'The Bell Eight' by Ted Soqui for LA Weekly

Updated at the bottom: The judge declared a mistrial on remaining counts. First posted at 12:14 p.m. Wednesday.

The jury in the corruption trial of six ex-city leaders of Bell found former Mayor Oscar Hernandez and ex-council members Teresa Jacobo, George Mirabal, Victor Bello, and George Cole guilty of misappropriation of public funds today. Former Councilman Luis Artiga was found not guilty on all counts.

The six were accused of padding their salaries, which amounted to six figures, by taking payment for sitting on do-nothing city boards:

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Steve Cooley presents the 2008 Peace Officers Association of L.A. County "President's Award" to Bell P.D. Chief Randy Adams

​The case of corruption in the city of Bell is that rare story in journalism that actually ends like an episode of "Law & Order."

The bad guys wound up in handcuffs, justice prevailed and ... wait a sec. What ever happened to Randy Adams?

Bell's former police chief earned an astonishing $457,000 a year, and seems to have gone to some trouble to conceal that fact. (Of course, that made him only the second-highest paid person in the city, behind this guy.) Plus, there was his pre-approved disability pension. So: surely he's been locked up by now?

Turns out, no. And as the L.A. Times reports, even the judge in the case is wondering why.

Could it have anything to do with the fact that Adams ran in the same law enforcement circles as D.A. Steve Cooley?

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Beverly Hills City Manager Jeff Kolin feels bad for Bell.

Cities don't come more opposite than Bell and Beverly Hills.

The former is 90 percent Latino, with an average household income of $30,000 per year. Its city government is drowning in an impossible pile of debt, and residents are still feeling the hurt of corrupt policing and fines after barely surviving one of California's biggest public-salary scandal ever.

Beverly Hills, on the other hand, is world-famous for its stability:

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Oh, the memories at 1935 Lake Street.

Unsurprisingly, Robert Rizzo, the slimy Bell politician who was (allegedly; LOL) paying himself $800,000 per year with a $1 million pension, didn't think it wise to live among his duped constituents. So he settled for a $1.13 million mansion in Huntington Beach circa June 2007 -- no doubt comped by taxpayers -- where he could float his lardy ratlike corpse in a lavish granite tub and scheme up some more evils on the backs of the citizens. Muahaha...

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Victor Bello, Bell's accidental hero

​The L.A. Times is celebrating its well deserved Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the scandal in the City of Bell.

But amid the accolades, it's worth taking a moment to recognize someone without whom the scandal would not have been uncovered: the courageous and (allegedly) corrupt councilman, Victor Bello.

As California Watch detailed last fall, it was Bello's letters to the District Attorney's office in 2009 that sparked the investigation. Long before the scandal broke into public view, Bello wrote that the city had been "victimized by mismanagement, illegal activity and corruption."

And it was a tip from the D.A.'s office that led the Times to break the Bell story. No Bello, no Bell scandal. And probably, no Pulitzer. The biggest irony of all is that so far no one has served more time in jail for the Bell scandal than Victor Bello.

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Ali Saleh.

We told you he was going for the gig, and he got it.

On Monday night Bell's new City Council elected Ali Saleh as mayor.

In a town that's overwhelmingly Latino, with allegations of corruption levied at former officials who were white and Latino, the newcomers installed a real outsider.

Well, actually ...

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Ted Soqui

A new day for Bell?

After nearly a year of political upheaval and scandal, the little urban city of Bell will see a whole new City Council take charge this week.

The "installation" of city's new council happens at 7 p.m. tonight at the Bell Community Center, 6250 Pine Ave. Yes, you're invited.

That's because ...

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Justice For Bell / Facebook

Miguel Alejandro Sanchez.

A new wave of reform for the scandalized city of Bell took a tragic turn over the weekend when a well-liked City Council candidate, Miguel Alejandro Sanchez, died.

His brother says it might have been the Swine Flu that killed him. Sanchez was hospitalized Friday morning and dead by the afternoon.

On Sunday night supporters held a vigil for the 34-year-old. The city will elect new council members Tuesday.

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Ted Soqui

R to the Izzo.

Robert Rizzo, the rotund figure at the center of the Bell salary scandal, was supposed to be in court Wednesday for a hearing on misappropriation of public funds charges against him.

Instead, he ended up in an ambulance.

The defendant, who reportedly made as much as $1.5 million in salary and other compensation as the small, Latino municipality's city manager, apparently complained of chest pains.

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Porky the City Administrator

We found out long ago that Bell's Big Eight -- the shameless crew of elected officials who smuggled millions from a small town on the southeast edge of L.A. County -- were fat pigs, but it's a new kind of satisfaction to hear it straight from their own scuzzy snouts in a sterile Los Angeles Superior Courtroom.

Well, from the mouths of prosecutors reading from slimy city e-mails, but still. Today's quotes from the trial are some of the best yet, with the possible exception of...

