A Huntington Beach resident who was formerly the city administrator of a tiny town in Los Angeles County has pleaded guilty to various public corruption charges against him.
Nope, it was not Robert Rizzo, but Bruce Malkenhorst Sr., the ex-top exec in the city of Vernon and dead ringer for the principal on Room 222.
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Malkenhorst pleaded guilty in Los Angeles County Superior Court Friday to misappropriating $60,000 in public funds, and using the money for political contributions and various personal expenses such as golf,
massages, a personal trainer and a home security system.
As part of a plea deal, a second felony misappropriation charge was dropped against the 76-year-old, who also avoided prison time. He was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to re-pay Vernon $60,000 and to pay $10,000 in fines.
However, Malkenhorst, who in 2009 became the highest paid public pensioner in the state and this year collected $509,664, will be able to keep his full pension, his lawyer tells the Orange County Register's Tony Saavedra, who was the first reporter to interview Malkenhorst about his outrageous pension back in '09.
Located 5 miles south of Downtown LA, only 5.5 square miles in size and with about 1,800 businesses within its borders, Vernon had the smallest population of any incorporated city in California in the 2010 U.S. Census with 112 residents.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.