Former Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo was convicted April 16 of organizing the Bell City scandal, a scheme in which Rizzo was illegally allocating city funds in order to increase his pay and other employees working for the City of Bell, according to the Associated Press.
Rizzo pleaded no contest to more than 69 accounts of fraud, misappropriation of public funds, falsification of public records, and tax evasion. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the laundry list of crimes and ordered to pay more than $8.8 million in restitution.
The acts Rizzo committed were crippling to the city of Bell, as his actions cost the city $5.5 million.
He sent a city, in which more than a quarter of its population is living under federal poverty standards, to the verge of bankruptcy, according to CBS.
That $5.5 million could have been used for public programs that would have helped people who desperately needed it. The money should have gone to funding schools, parks, law enforcement, and infrastructure. The community was robbed of the funds needed to run public institutions that help create an environment suitable for an economy.
Instead, the money went to Rizzo and his cohorts, such as his chief assistant Angela Spaccia, and members of the Bell City Council who played with city finance records to give themselves huge pay checks and comfortable benefits packages that would cost more than $1 million annually, according to an article posted on KCPP’s website.
Spaccia was sentenced to 11 years in prison for her contribution to the corruption.
Although Rizzo made a public apology and repeatedly said he regretted his actions, it does not excuse him from such serious crimes.
“If I could go back and make changes, I would,” Rizzo said, in an article in the Los Angeles Times. “I’ve done it a million times in my mind.”
The apology, though, could not repair the severe, financial damage already done to the city.
What might be the most maddening about this whole scandal is Rizzo’s attempts at trying to gain sympathy during the trail for the crimes he committed. In an article by the LA Times, Rizzo stated that he felt that being a public figure led to being ostracized in the news media.
“I can’t go anywhere,” he stated.
For Rizzo to say that he feels ostracized is ridiculous and unwarranted in light of his actions.
Rizzo knew his actions were illegal and damaging to the city. He brought any “ostricization” or public backlash onto himself. If Rizzo felt remorse for his irresponsible actions, he would have stopped this madness years ago and turned himself in.
Rizzo is being insincere in his apology and only seems to care that he got caught more than the damage he caused to the city of Bell and the thousands of lives affected by this event.
Hopefully, Rizzo’s trial will serve as a public warning to the state and will lead people to pay closer attention to the lack of transparency in government.
Seeing as how we live in a democratic state and the majority of public staples are funded through taxes, it’s ultimately vital to insure our money is going towards benefiting the community and not the ill-intentioned political figureheads’ pockets.