Former University of Southern California Dean Charged in Major Bribery Scheme
“Federal prosecutors said that in 2017 and 2018, then-supervisor Ridley-Thomas offered to support county contracts to USC’s School of Social Work — which had a multimillion-dollar budget deficit — in return for helping a relative.”
Mark Ridley-Thomas is now a power-player in Los Angeles politics. This does not look good.
The Associated Press reports:
USC ex-dean, LA politician charged with bribery scheme
Powerful Los Angeles politician Mark Ridley-Thomas and a former dean at the University of Southern California were charged Wednesday with a bribery scheme in which Ridley-Thomas promised to steer millions of dollars in contracts to the school if his son got a scholarship and a teaching job.
A 20-count federal indictment names Ridley-Thomas, a former county supervisor who is now on the Los Angeles City Council, and Marilyn Louise Flynn, former dean of USC’s School of Social Work.
An email to representatives for Ridley-Thomas seeking comment weren’t immediately returned.
Contact information for Flynn couldn’t be found.
Federal prosecutors said that in 2017 and 2018, then-supervisor Ridley-Thomas offered to support county contracts to USC’s School of Social Work — which had a multimillion-dollar budget deficit — in return for helping a relative.
In return, Flynn promised to provide the relative with a full-tuition scholarship and a paid professorship, and concocted a scheme to funnel $100,000 in Ridley-Thomas campaign funds through the university “to a non-profit to be operated by the relative,” said a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.
The indictment refers to the relative only as “MRT Relative 1.”
However, at the time Ridley-Thomas’s son, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, was a state Assembly member facing complaints of sexual harassment. He resigned the last day of 2017, citing unspecified health problems and an Assembly investigation concluded in 2019 that he had likely made an unwanted sexual advance toward a Capitol staffer.
“Ridley-Thomas allegedly wanted to help secure paid employment for his relative to minimize any public fallout for them both in the wake of the sudden resignation from office,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office statement.
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas received a $26,000 scholarship for 2018 and was offered a paid teaching position with a $50,000 salary, even though being a student and a teacher would violate school policy, authorities said.
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Comments
Most social work college programs are a scam anyways. They don’t really require much more than a 2 year degree to do the job that 90% of the grads get, if they can get one at all.