Four years ago, Los Angeles City Councilman Karen Price faced questions about the vote she cast at City Hall and whether it would benefit her spouse financially.

The Times revealed that Mr. Price had repeatedly voted on issues affecting companies listed as clients of his wife’s consulting firm, Dell Richardson & Associates. The company has many customers, some of which could end up in trouble with the city council, including a housing developer looking to build new units for the homeless.

A spokesperson for Price said at the time that Price never voted for financial gain and, in fact, distanced himself from voting that could affect the consulting business Dell Richardson runs. said it was.

Five months later, he has now cast a vote leading to one of the criminal charges that have put his political future in jeopardy.

City councilors and their colleagues are up to nearly $4.7 million for a housing project partnered with one of Richardson’s clients, Thomas Saffron & Associates, which was mentioned in a Times report a few months ago. voted the go-ahead to issue revenue bonds.

Earlier that year, Richardson Consulting Firm received more than $35,000 from a firm founded by Thomas Safran & Associates, according to a criminal complaint filed by the District Attorney’s Office. Price is now facing felony charges for having a financial interest in this and other decisions voted at City Hall, according to the complaint.

His spokeswoman, Angelina Valencia-Dumareau, said on Tuesday that Price was looking forward to defending herself and was a “long-time public servant who has dedicated her life to the city of Los Angeles,” but said Thursday that I made no further comments. Lawyers representing Thomas Safran & Associates said the firm was “unaware of any conflict” involving Dell Richardson and the vote.

Richardson worked for the company for more than 30 years, long before she married Price, and was “one of the few experts in her field,” said James W. Spertas, an attorney at Thomas Safran & Associates. said Mr.

He added that “the suggestion that there was a payment for the vote is completely false” and called their company a “witness to this case”.

The criminal charges have derailed the politician’s third and final term, which came out unscathed from an earlier scandal at City Hall.

Price’s name surfaced in a federal search warrant after FBI agents raided City Hall five years ago and took a box of materials from the office of then-city councilor José Huisar, but no charges have been filed. Mr. Price was not indicted in the massive corruption scandal that led to it. of Hauser and other Town Hall figures.

Mr. Price told an acquaintance that he was not subject to a federal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and told the person, who declined to be identified in order to maintain a relationship with Mr. Price, to say, “I’m fine.” Told. U.S. prosecutors declined to comment.

When a recording full of racist and inflammatory remarks was leaked and then-Chairman Nouri Martinez was ousted, Price was a central figure in the conversation, helping Martinez lead the redistricting process and lead to re-election. spoke about the support of Another participant, City Councilman Kevin de Leon, claimed that Price was supposed to be at the meeting, but Price denied this.

Mr. Price condemned the remarks and ended the city hall reform with the larger title of interim chairman. He gave up that title on Tuesday, as well as his role on the key council committees that oversee economic development and the Olympics.

In a letter to Paul Clecorian Council Chairman, he said, “While I am overcoming the judicial system to protect my name from unfair prosecution, I would never want to get in the way of the people’s work. ‘ said.

Krekorian on Wednesday put forward a motion to suspend Price, stripping him of his remaining duties, but did not seek an immediate vote, saying he wanted to give the lawmaker a chance to respond to the charges.

The scandal was depressing for residents of the district, which includes Highway 110 south of downtown and includes some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Azucena Favela, a lifelong District 9 resident and philanthropist, called the charges against Price “heartbreaking.” “This is a real blow to the district and city that have just experienced this kind of turmoil in our legislature.”

Long before the criminal charges were filed, Richardson told city officials that the Los Angeles Attorney’s Office was at a loss as to how to handle disputes that might arise from her being a “co-income spouse” of a city council member. He said there seems to be In a 2015 email obtained by The Times, she said, “At some point, I was talking to or working with people who did or wanted to do business with the city of LA during my husband’s tenure. I’ve been told that people who do it will be at odds,” he said. as long as he has the job. ”

“Then I was told if I had a contract or a relationship before he took office I would be okay.

In the criminal complaint, prosecutors did not elaborate on whether there was evidence that Price knew his vote could be economically beneficial. Thomas Saffron & Associates was not on the meeting agenda when Price voted to raise bonds for housing projects. staff report The development company mentioned this decision.

“A mistake, big or small, can have a huge impact on the public’s perception of our government,” said Rudy Espinoza, executive director of the nonprofit Inclusive Action. rice field. His group advocates sidewalk vending, a move that Price has also defended.