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​In the wake of the Bell scandal, where the city was paying $1.6 million a year to three city employees, the California Controller decided to make every county, city and special district in the state fork over the salary information for each specific job.

That'll keep 'em honest, was the thought.

But so far, according to a list if deadbeats that the Controller put out, nearly 20 percent of the 900 agencies have not complied and could face up to a $5,000 fine.

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Smoking problem? Or transparency problem?

Hooray, L.A. City Council! Your ceaseless attempts to ban smoking in every last nook of Los Angeles have finally paid off. You got a 'C' on the American Lung Association's "State of Tobacco Control" report card for 2010, and we couldn't be more proud. (No, really, a 'C' is the best anybody got. So congrats.)

However, being the eternal pessimists we are, something else way more hilarious caught our eye while perusing the exhaustive 82-page document this afternoon.

Bell and Cudahy...

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Western Firearms, Inc

Western Firearms in the City of Bell

Updated after the jump: The Western Firearms location has key links to big players in the Bell salary scandal. How much more bad press could this small town attract?

Update, 9:22 a.m.: Exclusive "I had no idea" commentary from store owner Aurelio Lopez. Originally posted at 8:50 a.m.

Former city manager and master embezzler Robert Rizzo isn't the only slimeball of a news scandal to come out of the City of Bell in 2010.

This morning, an intensive Washington Post report on U.S. gun shops that have sold the most weapons recovered by police is hitting the nation like a deadly truth bomb. There's also a list for guns found exclusively in Mexico -- and that's where one infamous little L.A. County town comes in.

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Jason Redmond/AP

Off with their heads.

The surviving Bell City Council members are gluttons for punishment. The trio voted to hold a recall election in March that would weigh whether two of them get get to keep their jobs. They also slapped themselves in the face, Three Stooges style. (That last one is a joke).

But seriously, Mayor Oscar Hernandez and Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo endured jeers and a crowd so rowdy that it was cleared from council chambers by police Monday night. Councilman Lorenzo Velez, the one who was paid peanuts and never got caught up in the city's salary scandal, seemed safe from both spit wads and the recall.

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R-to-the-izzo seemed to live like a rap star.

They call it the sport of kings. And who could blame a man who reportedly pulled in $1.5 million in a recent year for partaking?

Of course, if that man was Robert Rizzo, the disgraced former city manager of Bell, then, yeah, there might be some blame going around, especially if he was using any allegedly misappropriated fundage to have fun at the horse-racing track.

And so, with all that background comes news that the "board of stewards" at Inglewood's Hollywood Park suspected his horse-racing owner's license.

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Victor Bello wrote a letter warning of alleged corruption in Bell.

Disgraced Bell City Councilman Victor Bello sent a letter to investigators last May warning that officials there were involved in bribery, voter fraud and "unethical retirement arrangements," according to California Watch.

Why is this coming to light now? Maybe because Bello was subsequently arrested as part of the District Attorney's case against city officials for alleged misappropriation of public funds.

Bellow's attorney wants it known that his client, at least on paper, tried to do the right thing -- and that the D.A.'s office eventually ignored him.

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In the most highly anticipated jail release since Lindsay Lohan walked out of a Lynwood lockup for women, former Bell city manager Robert Rizzo, who some say was the most egregious earner in that city's salary scandal, waddled out of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility downtown early Thursday morning.

Rizzo had been behind bars since Sept. 21, when he was arrested on suspicion of 53 felony counts of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest. He reportedly took home $1.5 million in earnings in the last year or so.

A judge wouldn't let him post bail until he could prove that he would do so without dipping into allegedly pilfered earnings.

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Oh, my back! That's Adams on the right, with D.A. Steve Cooley, looking like a small town Rotarian, on the left.

The L.A. Times reports that former Bell police chief Randy Adams, who quit in July when it was revealed he was making nearly $500,000 per year, is quite the physical fitness buff, despite claiming a disability.

The whole story raises more questions about why L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who is running for Attorney General as a Republican, didn't bag Adams with the rest of the Bell Eight, the public officials arrested last month in the Bell salary scandal.

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In the wake of the Bell salary scandal, we let you know about the Los Angeles County government's top-five earners -- including a sheriff's "commander" who was number one with $440,915.61 in take-home last year -- in a report earlier this month.

Now we're going to roll out a list of the top 25 earners at the county, including number six, William T. Fujioka, the county CEO who took home $403,140.60 in 2009. That's President Obama money.

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The Los Angeles Times on Monday lamented the county's foot-dragging in handing over the names and salaries of its top-paid employees. The paper question's the county's legal defense for withholding the information from public view.

In the wake of the Bell salary scandal, in which a few city officials were found to have been making President Obama-level (and beyond) money, the paper wants to know who makes how much at the county government.

Well, we at LA Weekly know the answer, and we told it to you earlier this month:

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