LOS ANGELES _ Two concert promoters charged in an alleged bribery and embezzlement scheme involving raves at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will avoid serving any time in jail under a plea bargain with the district attorney's office after prosecutors acknowledged, for the second time, that they mishandled evidence in the high-profile corruption case.
Pasquale Rotella, who was indicted in 2012 on multiple felony counts, pleaded no contest Thursday afternoon to a single misdemeanor conflict-of-interest count and has agreed to pay $150,000 and serve three years' probation. Reza Gerami will accept a similar deal Friday and pay restitution of $30,000, his lawyer, Larry M. Bakman, said.
Settlement talks also were underway for Todd DeStefano, the former events manager of the Coliseum. All three defendants were scheduled to stand trial later this month.
The developments follow a series of embarrassing blunders by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office that defense lawyers said amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy last week rebuked prosecutors for repeatedly bungling the handling of evidence and suggested that the district attorney's office was incapable of managing complex "paperwork" cases.
"You guys are just tripping over your feet and falling on your faces," Kennedy told prosecutors Sean Hassett and Terrie Tengelsen, who work for the office's public integrity division.
A year ago, another prosecutor on the Coliseum team, Dana Aratani, was thrown off the case for mishandling evidence, and the district attorney's office was instructed to restart its trial preparations from scratch.
Aratani was found to have improperly reviewed emails between one of the defendants and his lawyer, a violation of attorney-client privilege rules. To make sure the evidence wasn't compromised again, Tengelsen said she had created a "firewall" with Aratani. However, Tengelsen acknowledged last week that she did have contact with Aratani about the case, prompting Kennedy to declare, "Oh, my God!"
Hassett later apologized to the judge, saying, "I'm terribly sorry. ... We never intended that any of this happen. Obviously, it's very embarrassing."
A spokeswoman for District Attorney Jackie Lacey said Thursday that her office had no comment on the matter.
The Coliseum case grew out of a 2011 Los Angeles Times investigation, which found that DeStefano, a government employee, received large payments from Rotella and Gerami while overseeing their raves at the historic Coliseum.
The Times began examining the relationship between DeStefano and the promoters after the drug-related death of a 15-year-old girl who attended an Electric Daisy Carnival rave. That concert was staged by Rotella's firm, Insomniac Events. Gerami's company, Go Ventures, also held raves at the L.A. Sports Arena on the Coliseum property.
Gerami and Rotella were eventually indicted on charges of bribing a public employee, and DeStefano was charged with accepting bribes and conflict of interest. All three were accused of embezzlement and conspiracy.
Three others were indicted in the case, including former Coliseum General Manager Patrick Lynch, who was accused of taking kickbacks from a stadium janitorial contractor.
Lynch pleaded guilty in 2012 to felony conflict of interest in exchange for no jail time. He also repaid the Coliseum Commission $385,000 he received from the contractor, Tony Estrada, who is a fugitive in the case on embezzlement and conspiracy charges.
A sixth defendant, former Coliseum technology manager Leopold Caudillo Jr., is charged with conflict of interest for allegedly directing stadium business to a company in which he had a financial stake. His next court date is set for November.
Some of the charges against DeStefano, Rotella and Gerami were dismissed in 2013 on legal grounds.
At the time of the indictments, prosecutors said the alleged crimes cost the stadium more than $2 million and suggested they played a role "in the financial ruin of the Coliseum," the site of two Summer Olympic Games and now the temporary home of the Los Angeles Rams.
The University of Southern California, whose football team plays at the Coliseum, took control of the stadium in the wake of the corruption scandal, signing a 98-year lease with the government commission that ran it for decades.
