Political Corruption

Former state Sen. Alan Robbins was ordered Friday to serve five years in federal prison and pay $475,000 in fines and restitution--a sentence that climaxes a lengthy corruption probe of the San Fernando Valley Democrat. Robbins, who must report to prison by June 15, was contrite and somber at his sentencing, which followed his guilty plea last December to using his Senate office as a racketeering operation to extort money and to two felony counts of income tax evasion.

NEW DELHI - Sailor-suited Russian models touted their nation's submarines. Indian officers posed for pictures atop foreign-made armor-plated vehicles. And working the room at New Delhi's aging exhibition center were French, British and American arms merchants from global defense giants, elbowing each other aside in the search for a deal at Defexpo India 2012, the country's biggest-ever weapons trade show. Fueled by superpower ambitions and rivalry with China but hampered by a creaky domestic defense industry, India is on a military buying spree that's made it the belle-of-the-global-military ball.

The government sued deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos and members of his family Thursday for more than $22 billion, saying they plundered the treasury, betrayed the public trust and brazenly abused power. Marcos was driven out of the country he ruled for nearly two decades on Feb. 26, 1986, by a military-civilian uprising that elevated Corazon Aquino to the Philippine presidency. He and his wife, Imelda, now live in Hawaii.

The Obama administration vowed Thursday at a House committee meeting in Washington that it would not back down from its support of California's bullet train project despite attacks from critics who alleged it is tainted by political corruption. "We are not going to flinch on that support," said Joseph Szabo, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration. Szabo said that his agency had committed itself to provide $3.3 billion for a construction start next year in the Central Valley and that federal law prohibits any change of mind about where to begin building the first segment of the state's high-speed rail system.

The Aug. 30 article "For Good Press, Slip 'Em Pesos," showed the rampant corruption that pervades all parts of the Mexican government, as well as that nation's press. I hope you will do another report that compares the Mexican situation with ours, in which our elected politicians at the federal, state, county and city levels solicit payoffs from large businesses, labor unions, attorneys and their ilk in order to achieve reelection and then pay them off with favorable legislation, regulations, pork, appointments, access and whatever other means of payback are requested.

The list of corruption investigations in Israel in recent years reads like a Who's Who of the political elite. It includes every prime minister of the last 14 years, two previous presidents, two past Jerusalem mayors, numerous Cabinet ministers and one recently convicted felon who is still serving in the Knesset, or parliament. Ehud Olmert, the only former prime minister to be indicted, is accused of double-billing and is being investigated for allegedly accepting bribes in a real estate scandal.

Authorities launched a political corruption investigation Wednesday in Bell Gardens after officials expressed concern that public funds were being used for political purposes. Several council members and City Clerk Ronald Hart were questioned at City Hall by investigators from the district attorney's public integrity unit. Investigators also searched boxes of documents from the clerk's office that are being held by the Bell Gardens Police Department.

A mistrial was declared Friday in the corruption trial of political consultant Larry Remer after the jury announced it was deadlocked 10 to 2 for conviction. U.S. Atty. Carol Lam said the case would be retried. Remer is accused of six felony counts for allegedly conspiring with the former president of Southwestern College in Chula Vista to spend $5,890.47 of public money on a TV commercial favoring an $89-million bond issue for the college on the 2000 ballot.

The latest case of alleged political corruption in San Diego headed to a federal jury Wednesday after the lead prosecutor and defense attorney disagreed sharply about whether the case was even worthy of action by the United States attorney's office. The Duke Cunningham case it is not. The Cunningham case involved bribes of $2.4 million, tax evasion of $1 million, hundreds of millions of dollars in defense contracts and a prison sentence of eight years and four months for a veteran congressman.

Board of Equalization member Paul Carpenter pleaded not guilty Thursday to four counts of extortion, racketeering and conspiracy stemming from an undercover FBI investigation of corruption in the state Capitol. The former state senator from Norwalk, looking grim and tense, appeared briefly in federal court for arraignment on the charges. Asked how he would plead, Carpenter said in a clear voice, "Innocent on all counts."

