The Los Angeles City Council, long derided as a symbol of big-city dysfunction, is once again engulfed in scandal as veteran Ninth District Councilman Curren Price is ordered to stand trial on a sweeping array of corruption charges.
According to RedState, Price, who has represented parts of South Los Angeles and downtown for decades, now faces 12 felony counts, including five charges of embezzlement of public funds, four counts of conflict of interest, and three counts of perjury. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has rejected his latest attempt to escape accountability, ensuring that the case will proceed despite the councilmans efforts to have it thrown out.
A Los Angeles city councilmember accused of embezzling public funds and other corruption offenses has again been ordered to stand trial after a judge rejected his latest attempt to have the case dismissed. That stark assessment, echoed in court filings and media reports, underscores how deeply the allegations cut into the heart of public trust in a city already battered by homelessness, crime, and mismanagement.
Judge Larry Paul Fidler of the Los Angeles County Superior Court refused Prices motion to set aside the case, ruling that prosecutors had presented ample evidence at a preliminary hearing to justify a finding of probable cause. The judges decision means that the veteran Democrat will now have to answer in open court for the accusations that he abused his office and misused taxpayer funds.
This is hardly Prices first brush with scandal. Since at least 2017, his political career has been shadowed by allegations ranging from bigamy to questionable pay-to-play real estate dealings and, ultimately, embezzlement.
The current criminal case traces back to a 2023 indictment brought by thenLos Angeles County District Attorney George Gascn, a progressive prosecutor whose soft-on-crime record was so controversial that voters removed him from office in 2024. That Price was charged at all under Gascns watch is notable, given the former DAs reluctance to aggressively pursue public corruption cases that might upset the citys entrenched political class.
The charges are linked to a 2017 complaint that was effectively ignored by former Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey. In that matter, Price allegedly used his influence on the powerful Planning & Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee to push for the demolition of rent-controlled housing owned by clients of his wife, a textbook example of conflict of interest in public office.
Former D.A. Jackie Lacey claimed in 2017 to be reviewing a complaint about Price, but she did nothing to stop him from voting to demolish the rent controlled buildings owned by his wifes clients. The consequences of that inaction were not abstract; Angelenos have been made homeless by these votes, and we are sure that some have died on the streets.
Handsome and useful buildings have been or soon will be destroyed, contributing to the manufactured homelessness crisis that is sucking up all civic resources and making public space unusable by those housed or unhoused. That description captures the bitter irony of Los Angeles politics: officials who claim to champion the poor often back policies that worsen homelessness while their allies profit.
In 2024, the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission added to Prices troubles by charging him with 21 violations of council ethics laws. Now, in 2025, he is being forced to confront the more serious criminal charges that could ultimately end his political career and, if proven, send him to prison.
Yet despite the gravity of the accusations, Price remains firmly embedded in the machinery of city government. He continues to participate in council business and, astonishingly, still serves as Chair of the Public Safety Committee, a role that gives him influence over law-enforcement and crime-related policy in a city struggling to restore order.
Are you kidding me?! That exasperated reaction reflects not only the frustration of taxpayers but also the broader malaise of a political culture that treats corruption as a routine cost of doing business rather than a betrayal of public trust.
This spectacle sends a demoralizing message to residents who have watched scandal after scandal unfold with little apparent consequence. Many Angelenos have grown numb, assumingoften with good reasonthat nothing meaningful will change unless and until a conviction is secured, and sometimes not even then.
Curren Price is charged with: 12 felony public corruption counts (5 counts of embezzlement of public funds; 3 counts of perjury; 4 counts of conflict of interest). As one summary put it, The People presented evidence to a judge at a public preliminary hearing - held to answer. Second judge - upheld the case, underscoring that multiple judicial officers have now found sufficient grounds for the prosecution to move forward.
To be sure, accountability is not entirely absent from Los Angeles politics. In recent years, several high-profile councilmembers have been convicted and sentenced, offering at least some evidence that the justice system can still function when it is allowed to do its job.
In 2021, Republican Councilman Mitch Englander pleaded guilty to bribery and fraud and is now serving time in federal prison. In 2023, Democrat Councilman Jose Huizar admitted to racketeering, tax evasion, and abuse of office, and he too is behind bars.
That same year, longtime Democrat power broker Mark Ridley-Thomaswho previously wielded considerable influence on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisorswas convicted of bribery, conspiracy, and abuse of office after returning to city government. Ridley-Thomas was convicted in 2023 in downtown Los Angeles on federal counts of conspiracy, bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, and honest services mail and wire fraud.
He was subsequently sentenced to three years and six months in federal prison, but the judge granted the longtime politicians bid for bail pending appeal. In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld his conviction, clearing the way for him to join his buddies Huizar and Englander in the pokey to serve out his sentence.
Still, these victories for the rule of law have come slowly and sporadically, often years after the damage to public finances and civic life has been done. As the biblical book of Ecclesiastes warns, When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, peoples hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong.
From a conservative perspective, the Price saga and the broader pattern of corruption in Los Angeles highlight the dangers of one-party rule, weak enforcement, and a political culture that treats taxpayer money as a slush fund for insiders. These indictments and convictions need to be executed much more quickly, become broader, and have further reach, particularly when so many of the same names and networks recur across multiple scandals.
Former corrupt Councilman and former Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti had his hands in many of these pies; yet, after he engineered the destruction of Los Angeles and allegedly covered up the sexual assault of one of his staff members, Garcetti got a two-year vacation to India thanks to a President Joe Biden ambassadorship. Now, Garcetti has come back to Los Angeles and is peddling his wares as an adviser to an AI company, a reminder that in elite liberal circles, failure and scandal are rarely career-ending.
So, this drip, drip, drip tends to make minimal impact, especially when Price and his ilk still hold their seats of power and still control the run of a once-vibrant city. Until Los Angeles voters demand real reformstronger ethics enforcement, faster prosecutions, and genuine political competitionthe city will remain vulnerable to the same cycle of scandal, denial, and delayed justice that has now ensnared Curren Price.
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