The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has filed new corruption charges against embattled City Councilmember Curren Price.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges Tuesday evening in a press release.
According to Hochman, Price is set to appear in court Thursday to face new charges related to accusations that he approved multimillion-dollar government contracts to local agencies which in turn then paid his wife more than $800,000.
The agencies, according to the D.A.’s Office, are the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or LA Metro, and the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, or HACLA.
Price has been councilmember for L.A.’s Ninth District since 2013, and was previously charged in 2023 with 10 felony public corruption-related charges, including embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest.
His 2023 charges allege that he, while acting in an official capacity as a member of the council, voted to award more than $150,000 to Del Richardson & Associates, a consulting firm founded and owned solely by his wife, Delbra Pettice Richardson.
Price is prohibited from having a financial stake associated with any project that comes before the city council, Hochman said.
He’s also accused of embezzling around $33,000 in city funds from 2013-2017 to pay for Richardson’s medical benefits, claiming she was his wife, while he was in fact married to another woman.
Price has pleaded not guilty to those charges and was released from custody in December 2023. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Investigators have continued to investigate and obtained subpoenas which Hochman said led to the discovery of fresh evidence of corruption. His existing charges have since been amended to now include two new charges for conflict of interest.
“The complaint includes an appendix of 39 exhibits of evidence of the payments and Price’s voting history,” the D.A.’s Office said.
From October 2019 to June 2020, HACLA allegedly paid Del Richardson & Associates 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.
“Price’s staff had flagged the item of interest prior to the votes,” Hochman’s office said.
From October 2020 to October 2021, LA Metro paid the consulting firm approximately $220,000. Price then brought forth a motion to the council to award LA Metro $30 million.
That issue, according to Hochman, was also flagged by Price’s staff as a conflict of interest prior to the vote.
Price also allegedly “took advantage of his position in city government” to award city lease agreements and more than $2 million in federal COVID-19 grants to a nonprofit that was a tenant of an organization for which Price was the chief executive officer at the time.
Price is due to appear in court at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown L.A. on Thursday.
If convicted as charged, Price could spend more than 11 years in custody, including nine years in state prison.
Price is one in a long line of Los Angeles city councilmembers to face accusations of corruption, including several that have resulted in federal charges and arrests.
Most notably, former Los Angeles County supervisor and Los Angeles City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas was convicted of seven corruption-related charges in 2023.
A leaked conversation between then-City Council President Nury Martinez, former council member Kevin de León and a powerful labor leader, Ron Herrera, which included racial slurs and discussion about how to consolidate power on the council led to the resignation of Martinez and Herrera.
L.A.’s government triggered the resignation of then-City Council President Nury Martinez and a powerful labor leader, Ron Herrera. De León lost his seat in 2024 to Ysabel Jurado.
Councilmember John Lee was accused of violating government ethics laws as part of an investigation by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission for allegedly accepting gifts in excess of the government-set gift limit and failing to disclose them. Lee was also accused of aiding and abetting former council member Mitchell Englander’s misuse of his city position.
Englander was sentenced to 14 months in prison on federal corruption charges in 2021.