Corruption

Federal agents searched the homes of Moreno Valley's mayor and City Council members and the offices of a major warehouse developer Tuesday as part of a broad public corruption investigation in a Riverside County town already singed by scandal. Agents with the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and local prosecutors served search warrants at the homes of Mayor Tom Owings and the four other council members and at the corporate offices of Highland Fairview, the company that has proposed a 41-million-square-foot warehouse center on the city's eastside.

In a time when the whetted and arbitrary deficit-reduction knife is cutting bone out of critical U.S. government programs, the image of shopping bags stuffed with CIA cash handed off on a monthly basis to Afghan President Hamid Karzai - who reigns over one of the most corrupt governments on the planet - has outraged many Americans. The New York Times, which revealed the years of payoffs this week, noted that "there is little evidence the payments bought the influence the CIA sought.

The Bell corruption case is now focusing on Robert Rizzo, who prosecutors allege was the mastermind of public graft that generated national attention. A trial ended this week for six former Bell council members tried for misappropriating public funds. During three agonizing weeks of deliberations, the jury struggled to determine whether the council members' salaries - which approached $100,000 a year - violated state law. The jury found five council members guilty of some charges and not guilty on some others, and they acquitted one councilman outright.

Federal agents searched the homes of Moreno Valley's mayor and City Council members and the offices of a major warehouse developer Tuesday as part of a broad public corruption investigation in a Riverside County town already singed by scandal. Agents with the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and local prosecutors served search warrants at the homes of Mayor Tom Owings and the four other council members and at the corporate offices of Highland Fairview, the company that has proposed a 41-million-square-foot warehouse center on the city's eastside.

BEIJING - Zhu Ruifeng fancies himself a Chinese version of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a citizen journalist who is plying his trade online. In 2006, he started the People's Supervision website, which breaks stories about official corruption in China. He has had a couple of scoops - one about the widespread use of expired vaccines and others about crooked party apparatchiks - but nothing that's gotten the reaction of a sexually explicit 36-second video released last week. The video shows a paunchy Communist Party official in flagrante delicto with an 18-year-old woman in Chongqing.

What makes some state capitals so much more corrupt than others? New research provides a partial answer to that long-standing question: isolated capitals breed more corruption and lack of news coverage is a major reason why.   State capitals have long been known for corrupt practices. While every state has its roster of legendary local miscreants, some have a much more consistent record of corruption than others. Researchers have studied that variation for years, looking for factors that might explain the patterns.

In the year since the Arab Spring, attention has been riveted on one issue above all others: the place of religious practice in public life. In Tunisia, where the movement began, full-face and body veils, now often worn complete with gloves, are increasingly visible on the streets - an exotic sight for locals and foreigners alike. And the secular opposition seems increasingly strident in its conviction that the Islamist government is driving the country the way of Iran. But it wasn't religion that set off the Jasmine Revolution; it was acute economic injustice and the pervasive and structured corruption that helped produce it. The fate of Tunisia, and its neighbors, may depend most on whether that lingering problem is addressed.

On the 18th day of deliberation, the jurors in the Bell corruption trial said today they have reached a verdict in the case against six former council members accused of misappropriating public funds. More soon.

Among names of note to pop up on sales that have finally slowpoked their way into the public record is Todd DeStefano, who has sold his Pasadena house for $1.92 million. The former L.A. Coliseum events manager is charged with receiving more than $2 million in illegal payments for helping to stage raves at Coliseum properties and keeping the costs down, according to Times reports. Listed at $2.05 million in September, the two-story contemporary contains three fireplaces, five bedrooms and seven bathrooms in its 5,585 square feet of living space.

Two of President Dilma Rousseff's ministers have resigned recently amid accusations of corruption, complicating her efforts to run Latin America's largest country after taking over from Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in January. Transport Minister Alfredo Nascimento resigned late Wednesday after accusations that officers in his ministry had acted inappropriately, including accepting bribes in awarding government contracts. Last month, Antonio Palocci, Rousseff's chief of staff and most senior minister, resigned after news reports said his personal wealth had risen sharply during his time as a congressman and did not seem to match his apparent sources of income.

