Former Lynwood Mayor Convicted of Corruption

Former Lynwood Mayor Paul H. Richards II was convicted Tuesday on corruption charges for steering no-bid city contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to a consulting firm he secretly owned.

A federal court jury found the onetime political power broker guilty of 35 counts of extortion, fraud, money laundering and making false statements to investigators.

Also convicted were his sister, Pamela Cameo Harris, 56, of Altadena, who served as president of Allied Government Services, the front company that Richards set up to do business with the city; and Bevan A. Thomas, 56, of Anaheim, a longtime friend accused of bribing Richards in return for city contracts.

Richards, a 49-year-old attorney who served on the Lynwood City Council for 17 years, was ousted in a recall election two years ago amid allegations of corruption and cronyism. He had no visible reaction to the verdict.

“It should be clear now to all public officials that we mean business,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Daniel Shallman said of the convictions, which grew out of a two-year FBI-IRS probe.

In the past few years, the U.S. attorney’s office has won convictions against more than a dozen persons charged with corruption in nearby Carson and South Gate.

Attorneys for the Lynwood defendants said they plan to appeal. Richards’ lawyer, Ed Robinson, said the defense was unfairly barred from putting on evidence about the rough-and-tumble nature of politics in Lynwood, a blue-collar community of 70,000 in southeastern Los Angeles County.

U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner allowed the three defendants to remain free on bond pending sentencing Feb. 13.

Shallman said the government would seek a prison term of at least 10 years for Richards, whom he described as the mastermind of the scheme.

Lighter sentences will be sought for Harris and Thomas, who were each convicted of fraud, money laundering and lying to a federal grand jury. Thomas also was found guilty of bribery.

The case against Richards and his co-defendants centered on the award of three contracts that prosecutors claimed were little more than “sweetheart deals” designed to enrich Richards and his family.

In the most lucrative award, the Lynwood City Council, controlled by Richards, hired Allied to pick a company to construct billboards along the Century Freeway in Lynwood. Allied was to receive 20% of all fees collected by the city.

Behind the scenes, Richards was already negotiating a deal with Regency Outdoor Advertising, making Allied’s hiring wasteful and unnecessary, prosecutors charged.

Regency was eventually awarded a no-bid contract to erect a dozen billboards. The company agreed to pay Lynwood $4.8 million, of which $960,000 would have gone to Allied.

The deal was scrapped the following year when Richards lost his majority on the City Council.

Testifying in his own defense, Richards said he never disclosed his links to Allied because he believed it wasn’t legally required, and because doing so would “politicize” the proposed contracts since “some people were disposed to attack anything I was involved with.”

He denied having engaged in any behind-the-scenes negotiations with Regency.

Richards’ account was disputed by his nephew, Julio Naulls, who earned $1,000 a week as Allied’s vice president until he left the firm during a falling-out with his uncle.

Naulls, who was named as an unindicted co-schemer in the case, testified that he and Harris, who drew $1,500 a week, performed no meaningful work on the billboard contract and that the actual negotiations were conducted by a law firm hired at Richards’ direction.

According to Naulls, Richards called all the shots for Allied. He quoted his uncle as once telling him, “You’re running my business.”

Defense attorney Robinson told jurors that Naulls “flat out lied.” He said the nephew had an “ax to grind” against Richards.

Richards was also accused of forcing the city’s trolley service operator, Commuter Bus Lines, to hire Allied as a $7,500-a-month “transportation consultant” in exchange for a five-year contract renewal.

Like the billboard contract, this one was rescinded after Richards lost power but not before Allied had pocketed $62,500 “for little or no work of any value,” according to the indictment against Richards.