Page 1
Appeals Court Affirms $4 Million Judgment Against Convicted Ex-Politico Albert Robles
Money Is Owed City of South Gate on Its Cross Complaint; Robles Had Served as Mayor, Treasurer, in Other Posts
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district has upheld a judgment for more than $4 million obtained by the City of South Gate against Albert T. Robles who served at various points as its mayor, City Council member, treasurer, and deputy city manager, had pocketed city funds, and wound up sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for corruption, bribery, and money laundering.
On Thursday, the civil judgment withstood challenges on various bases put forth by Robles, a non-lawyer, acting in pro per. His contentions “all lack merit,” Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt of Div. Two said in an unpublished opinion.
It was in 2001 that Robles was elected as South Gate’s treasurer and in 2002, his allies in the City Council appointed him to a $130,000-a-year post as deputy city manager, while he was still serving as treasurer. On Jan. 28, 2003, Robles was recalled by voters (as were the mayor and vice mayor, who were members of the City Council, and a third councilmember).
The newly constituted City Council placed him on administrative leave in February, and on June 10, 2003, voted to fire Robles as deputy city manager, acting on a report detailing misdeeds. It was known at that point that he was under investigation by federal authorities.
Robles sued South Gate on June 10, 2005, for wrongful termination.
Then-Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Raul A. Sahagun (now retired) on Aug. 22, 2007. granted summary judgment in favor of the city. That decision was not in issue in the appeal decided Thursday.
The city cross-complained against Robles on Jan. 12, 2006. Its causes of action included breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, breach of his employment agreement, and statutory violations.
On Nov. 3, 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Olivia Rosales ordered entry of summary judgment in favor of South Gate, and on Oct. 25, 2022, she signed a final judgment providing:
“City of South Gate shall have and recover the principal sum of $1,704,268.84 in damages and the sum of $2,845,877.40 in prejudgment interest against Albert T. Robles, for a total judgment in favor of City of South Gate and against Albert T. Robles in the amount of $4,550,146.24 on the causes of action in the Cross-Complaint….”
Explaining the long delay in the proceedings, Hoffstadt noted:
“Due to the pendency of Robles’s criminal case and sentence, during which time discovery was largely stymied due to Robles’s ability to invoke his right against self-incrimination, the City’s cross-complaint remained in abeyance for many years.”
Although summary judgment had been granted in favor of South Gate, Robles challenged, on appeal, Rosales’s ruling as to four of the causes of action: breach of fiduciary duty, breach of Labor Code section 2860 (prohibiting employees from retaining anything by virtue of their employment except wages) fraud, and breach of the employment agreement. Hoffstadt consequently treated the appeal as one from individual summary adjudication rulings.
Kickback Scheme
He said the four causes of action in issue “all rest on Robles’s years-long scheme to circuitously extract kickbacks from contractors in exchange for using his influence to have the City award those contractors contracts with the City.”
Hoffstadt recited that South Gate presented declarations and documentation “all substantiating the scheme and the amounts Robles received as recompense for his exertion of influence,” and Robles presented no challenge to the evidence at trial. The jurist declared:
“As a result, the City’s undisputed evidence established the elements of its four cross-claims and summary adjudication of those claims was appropriate.”
No Time Bar
Robles insisted that the city’s lawsuit was time-barred. But Hoffstadt pointed out that, however labeled, the causes of action are either grounded in fraud, which has a limitations period of three years, or contract, which must be asserted within a four-year period.
“[E]ven if we look to the label of the City’s claims rather than their gravamen, the limitations periods for each claim is either three or four years,” he continued, concluding:
“Because the parties do not meaningfully dispute that the City’s cross-claims accrued when Robles was federally indicted in June 2003, and because it is undisputed that those cross-claims were filed in January 2006, the City’s cross-claims were timely filed under either limitations period.”
Robles was a prominent figure in a corruption scandal that extended to four other small cities in southeast Los Angeles County.
The case is City of South Gate v. Robles, B325897.
In an indictment, unsealed on July 24, 2003, Robles was charged with five felonies—boosted to 42 counts in a superseding indictment. The Office of U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California said on March 24, 2005 that the allegations were “that the citizens of South Gate were defrauded out of their right to Robles’ ‘honest services’ in a scheme that cost the city at least $12 million and led to payments of more than $1.4 million to Robles, his family and his friends,” adding:
“In a second fraud scheme, Robles allegedly steered a waste-hauling contract to a company in exchange for gifts, campaign contributions and a consulting contract for his friend.”
On Nov. 28, 2006, Robles was sentenced by District Court Judge Steven V. Wilson to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $639,000 in restitution.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 15, 2013, reversed Robles’ convictions on 25 counts of “honest services fraud” and money laundering, but upheld his convictions on five counts of bribery. It acted based on a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision narrowing circumstances under which a public official’s failure to provide “honest services” can constitute an offense, which do not include a failure to disclose a conflict of interest.
Robles was released from prison on Nov. 29, 2013.
The Ninth Circuit on Oct. 11, 2017, spurned a new-trial bid by Robles, holding that intervening case law does not call into question the constitutionality of his 2006 conviction.
He has been popularly accorded the nickname “Big Al.” That’s in contradistinction to “Little Al,” another political figure in southeast Los Angeles County, attorney Albert Robles, a former member of the Carson City Council.
“Little Al” in 2008 ran against incumbent Steve Cooley in the race for Los Angeles County district attorney, acquiring only 20 percent of the vote. He challenged Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carol Elswick in 2022, attracting 31.52 percent of the ballots.
Copyright 2024, Metropolitan News Company