10: Mother and Son

Dist. Atty. Bradbury took his lumps on another front last year.

Protests erupted--and federal officials pledged reform--after The Times reported that Bradbury was receiving $639 a month in taxpayers’ money to rent a small house on his Ojai horse ranch to his 77-year-old mother.

Critics said the rent subsidy should be reserved for those who could not secure decent accommodations otherwise. They said some of the 6,900 poor residents on waiting lists across the county were surely more needy than Marie Bradbury.

Bradbury, who makes nearly $132,000 a year and lives in a spacious house on his four-acre Hang ‘em High Ranch, could take care of his mom without further government assistance, critics argued.

But no one questioned the legality of the rent subsidy. And Bradbury said he was being selectively criticized for pocketing the money.

Bradbury also argued that he took it only because his mother has her pride and wants to contribute to her family’s economic well-being. She had received the housing subsidy for 20 years, after all, long before she moved to her son’s ranch in 1995.

“This money is not important to us,” Bradbury said. “It’s important to my mother.”

In the end, the prosecutor pledged all $639 a month to charities and refused to say another word about it.