Tuesday, September 29, 2026
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Ridley-Thomas’s Conduct in Conformity With California Law, Proposed Amicus Brief Says
Ex-Senator Bradford Urges Ninth Circuit En Banc Rehearing on Conviction of Ex-Supervisor on Corruption Charges
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose conviction of bribery was affirmed by a three-judge panel and is seeking a rehearing by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, has drawn support from a former state senator who is seeking leave to file an amicus brief that questions the propriety of punishing a California public official for conduct that is, he contends, permissible under state law.
The request came on Friday from Steven Bradford, who represented southern areas of Los Angeles County in the state Senate from 2016-24, and served as a member of the Assembly in 2009-14. Acting as his lawyer was Louis R. “Skip” Miller of Miller Barondess LLP in Century City, whose celebrity clients have included Elton John, Bob Dylan, Sean Connery, Motley Crue, Nick Nolte, and Lionel Richie.
Ridley-Thomas was a member of the Board of Supervisors from 2008-20. In 2018, he transferred $100,000 from his political fund to the University of Southern California’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work; USC then made a $100,000 donation to United Ways of California’s Policy Research & Practice Initiative, a think headed by the supervisor’s son, former Assembly member Sebastian Ridley-Thomas.
The proposed amicus curiae brief points out:
“The Government never disputed that the donation was publicly-disclosed and wholly legal under state law.”
Convicted of Felonies
Ridley-Thomas, who was elected to the Los Angeles City Council for a term that began in 2020 but was ejected from the post in 2022 in light of pending criminal charges, was convicted on March 30, 2023, of one count of bribery and six related felonies.
A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel—comprised of Judges Johnnie B. Rawlinson, Morgan B. Christen, and Anthony D. Johnstone—on Aug. 3 said, in affirming the convictions and a three-and-a-half year prison sentence:
“Although admittedly not the usual bribery scheme involving the transfer of money to a public official, the transfer of $100,000 from Ridley-Thomas to USC to United Ways for Sebastian’s benefit constitutes a ‘thing of value’ under our precedent. The Government’s evidence established that Ridley-Thomas subjectively valued the ability to transfer $100,000 from his campaign fund to United Ways, specifically to a program that would benefit Sebastian by providing him with employment after he resigned from the legislature. The evidence showed that Ridley-Thomas was aware of the ethics inquiry that coincided with Sebastian’s resignation, and that he valued the ability to indirectly transfer funds for Sebastian’s benefit, swiftly, while concealing the source of the funds.”
Ex-Senator’s Expertise
Miller said of Bradford’s interest in the matter:
“Senator Bradford has a deep working knowledge of California’s Political Reform Act (‘PRA’) and can speak directly to the consequences of the panel’s decision. The panel affirmed a conviction resting on an unprecedented and unduly broad conception of federal bribery and honest-services fraud, which treats conduct permitted under California law as a federal felony. That overreach intrudes on state sovereignty and deprives elected officials of their due process right of fair notice to know what the law demands of them.”
The proposed brief argues:
“The PRA sanctions, and even encourages, the type of civic donation at issue. California places few restrictions on expenditures from officeholder-controlled ballot measure committees and charitable donations of campaign funds. Civic donations to bona fide charitable, educational, civic, religious, or similar tax-exempt organizations need only bear a reasonable relation to a broadly defined political, legislative, or governmental purpose and lack a material financial effect on the official or the official’s ‘immediate family’ (a defined term that specifically excludes adult children).”
It goes on to say:
“The $100,000 donation put no dollar in Ridley-Thomas’s pocket or the pocket of a qualifying immediate family member. It was not a gift because the PRA’s gift rules require a personal benefit, not a reputational one….Reputational benefits also do not create the concrete, material financial interest required by the PRA’s conflict-of-interest rules….The panel’s decision thus criminalizes under federal law what California law affirmatively permits.”
Consequence of Decision
Bradford’s brief comments:
“The panel’s rule will not remain confined to Ridley-Thomas. If officials must constantly ask whether a federal prosecutor may later characterize a reputational or psychic benefit from a lawful donation as a quid for some pedestrian, pre-determined official action, many will simply abstain from otherwise charitable conduct or conduct otherwise beneficial to their communities. Nonprofit organizations will lose access to public officials. Communities will lose funding for civic programs.
“And officials will perform their duties under a cloud of retrospective criminal risk rather than under the clear rules that due process demands.
“That is why this case presents a question of exceptional importance. The issue is not limited to one donation or one official.
“It concerns whether a three-judge panel may transform a state-lawful civic transaction into federal public corruption by treating the defendant’s subjective desire for intermediation as the quid. This question—which implicates every elected official in the Ninth Circuit and contradicts Supreme Court and other circuits’ precedent—should not be resolved without full-court review.”
The case is United States v. Ridley-Thomas, 23-2200.
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