{"id":142182,"date":"2026-01-20T22:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T22:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/142182\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T22:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T22:34:09","slug":"preliminary-hearing-begins-for-curren-prices-public-corruption-case-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/142182\/","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary hearing begins for Curren Price\u2019s public corruption case \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

A preliminary hearing began Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles for LA Councilmember Curren Price<\/a> who is facing public corruption charges, including embezzlement and conflict of interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court proceeding was expected to last for a few days as it would decide whether there\u2019s enough evidence to require Price, 75, to stand trial.<\/p>\n

Among several allegations, the councilmember for Council District 9 in South LA is accused of voting to provide millions of dollars in grant to a real estate consulting business owned by his current wife, Delbra Pettice Richardson. Some of the funds allegedly came from the LA Housing Authority and LA Metro, according to the LA County District Attorney\u2019s Office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Price is also accused of having the city of LA pay for medical benefits for Richardson while he was married to another woman.<\/p>\n

The councilmember, who has remained at his job<\/a> since the accusations surfaced in 2023, was absent at Tuesday\u2019s City Council meeting as he attended the hearing. Price has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty<\/a> to all charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Price\u2019s case has been handled by two district attorneys: Former LA County District attorney George Gascon had charged him with five counts of grand theft by embezzlement, three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest. Then in 2025, current District Attorney Nathan Hochman added two more public corruption charges.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

If convicted as charged, Price faces up to 11 years and four months in custody, including up to nine years and four months in state prison and up to two years in county jail, according to the LA County District Attorney’s Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A preliminary hearing began Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles for LA Councilmember Curren Price who is facing public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,5810,52,51,47,5436,50,49],"class_list":["post-142182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-city-council","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-city-council","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}