Motel Owner Charged in Bid to Bribe Bell Official

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged a Bell motel owner Thursday with attempted bribery after she allegedly tried to pay a city councilman to approve plans for a second motel in the community.

Chow (Michelle) Chang, 43, a Taiwanese immigrant who owns the 15-unit NuBell Motel on Florence Avenue with her husband, was being held at the Los Angeles County Sybil Brand Institute on $1-million bail, police officials said. Officials did not disclose the full name of Chang’s husband.

District attorney’s investigators arrested Chang in a parking lot at Florence and Wilcox avenues at 10 a.m. after they watched her allegedly pass a $2,000 cash down payment to City Councilman George Cole.

Weeklong Inquiry

The arrest ended a weeklong investigation of Chang. She first approached Cole last week and promised to pay him $15,000 if he voted to approve her motel plan and persuade two other councilmen to do the same, Bell-Cudahy Police Chief Manuel Ortega said.

“The message we want to get across is that the city of Bell is not a place that will tolerate corruption,” Cole said at an afternoon press conference. “We want people to know that this is not the way we do business around here.”

Chang’s plan to tear down two small homes on Florence Avenue and build a $2-million, 60-room motel was on the verge of being rejected. A month ago, the Bell Planning Commission had unanimously recommended that the council deny her application because there are more than a dozen motels within a mile of the proposed site near Florence and Atlantic avenues.

Many of those motels are homes to prostitutes who walk Florence Avenue, Ortega said. He declined to say if the NuBell has been identified by police in any recent prostitution arrests.

But late last week, Cole said, Chang called him and asked if he would come to her house to discuss the application. The council, which was scheduled to hold a public hearing on her application last Monday, rarely approves a project that the Planning Commission finds unacceptable.

It was at that meeting the next day that Chang allegedly proposed the bribe scheme, Cole said. The scheme also included $10,000 payments to each councilman voting for the application. The application required the support of three councilmen.

Contacted Officials

Cole said that after his conversation with Chang he contacted Ortega and the district attorney’s officials, who arranged to tape other telephone conversations and the sting operation Thursday morning.

The other council members were informed of the alleged bribery attempt before the council meeting. The scheduled hearing was then postponed, while Chang and her attorney sat in the audience, Cole said.

Lt. Bob Ewen, a district attorney’s investigator who led the investigation, said Cole was carrying a listening device taped to his chest Thursday morning when he met Chang in the parking lot. Several officers sitting in a nearby car witnessed the conversation between Chang and Cole, Ewen said.

Chang’s brother, who identified himself only as Chow, was working at the front desk of the small motel when he was told Thursday about his sister’s arrest. “I didn’t hear anything about this,” he said. “I don’t know her business, but she (would not) do this.”