Former Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, who split time as a Colorado resident, has been charged in California with 21 criminal counts for allegedly accepting real estate bribes while serving as mayor.
Pougnet, a two-term mayor and former Democratic candidate for Congress, is charged with nine counts of receiving bribes, eight counts of conflict of interest as a public official and three counts of perjury, according to .
For two years while mayor, Pougnet accepted bribes from local real estate developers in exchange for favorable decisions from behind the City Council dais, prosecutors alleged in a criminal complaint, according to the Sun.
Pougnet allegedly was paid $375,000 between September 2012 and September 2014 in nine payments for 11 votes benefiting two businessmen.
John Wessman and Richard Meaney, co-defendants, are charged with nine counts each of offering a bribe. All three defendants face an additional charge of conspiring to bribe a public official.
Pougnet split his time between Palm Springs and Colorado, where his husband and two children lived, the Sun reported.