NEW DELHI - A clothing factory in an emerging country collapses or catches fire with horrific loss of life. Famous Western brands are found in the wreckage. An investigation reveals substandard practices in the local and global clothing trade. There was a distinct feeling of deja vu Thursday as rescuers worked desperately through the night at the site of a collapsed building in Bangladesh, crafting makeshift escape chutes from bolts of fabric. The hand-wringing, finger-pointing and promises of reform started hours after the nine-story Rana Plaza building pancaked Wednesday morning just outside the nation's capital, Dhaka, killing at least 238 people, most of them apparel workers, and injuring more than 1,000.

Final results from Compton's primary election released Thursday showed longtime Mayor Eric Perrodin ousted and political newcomer Aja Brown headed for a runoff with former Mayor Omar Bradley, who is facing a corruption trial. Incumbent Perrodin, the city's longest-serving mayor, trailed in third place. A deputy district attorney and former Compton police officer, Perrodin ran on a reform platform in the 2001 election in which he defeated Bradley. Perrodin got praise for bringing businesses such as Starbucks and Home Depot to the city, but he came under fire over city contracts that went to friends and family members, absenteeism from meetings and, most recently, a $40-million budget deficit.

The corruption investigation into the Los Angeles County assessor's office broadened Tuesday with prosecutors filing dozens of new charges against embattled Assessor John Noguez, one of his former top aides and a tax consultant. The three were originally arrested in October in an alleged scheme to trade bribes for lower property tax bills, costing the county $1.16 million in revenue. The new charges filed Tuesday bring the alleged loss to $9.8 million, prosecutors said. Noguez is Los Angeles County's elected assessor, responsible for determining the taxable value of more than 2.3 million pieces of real estate.

One of the most intriguing things about the new crime drama "Pawn" is Michael Chiklis' British accent. It's not that it's particularly bad or good, but every time he speaks - which is a lot - it does make you wonder why ? The movie is a bit like that accent and joins the pantheon of mildly entertaining thrillers having a go at the domino logic we've seen so often in these movies, starting with that classic flaw in the criminal mind that makes two-bit thugs think they can outsmart compromised cops.

A federal appeals court Monday reduced a former South Gate official's corruption convictions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out former Treasurer Albert T. Robles' convictions for public corruption and money laundering but let stand five counts of bribery. Robles, who was accused of plundering the small, working-class city, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2006 for illegal conduct involving city contracts. The 9th Circuit ruling could trigger a reduction of his sentence, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or even possibly a retrial.

MEXICO CITY - Operation Cleanup was a showcase effort to stamp out corruption within Mexico's elite organized-crime bureau. Twenty-five top law-enforcement officials were arrested in the weeks after the operation was launched in 2008, most accused of acting as highly paid moles for a leading drug cartel, the very villains the officials were supposed to be chasing. Today, the cases against them are a shambles, yet another example of Mexico's systemic corruption and a weak judiciary unable to fix it. The operation is also the most high-profile prosecution among the many that fell apart under the government of President Felipe Calderon, which ended nearly five months ago. This week, a federal judge freed the highest-ranking of those ensnared by Operation Cleanup.

MOSCOW - More than 200 years ago, the renowned Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin summed up the situation in his country in two words: "They steal. " They still do, and the news in Russia lately has been dominated by one high-profile corruption scandal after another. Allegations of wrongdoing have reached high into the defense and agriculture ministries and the Russian space program, among other institutions. Nearly nine in 10 Russians say corruption is the nation's biggest problem.

Re "U.S. oil agency scandal unfolds," Sept. 11 Does the corruption ever end in this administration? How can we ever have an energy policy if the officials in charge are literally in bed with the oil industry? Sheila M. Pickwell La Jolla

A federal appeals court Monday reduced a former South Gate official's corruption convictions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9 th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out former Treasurer Albert T. Robles' convictions for  public corruption and money laundering but let stand five counts of bribery. Robles, who was accused of plundering the small, working-class city of South Gate, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2006 for illegal conduct involving city contracts. The 9 th Circuit ruling could trigger a reduction of his sentence, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or even possibly a retrial.

As Gov. Jerry Brown seeks to build California's own high-speed rail system, he's pointed to the example set by China, where 5,000 miles of track have been laid in recent years. During his visit there this week, he will ride one of those bullet trains from Beijing to Shanghai. But one day before Brown steps aboard, an embarrassing episode involving the railroad is being shoved back into the spotlight in China. The man who led construction of the country's high-speed rail system is facing corruption charges, the Associated Press reported.