If the leaders are “nonchalant about these things, it’s up to us to decide whether Mr. Cullen voted for these projects because of his wife, or if he really wanted the bills to pass.” Was it because they wanted it and it was good for the district?” Espinoza said.

Price has faced bitter disagreements over other development decisions. He backs plans for the $1.2 billion Reef skyscraper complex, which critics say will promote gentrification, and supports digital signage at the site, despite opposition from city planners. Was. Companies with ties to the developer pumped money to help him get re-elected.

Unlike the public uproar over Leaf, the doomed vote leading to Price’s felony was largely to the hype. Neither of the projects involved was in his congressional district. That included a decision to cut the price of a city property on Crenshaw Boulevard by $589,000. Failure to do so could put the home developer at risk of losing his $16.5 million or more in tax credits. city ​​official wrote.

The developer who bought the Crenshaw Boulevard property paid more than $46,000 to the Richardson firm in 2020, according to the district attorney’s complaint, but Price didn’t list the firm in his disclosures that year. It says. In May 2020, Price voted with the rest of the council to sell the property to the company, and the following summer joined a unanimous vote to lower the sale price.

“I’m really trying to understand, how do you make these mistakes and decisions?” Favela said, referring to the criminal complaint. When the vote took place, he said, “Why not resign yourself? It wasn’t like a vote that leaned either way.”

Price was also charged with perjury for failing to list four Dell Richardson & Associates clients in financial disclosures. Half of the 10 charges involved embezzlement, which allegedly forced the city to pay nearly $34,000 in medical insurance premiums for Richardson between 2013 and 2017.

The problem, prosecutors said, was that she was not legally his wife at the time. The city councilor listed her as his wife in city documents, but she never divorced another woman, so she wasn’t married to Richardson during that period, prosecutors allege. are doing. It was a topic that had already generated embarrassing headlines for Price.

Ms. Price married Lynn Suzette Greene in 1981 in Annandale, Virginia, according to Virginia Department of Health records. According to a 1997 Times report, the couple at one point lived in the Morningside Park neighborhood of Inglewood and ran a printing shop.

Price, a member of the Inglewood City Council, also ran for mayor of Inglewood that year, but was unsuccessful. A year later, the couple jointly filed for bankruptcy protection, and their marriage eventually stalled. The couple separated in May 2002, and Price filed papers in 2006 to initiate divorce proceedings in the Los Angeles Superior Court, according to court documents. She became a member of the California State Legislature. He refiled the lawsuit in 2011 after becoming a state senator.

In financial disclosures filed after Price was elected to city council a decade ago, he referred to Dell Richardson and Associates as property of his spouse. When he ran for re-election in 2017, his campaign materials listed him as married to Richardson.

“Marriage to Dell seems to have made a big difference in his life and energized him,” said former Inglewood Mayor and City Councilman Daniel Tabor, who has known Price since high school. . He declined to comment on the allegations, but defended Price as “a man of integrity.”

At Inglewood, Richardson was hired decades ago by a government agency to provide consulting services and assist those facing high profile areas to get their property reimbursed. ‘, a political consultant familiar with her work told The Times. Richardson previously told The Times that her company existed long before her relationship with a city council member.

By the time Price began serving on the Los Angeles City Council, her clients included housing developers, construction companies, engineering firms, and government agencies such as the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, according to official disclosures. It is said that Her work includes relocating tenants evicted by development projects.

After questions were raised about Mr. Price’s marriage, a representative for Mr. Price said he acted on the assumption that the divorce had been finalized. The divorce was not finalized until early 2018, according to court records.

Asked by The Times when and where he married Richardson, Price declined to provide details, saying his spouse was a recent identity theft victim and advised him not to divulge such information. said it had been Later that year, the district attorney’s office confirmed that it was considering a complaint against Mr. Price and his two marriages.

Price and Richardson weren’t legally married in Idaho until May 2018, according to the criminal complaint. Neither Suzette Price nor Dell Richardson responded to requests for comment about the charges against the city council members.

While there may have been some confusion over the divorce date, “I don’t think there was any intent to defraud, as far as I know Mr. Cullen,” said Harvey Inn, a public relations consultant who counted Mr. Price, a former Inglewood City Council member, as a client. Mr Grander said.

But broader allegations have made some skeptical that a misunderstanding alone could explain it. Price has already been questioned about possible issues with voting on issues affecting Richardson’s customers, saying he “should have been more careful” at California Common Causes on Transparency, Ethics and Explaining. Sean McMorris, responsible program manager, said.

“He didn’t do that,” McMorris said. “I would normally give politicians the benefit of the doubt about complicated laws like this. What about when? It’s simply beyond common sense.”