LOS ANGELES – The mayor and ex-city manager of the Los Angeles suburb of Bell were among eight current and former city officials arrested Tuesday in a corruption scandal that authorities said cost the city more than $5 million in excessive salaries and illegal personal loans.

The district attorney's office said several former and current City Council members were taken into custody along with ex-city manager Robert Rizzo and Mayor Oscar Hernandez.

"This, needless to say, is corruption on steroids," District Attorney Steve Cooley said at a news conference, standing next to a display of pictures of the suspects.

The district attorney, state attorney general and others have been investigating officials in the small working-class city since it was disclosed this summer that they were paying themselves huge salaries.

Rizzo, who was making nearly $800,000 a year, was booked on 53 counts of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest.

The investigations involve allegations of corruption, misuse of public funds and voter fraud in the city where one in six of the 40,000 residents live in poverty.

A message left at Rizzo's Huntington Beach home was not immediately returned.

About time they start nabbing these corrupt politicians. With the way everything is nowadays, theses azzholes living like kings on the taxpayers hard earned dimes. Good job on the arrests, California, but why did it go one for so long? maybe try monitoring your employees a little better?

more here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100921/ap_on_re_us/us_bell_salaries