Full Coverage: City of Bell Investigation

Bell isn’t a big town, or a wealthy one. But some of its top officials are paid double or triple the salaries of their counterparts elsewhere.

Was former Bell official Angela Spaccia’s claim that she was an unwitting participant in boss Rizzo’s crimes convincing? The jury’s still out.

L.A. County judge also orders the former Bell administrator to pay the city nearly $9 million in restitution.

Angela Spaccia is the first ex-Bell official to be sentenced in the municipal corruption case. She also must pay the city $8 million.

The city asked voters to back conversion to charter status in 2005, the year the California Legislature limited the pay of council members statewide. Only 400 people in a city of 40,000 voted on the measure.

Five former Bell council members plead no contest to misappropriating public funds, ending the prosecution of city leaders accused of bilking Bell out of more than $10 million.

Officials say the city’s gotten $5.5 million in legal settlements and sold $15.5 million worth of property, leaving it in the strongest shape since 2010, when it defaulted on bonds.