LOS ANGELES, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Angela Spaccia testified at her corruption trial her $500,000 a year salary as assistant city administrator of Bell, Calif., was excessive but not criminal.
Asked by her attorney Thursday whether she had been overpaid, Spaccia responded: "Yes. I'd say the last two to three years I was overpaid by about twice what I needed be paid."
Was her salary illegal? her attorney asked.
"No," she replied.
Spaccia blamed her former boss, Robert Rizzo, who is awaiting sentencing after pleading no contest, for Bell's fiscal and corruption problems, the Los Angeles Times reported.
On the witness stand Friday, Spaccia said she considered suicide after she left Bell and was then fired as acting city manager in neighboring Maywood.
Bell, a city in Los Angeles County with a population just over 35,000, became notorious following revelations its officials were among the highest paid in the country. Spaccia's pay topped out at more than $500,000, Rizzo was making more than $1 million and the police chief $450,000.
On Thursday, Spaccia described how her salary rose from $100,000 in 2003 when she was the finance director. She said Rizzo appeared to have "the perfect management style."
"He didn't want the city of Bell to be a steppingstone, he was going to pay everyone, not just management, everyone well enough so that they wouldn't have an incentive to leave," she said.
Spaccia talked about her desperation when she learned at 50 she needed surgery and feared her son would not get her pension if she died. But she also acknowledged she continued to get paid during her tenure in Bell during months when she was not working because of health and family problems.
At one point, she wept on the witness stand.
Next week, she faces cross-examination.