Dy, a.k.a. "Dysprosium," a name taken from a rare chemical element and meant to suggest his elusive nature, glides across the underbelly of the edgy city. It's after midnight in Kabul, approaching a favored hour for would-be suicide bombers to enter the city while security forces sleep, so they can strike during the morning rush. Dy, however, is armed only with cans of spray paint, and his intentions are peaceful: to alter the drab contours of this embattled city. Identifying a wall, Dy pulls the paint cans out of his bag and works quickly, writing slogans and crafting images that rail against corruption, repression and the malign influence of drug money.

In telling the story of Deborah Peagler, a battered woman who spent 26 years in prison, filmmaker Yoav Potash has not dug up an obscure case of injustice. Thanks in part to his years-in-the-making documentary, the California inmate's struggles were well documented in the news media, and the legal crusade to overturn her first-degree murder conviction received ardent support. "Crime After Crime" brings nothing particularly cinematic to that story — one of horrendous personal abuse, prosecutorial misconduct and seesawing hope and despair.

The list of corruption investigations in Israel in recent years reads like a Who's Who of the political elite. It includes every prime minister of the last 14 years, two previous presidents, two past Jerusalem mayors, numerous Cabinet ministers and one recently convicted felon who is still serving in the Knesset, or parliament. Ehud Olmert, the only former prime minister to be indicted, is accused of double-billing and is being investigated for allegedly accepting bribes in a real estate scandal.

Eight current and former Bell city leaders were arrested Tuesday on charges of misappropriating more than $5.5 million from the small, working-class community as prosecutors accused them of treating the city's coffers as their personal piggy bank. The charges follow months of nationwide outrage and renewed debate over public employee compensation since The Times reported in July that the city's leaders were among the nation's highest paid municipal officials. Among those charged was former City Manager Robert Rizzo, who led the way with an annual salary and benefits package of more than $1.5 million.

The arrests of most of Bell's elected leaders Tuesday brought cheers and dancing in the streets in the small, working-class city, but added to the already deep uncertainty about its future. With four of Bell's five City Council members facing corruption charges, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to push for a court order to seize authority from them and turn day-to-day management over to an appointed receiver. Run for nearly two decades under the tight control of City Administrator Robert Rizzo, who was among those charged Tuesday, Bell now faces a possible recall election and an effort by state Atty.

Kenyans weary from decades of misrule have approved a new constitution designed to curb presidential powers and allow the removal of corrupt or incompetent politicians, according to final results released Thursday. After years of waiting for change, voters discarded the constitution in place since Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963, a document blamed for many of the nation's ills, such as cronyism and tribal favoritism in politics and the bureaucracy. The new constitution curbs the sweeping powers of the president by devolving power to the regions and establishing a bicameral parliament.

POLITICAL THEATER: It's the best show in Sacramento this week--with the Legislature in recess, that is--and it's playing out in federal court just a few short blocks from the steps of the now-quiet Capitol. There, in U.S. District Judge Edward J. Garcia's courtroom, the high drama of the political corruption case against lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson and former state Sen. Paul B.

They flooded Bell City Hall with requests for public records and packed a council meeting with an overflow crowd. They collected signatures demanding an audit of city officials' salaries and vowed to boot their handsomely paid politicians out of office. They even created a website and posted documents that the city refused to put on its official site. In the week since residents in this working-class suburb discovered that their city manager makes nearly $800,000 a year, Bell has experienced a sudden jolt of civic engagement.

President Obama flew to Afghanistan's capital Sunday evening and offered a tough message to President Hamid Karzai, urging that stronger action be taken to crack down on government corruption and to build respect for the rule of law. Later in his six-hour unannounced visit, his first to the war-battered country since becoming president, Obama received a rousing welcome from American troops at the sprawling Bagram air base outside Kabul. As midnight approached, camouflage-clad service members whooped and snapped pictures of the president, who dispensed hugs and handshakes before taking to the podium.