A real estate developer accused of enriching the one-time mayor of Palm Springs with six-figure bribes to cinch his support for downtown projects cared only about “money … and control,” a prosecutor said Monday, while the defense countered there was “little” evidence implicating the man in a conspiracy.
“The law is very clear: You have to follow the rules,” Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Amy Zois told jurors in her opening statement Monday at the Banning Justice Center.
Zois characterized 86-year-old John Elroy Wessman’s business relationship with former Mayor Steve Pougnet as one of backroom deals intended to do one thing — benefit Wessman and his ventures.
The prosecutor said the defendant and fellow developer Richard Hugh Meaney, 59, conspired to favor Pougnet with high-dollar rewards for gaining the mayor’s support for the men’s redevelopment projects between 2012 and 2014.
“These men cared about money, property and control,” Zois told jurors.
She said Pougnet’s $3,605-a-month salary during his two terms was “peanuts” compared to the hefty cash infusions into his bank account facilitated by the two developers.
Zois argued it was Wessman’s influence that landed Pougnet work on the Palm Springs International Film Festival, for which he received $150,000 in 2012. The festival board chairman ended the mayor’s consultancy when it didn’t net the kind of results that the board had wanted, according to the prosecution.
Zois alleged the developers provided $225,000 in illicit payoffs to the mayor between 2012 and 2014, all to ensure his active support for the downtown renaissance projects, which court records allege included construction of The Dakota, the Desert Fashion Plaza, The Morrison and Vivante.
Zois displayed photographs of Pougnet and Wessman together at public functions, revealing obvious signs of friendship.
Wessman is charged with nine counts of bribery of a public official and one count of conspiracy to commit a felony. During a pretrial hearing last week, Pougnet reached a plea agreement directly with the court, admitting nine counts of bribery by a public official, eight counts of illicit financial interest in public contracts and one count of conspiracy, as well as no contest to three perjury counts.
Prosecutors objected to the plea to Superior Court Judge Samuel Diaz, releasing a statement that Pougnet “took advantage of the public trust” and should be held to account at trial.
Diaz scheduled a sentencing hearing for July 2.
All the felony charges against Meaney were dismissed over a year ago. However, he pleaded guilty to a reinstated misdemeanor count of financial conflict in a government contract. Like Wessman, Meaney is free on his own recognizance. He’s due for sentencing in June.
Both the ex-mayor and Meaney are expected to receive terms of probation.
“There is very little evidence against Mr. Wessman,” defense attorney David Greenberg told jurors in his opening statement. “The payments were legit, the testimony against my client are not reliable, and there’s no proof of specific intent to corrupt the mayor.”
The attorney detailed how his client took appropriate steps and remained within the bounds of the law to get his projects approved by the Palm Springs City Council. He displayed the record of votes and the paper trail of loans and promissory notes associated with the developer’s enterprises.
Greenberg underscored how Wessman relied on creative financing to contend with impacts of the Great Recession that started in 2008, seeking what amounted to a “public-private partnership” between Wessman Development Inc. and the city to move forward with redevelopment.
The efforts led to Measure J being put before voters citywide in 2011. It passed, resulting in $43 million in municipal bonds going to the developer’s projects, which began in earnest in the winter of 2012, the defense said.
Greenberg leveled blame at Meaney for any improprieties connected to cash for Pougnet.
The attorney insisted that his client always considered his dealings with the mayor and council aboveboard.
“Justice in this case is not guilty for John Wessman,” Greenberg concluded.
Pougnet, Wessman and Meaney were criminally charged, for the first time, in 2017 and later indicted by a grand jury.
The case began as a federal corruption probe until it was turned over to county investigators in 2016.
A trial judge in December 2020 dismissed all counts against Wessman, characterizing them as baseless, but the charges were reinstated by the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Riverside less than two years later.
Pougnet was in office from 2007 to 2015.
Payments to him were drawn directly from accounts maintained by Meaney’s Union Abbey Co. and Wessman Development Inc., according to the prosecution.
A prosecutor told the grand jury in 2019 that Pougnet planned to move to Colorado to join his husband and two children when his first term ended in 2011, but the two developers put him “on their payroll” in order to gain his votes of confidence in their projects.