VERNON MAYOR AND EX-OFFICIAL ARE INDICTED

Capping years of investigation, Los Angeles County prosecutors filed public corruption charges Wednesday accusing Vernon’s longtime mayor of voter fraud and the former city administrator of using public funds for personal purposes.

The indictments come after decades of complaints by critics that the small, quirky industrial city a few miles south of downtown Los Angeles is operated as a fiefdom by city leaders, including Mayor Leonis Malburg, who has been in office for more than 50 years and is the grandson of Vernon’s founder.

Most of the homes in Vernon are owned by Malburg, other council members and the city, and a majority of the 91 residents are city employees.

Prosecutors charge that Malburg, 77, has been fraudulently voting in Vernon elections for decades as he allegedly lives in his grandfather’s former estate in Hancock Park, 20 miles away.

The mayor’s alleged voter fraud dates to at least 1967, according to a criminal complaint.

The mayor’s wife, Dominica Malburg, and their son John, were also accused of illegal voting in Vernon.

“These charges go to the heart of the problem in Vernon, where they’re trying to maintain the status quo and control the pool of voters,” said David Demerjian, the head of the district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit. “If they were voting, they should be voting in L.A., not Vernon.”

The district attorney’s office also charges that longtime city administrator Bruce Malkenhorst Sr., 71, spent $60,000 in city money for personal use, including massages, golf outings, meals and political contributions.

Malkenhorst was the highest paid municipal official in the state before stepping down two years ago, earning more than $600,000 a year for running a city with fewer than 100 residents. The city also paid for a limousine to transport him.

Prosecutors alleged that Malkenhorst regularly reimbursed himself for expenses -- including paying off his personal Visa credit card -- without seeking approval from anyone, including the City Council.

“I can’t come up with a reason for why massages would be paid for with public money,” said Max Huntsman, a deputy district attorney leading the case.

The charges mark the biggest challenge in decades to the reign of Malburg and his allies. Prosecutors say their investigation is continuing.

Earlier this year, the city hired gun-toting private investigators to follow challengers seeking to unseat Malburg and the other council incumbents.

The city evicted the candidates from their dwellings and kicked them off the ballot, although a judge later ruled that the election, Vernon’s first in 25 years, had to go forward.

Malburg was reelected in a disputed election that was the subject of months of court challenges.

Prosecutors have been building their cases against the city officials for years, but Vernon waged a long court battle in an unsuccessful effort to avoid turning over city records to prosecutors. Huntsman said district attorney’s investigators found that many city records were missing or had been destroyed.

For nearly 80 years, critics have accused Vernon’s leaders of running a political machine that kept power in the hands of the city’s founding family and a small group of other leaders.

Vernon was founded in 1905 by a charismatic Basque immigrant named John Baptiste Leonis, who over the next few decades consolidated power and purchased property around the city. As early as 1925, a Los Angeles Times expose accused Leonis of operating the city as a fiefdom where dissenters were run out of town.

In the 1940s, the district attorney indicted Leonis and other Vernon leaders on charges that are eerily similar to the case presented Wednesday.

Prosecutors called Leonis a “boss” who committed voter fraud by casting ballots in Vernon when he actually lived in the Hancock Park home his grandson allegedly occupies.

But the charges against Leonis were eventually dropped, and by the time he died in 1953, he had amassed an estate reportedly worth $8 million.

The inheritance went to Leonis Malburg, who as a boy hunted doves with a BB gun at the family stockyards and took his first job as a messenger at his grandfather’s bank.

Neither Malburg, Malkenhorst nor their attorneys returned calls seeking comment, nor did Vernon’s city attorney.

In the past, Malburg has said he lives in an apartment atop a commercial building he owns on Leonis Boulevard, a street named after his grandfather.

People who in the past have clashed with Vernon’s leaders hailed the indictment as a historic turning point for the town.

“This is a good day for democracy,” said Roy Ulrich, a public interest lawyer and former Vernon property owner.

“It’s a hopeful sign. It’s good that [D.A.] Steve Cooley has uncovered what’s been going on in Vernon, what’s been apparent to a lot of people for some time now. This is not a real city. It’s a business with a charter,” Ulrich added.

Prosecutors said that under the law, a person is allowed only one legal domicile. That is where the person can be registered to vote.

While Malburg might spend time in his Vernon apartment, Demerjian said, he and his family clearly live in Hancock Park.

“And I don’t think there’s any evidence that his wife ever lived in Vernon,” the prosecutor said.

“It will be up to a jury to decide whether this man lived in a mansion in Hancock Park or a little apartment in the city of Vernon.”

Malburg, his wife, son and Malkenhorst are expected in Superior Court today for arraignment. If he is convicted on all 18 counts, Malkenhorst would face up to 21 years in prison while Malburg would face up to seven years.

The five-square-mile city has one of the smallest populations in California but a heavy concentration of manufacturing that draws 44,000 workers each day.

The election earlier this year focused national attention on Vernon, but within the city, some residents and business owners remained loyal to the mayor.

Residents said city leaders gave them discounts on rent for their apartments while business owners say the city is well run.

But Philip Reavis, a former Vernon Chamber of Commerce president who ran for office in 1980, said he was gratified that prosecutors examined the way business runs in the city.

“Who needs a limousine going into Vernon?” he said, referring to Malkenhorst.

As for the indicted mayor, Reavis added: “I always looked at Vernon after my experience like it was a big Erector set that Malburg inherited.”

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hector.becerra@latimes.com