The previous dean of the USC Faculty of Social Work has agreed to plead responsible to a federal bribery cost in a political corruption case involving suspended Los Angeles Metropolis Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, prosecutors introduced Thursday, Sept. 15.
Marilyn Louise Flynn, 83, is anticipated to plead responsible within the coming weeks to the bribery cost and pay a effective of at the least $100,000, in alternate for prosecutors recommending that she serve an anticipated 10-year jail time period by means of house confinement, in accordance with the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace.
Ridley-Thomas was indicted final October by a federal grand jury for allegedly participating in a bribery and fraud scheme throughout his earlier publish as an L.A. County Supervisor. In accordance with prosecutors, the bribery and fraud have been undertaken to safe his son a paid professorship at USC. He was suspended by the Metropolis Council in October of 2021.
His vacant Metropolis Council seat was later stuffed by former councilman Herb Wesson, who in August resigned from his place as a short lived alternative for the indicted Ridley-Thomas after a choose barred Wesson from performing council duties at Metropolis Corridor.
The Ridley-Thomas indictment says that Ridley-Thomas knew that his son, then-Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, confronted sexual harassment accusations and may need to resign from the State Meeting. A federal grand jury indictment mentioned Mark Ridley-Thomas sought a touchdown pad for his son in alternate for county contracts that benefitted USC.
The senior Ridley-Thomas launched the alleged scheme with then-USC Dean of the Faculty of Social Work Flynn, who was named within the indictment. The varsity had demoted her, and he or she resigned in September of 2018.
In accordance with the federal grand jury, Flynn, as dean of the Faculty of Social Work, labored in 2017 and 2018 to offer Ridley-Thomas’s son a graduate scholarship and paid professorship on the Faculty of Social Work.
On October 13, 2021, the Division of Justice in a press launch mentioned the indictment discovered that on December 14, 2017, “About an hour after Ridley-Thomas emailed Flynn saying the high-ranking official was ‘able to go,’ Flynn expedited the relative’s enrollment on the college, instructing that the admission needs to be given the ‘highest precedence.”
Ridley-Thomas was set to go trial on Nov. 15.