Ah, the life of a public official in Compton. Which, as far as I can tell, basically consists of petty corruption and fraud, including charging personal expenses to your City credit card as well as double-billing your travel expenses by obtaining cash advances for them and then, instead of paying for the expenses with the advance, charging these expenses to the City credit card.
At least that's what I gather from this opinion, in which Justice Flier (properly) upholds the convictions of the former mayor of Copton (Omar Bradley), a former city councilman (Amen Rahh), and the former city manager (John Johnson).
What's perhaps most amazing about this case is how little it took to corrupt these people. Each of these people stole something around $15,000 or so during their tenure as an elected official. Amazing.
I wonder if that's indicative of how easy it is to bribe public officials -- or at least officials like these -- as well. I figure that if you're willing to steal, you're willing to be bribed. I'd have never guessed that bribes could be in such small amounts and yet be effective. Who knew?!
