Tarnished ex-California lawmaker charged in alleged scam

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former California lawmaker who spent four years in prison for corruption has been charged with helping steal $20 million in a failed solar power project for a Los Angeles suburb, prosecutors announced Friday. Frank Hill and three other men are charged in the misappropriation of money that the City of Industry paid for possible construction of a solar plant that never broke ground. Hill’s accused of having an improper financial interest in the contract he helped negotiate. A former City of Industry city manager also is charged. Hill served in the state Assembly and Senate between 1982 and 1994, when he was convicted of corruption.