LOS ANGELES—A longtime lobbyist and former City Hall official was sentenced Monday to six months’ home detention for conspiring with now-imprisoned ex-Councilmember José Huizar in a bribery scheme. Morrie Goldman was also ordered to pay a $60,000 fine and serve three years of federal probation, according to the U.S.
Attorney’s Office. Goldman pleaded guilty in September 2020 to a felony count of conspiring to commit bribery and honest services mail fraud in the government’s investigation of corruption at City Hall. Although the charge carries possible sentence of up to five years behind bars, Goldman received the non-custodial sentence as a result of his cooperation in the investigation, court papers show.
Goldman was a lobbyist for a company which had a pending development project in the city’s Arts District. He was one of several people who established two political action committees, one of which purportedly supported a variety of causes but actually was created to primarily benefit the City Council campaign of Huizar’s wife, who was planning to run for her husband’s council seat, according to federal prosecutors. If elected, the unnamed relative would have helped Huizar and his associates “maintain a political stronghold in the city,” court documents state.
Goldman’s attorney, Steve Meister, said at the time of the guilty plea that his client “allowed himself to become part of the orbit of a very corrupt man.” “By cooperating with the governmen.