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‘I didn’t steal the Maserati,’ Bell scandal defendant says after being resentenced

Angela Spaccia, the former assistant city administrator of Bell, is shown in 2014.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Associated Press)
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Former Bell assistant city administrator Angela Spaccia was resentenced Monday, in light of an appeals court reversal on five counts of misappropriating funds from the city, and again ordered to repay roughly $8 million in restitution.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen handed down a sentence of 10 years, time Spaccia has already served, according to defense attorney Harland Braun.

Spaccia has been living at home and working while wearing an ankle monitor. Once the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation calculates her good conduct time, Braun said he expects the electronic device will be removed.

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“She’s already done her time,” he said. That’s despite the fact that Coen increased her sentence on some of the remaining counts. Spaccia was sentenced in April 2014 to 11 years and eight months in prison for raiding the small municipality’s treasury in what a judge called a case of money and greed.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy said at the time that she believed Spaccia was a “con artist,” rejecting the defense’s claim that the then-55-year-old woman — who had previously held management positions with five other public agencies in California and Idaho — was a victim of former Bell administrator Robert Rizzo.

A three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal ruled in June that instructions given to the trial jury incorrectly allowed Spaccia’s conviction based on her status as a public officer alone, without requiring findings about her degree of control over public funds. Her new sentence applies to the remaining four counts of conflict of interest and one count each of conspiracy to misappropriate public funds and secretion of an official record. Braun said he had expected eight years, given the appeals court reversal, but that the difference wouldn’t affect his client.

“She’s out,” he said. Coen effectively let the original order of restitution stand, requiring Spaccia to repay to the city of Bell what the prosecution had called “unlawful” salaries paid to her, Rizzo and former police Chief Randy Adams.

Braun said his client would appeal that decision, contending that she was being told to repay money related to crimes which she no longer stands convicted of.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Spaccia said: “I didn’t steal the Maserati, so why do I have to pay for it?’” That said, she has been complying with the court order, “making good faith payments every month,” Spaccia said.

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Braun argued that the appeals court had “reversed all of the counts involving government funds,” although the conspiracy count remains. That conviction is related to Spaccia’s role in creating a retirement plan, rather than salaries or loans. The misappropriation charges against Spaccia stemmed from her salary and those of Rizzo and Adams, along with a pair of six-figure loans of taxpayer money she received in 2009 and 2010. The conflict-of-interest charges involved the handling of her pension plan and the writing of her own employment contracts in 2005, 2006 and 2008.

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