Day 3 for jurors weighing fate of Bell's Angela Spaccia

1/17

Mayor Oscar Hernandez tells Bell resident Jose Orozco his time is up during a meeting filled with residents upset over the high salaries paid to city administrators. The overwhelming number of public speakers called for their resignations. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

2/17

The crowd erupts in anger at Monday night’s City Council meeting at the Bell community center. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

3/17

L.A. County sheriff’s deputies stand near the Bell City Council -- from left, Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo, Mayor Oscar Hernandez, George Mirabal and Luis Artiga -- during a meeting filled with residents upset over high salaries paid to council members. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

4/17

An angry Bell resident gestures toward the City Council during a meeting filled with locals upset about high salaries paid to members and other administrators. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

5/17

A police barricade keeps those in line from entering the Bell Community Center, which was at maximum capacity during the City Council meeting where a decision to cut the salaries of the mayor and three council members was made. (Christina House / For The Times)

6/17

Robert Mackin, center, a Bell resident since 1941, covers his ears while fellow resident Enrique Martinez, right, yells out after hearing that no more people would be allowed inside the Community Center to attend the City Council meeting where a vote to cut the salaries of Bell’s mayor and three other council members was being taken. (Christina House / For The Times)

7/17

Galileo Gonzalez, 21, pens a caricature of Bell Mayor Oscar Hernandez on a sign protesting the salaries of the City Council. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

8/17

Bell businessman Joseph Lee, left, and 15-year Bell resident Hussein Saleh help hang signs outside the Bell Community Center a few hours before the City Council meeting where the vote to cut the salaries of Mayor Oscar Hernandez and fellow council members Luis Artiga, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal was to take place. (Christina House / For The Times)

9/17

Officers Tony Lopez, center, and Jose Garcia guard the door to the Bell City Council chambers, where council members held an emergency meeting Thursday to consider the fate of three highly-paid top city officials.
See full story (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

10/17

Bell City Councilman Lorenzo Velez speaks to the media at the emergency meeting.
See full story (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

11/17

Bell resident Danny Harber reacts after he and other residents are told that a special City Council meeting on the controversy over high salaries paid to city officials will be closed to the public.
See full story (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

12/17

Bell City Atty. Ed Lee addresses the audience at the special meeting of the Bell City Council as City Clerk Rebecca Valdez watches.
See full story (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

13/17

Protesters gather at Bell City Hall to demand resignations of city officials whose salaries are among the highest in the nation. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

14/17

Police try to calm the crowd of protesters trying to get into the City Council meeting. The council ordered city staff to prepare a report on salaries for its July 26 meeting. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

15/17

Bell Police Chief Randy Adams, whose $457,000 salary is 50% higher than that of his Los Angeles counterpart, attended the council meeting Monday. City Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo, whose salary is also causing an outcry, did not attend. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

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As the City Council meeting got underway, people were collecting signatures demanding an audit of city finances. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

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A number of people waved signs that read “Stop the abuse on our taxes” and “Welcome to Bell, where the City Council makes more than you do. Also, we have nice parks.” One person had a sign showing Mayor Oscar Hernandez with devil horns. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

By Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives

Nov. 26, 2013 6:30 AM PT

Jurors weighing the fate of Bell’s second highest-ranking administrator are set to begin a third day of deliberations Tuesday in a case that marks a final chapter in a municipal corruption case in one of Los Angeles County’s poorest cities.

The jury will resume deliberations at 8 a.m., an hour earlier than usual, but will adjourn at 11 a.m. to accommodate a juror’s scheduling problems.

Angela Spaccia is being tried on 13 counts of felony corruption, including misappropriation of public funds. Prosecutors contend she and her boss, Robert Rizzo, raided the town’s treasury by giving themselves huge salaries and extraordinary retirements benefits, even as the city was starting to run out of money.

FULL COVERAGE: Corruption in Bell

Spaccia, though, told jurors that she was a victim of Rizzo’s scheming and that she never asked for the oversized paychecks.

“I just did what I was told and accepted it,” she testified

By the time she was forced out in 2010, Spaccia was earning $564,000 while Rizzo’s salary had swollen to more than $1 million.

Rizzo pleaded no contest to 69 felony corruption charges and is expected to be sentenced to 10-12 years in prison when he returns to court next year. Through his attorney, Rizzo offered to testify against Spaccia, but he was never called to the witness stand.

Spaccia claims that she wasn’t even in Bell when some of the wrongdoing took place – away from the office for 18 months to care for her ailing father and her son following a motorcycle accident, and then working as the interim city manager in neighboring Maywood.

Under questioning from prosecutors, Spaccia conceded that she continued to collect her full paycheck without losing a single day of vacation during the 18 months she was off, and even continued to accrue sick and vacation time as well.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Max Huntsman told jurors in closing arguments that Spaccia was a “liar” and a thief who positioned herself to “suck” money from the city.

Huntsman said that Spaccia’s effort to draw up a supplemental retirement fund that would have paid her $8 million over the course of her life was “perhaps the greediest” plan in the history of Los Angeles County.

Harland Braun, Spaccia’s lawyer, offered a contrasting view of his client as a victim – first of Rizzo, and then of then-Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who Braun said used the case as political ammunition in his run for state attorney general.

“This lady, maybe she had bad judgment sometimes, maybe she shouldn’t have taken the high salaries … how many of you if offered a salary would say, ‘I’m not worth it, I’ll take less’?” Braun asked.

“It’s certainly no crime to accept generosity,” he said.

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jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

ruben.vives@latimes.com