RANDY ECONOMY: MY WORLD: ROBERT RIZZO; More Felony charges added to fat-cat ex-Bell City Manager. Rack'em up Rizzo....

Thursday, October 21, 2010

ROBERT RIZZO; More Felony charges added to fat-cat ex-Bell City Manager. Rack'em up Rizzo....

Fatty Rizzo

LOS ANGELES – Additional felony charges were filed today against Robert Rizzo, the former city manager of Bell, who with several current and former council members of the small southeast community faces charges of misappropriating more than $5.5 million in tax dollars.

Today’s charges – one count each of conflict of interest and one of misappropriation of public funds – allege that Rizzo took an additional $2.4 million from the city coffers.

“I promised last month when the first wave of charges were filed that the investigation of the looting of Bell was ongoing and there was more to come,” said District Attorney Steve Cooley. “Filing of the original charges was a good beginning. Today’s case is another step in the continuing process.”

The additional charges filed against Rizzo stems from a contract he allegedly influenced between the City of Bell and D&J Engineering. Rizzo and the owner of the engineering firm were partners in a horse racing business.

Rizzo, six present and former Bell City Council members, and one other city official were charged late last month in two separate cases. The former council members were charged in one case. Rizzo, two council members and another city official were charged in the other.

Most are free on bail, including Rizzo, whose bond was set by a Superior Court judge at $2 million. The prosecution had requested substantially more bond for the former city official who the District Attorney at a news conference termed “the unelected and unaccountable czar of the City of Bell.”

All appeared in Superior Court today for arraignment on the panoply of charges stemming from alleged misappropriation millions from city tax dollars for their own personal use. They were arraigned, pleaded not guilty and a preliminary hearing setting was scheduled for Dec. 8.

Before the arraignment, the issue of an additional $2.4 million bail for Rizzo on the new case was heard before Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Villar, who had set his bail at $2 million at an Oct. 6 hearing. She determined that Rizzo may remain free on the previously set $2 million bail.

Besides Rizzo, 56, the defendants are former Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia, 52; Mayor Oscar Hernandez, 63; City Council members Teresa Jacobo, 52; and George Mirabal, 60; and former council members Luis Artiga, 49; George Cole, 60, and Victor Bello, 51. Artiga resigned after charges were filed against him last month.

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Meet Randy Economy

You may know me from my role as the Senior Advisor and Official Media Spokesman for the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign that established a worldwide blitz of interviews. I conducted more than 2,200 media interviews on behalf of “The People’s Recall” during a 10-month period from November 2020 to September 2021. The iconic magazine Mother Jones in a dramatic feature article called me “A ‘Superhero Pirate’ Radio Host, (and) Gavin Newsom’s Strangest—and Most Dangerous—Threat. Meet Randy Economy, the man behind the effort to recall California’s governor.” I appeared on more than 330 media outlets around the world in my capacity with RecallGavin2020. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, NBC Nightly News, ABC News, as well as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and dozens of other media outlets aired featured reports on my work on behalf of “The People’s Recall.” I am and will always consider myself to be a journalist. Sometimes I think I bleed ink. My talents as an Investigative Journalists in California earned me FIVE top awards from the prestigious Los Angeles Press Club in 2013, 2014, and 2016. I am tenacious. My reporting over the years has led to the prosecution of several elected officials in California. While working for a tiny community newspaper in Southeast Los Angeles County, I worked doggedly to expose the biggest public corruption case in Los Angeles County history when I unearthed a massive pay to play scheme inside the Assessor’s Office that led to the arrest of then Assessor John R. Noguez and four others. However, politics has been in my DNA since I was a child. I have worked on more than 300 political campaigns as a consultant and advisor since 1982 for candidates from all sides of the political spectrum including Democrats and Republicans, and even Libertarians. I am also a small business owner, serving as the President and CEO of Hot Water Studio & Production, LLC. My company works with media outlets across the state, nation, and world exposing public corruption via several new media platforms. I have also overcome personal challenges. I am legally blind with zero vision in my right eye and only 40 percent vision remaining in my left eye. I sometimes wear an eyepatch due to my failed vision. (Hence the nickname of “America’s Political Pirate.”