years by the Auditors office mainly Martinson’s in a bank not the County’s. Over $38,000 of the Courts money was illegally spent in addition to the Courts money being held in two Sheriff Accounts for months and years at a time.

    At one point after Martinson left Mr. McDowell played along when he signed a check dated on a Sunday absent the Treasurer’s signature. To date these accounts and several other very illegal outside bank accounts have never been audited by anyone. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62176931/Check%201.pdf

    Comment by Appalled — April 12, 2014 @ 9:35 am

  4. When I first met David McDowell it was in a meeting that Dan English arranged for me to meet with McDowell and Martinson. Completely evasive they also hid public account records that I had to subpoena from the bank and could not get from the County. Why? Hundreds of thousands of dollars were routinely handled [improperly] for over a decade into 2012 without a single audit of those two accounts.

    In fact February 2011 there was 8 illegal outside bank accounts 7 if not 8 existed in the name of the Sheriff’s department. In 2010 the former Sheriff Watson and former Clerk English under oath affirmed that no bank accounts existed outside the Control of the Treasures office and BOCC. Other then the two accounts operated by Martinson at least 5 illegal bank accounts existed outside the control of the Treasures office, BOCC, and also the Clerk/Auditors office.

    Into this calendar year 2014 at least two illegal bank accounts have existed in operation with full autonomy outside of the control of the Treasures office, BOCC, and Auditors office. One this January over 300 illegal checks were written and yet again this bank account has never been audited one time by anyone for years.

    Another of the outside bank accounts this one the former Sheriff received illegal checks and even wrote checks it also involved his travels around the Country and more that has never been audited by anyone.
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62176931/Check%203.pdf
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62176931/Check%202.pdf

    Aside from several provisions of the Idaho Constitution all of the illegal bank account activity violates the following Idaho Statutes; 18-5701, 31-3301, 31-3101, 31-1511, 31-802, 31-809, 31-810, 31-1501, 31-1503, 31-1701, 31-2301, 31-2303, 31-2304, 31-2101, 31-855, and 18-315.

    Comment by Appalled — April 12, 2014 @ 10:43 am

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