The district attorney has offered the former council members maximum prison terms of four years if they plead guilty to misappropriation of public funds by drawing paychecks for serving on boards and commissions that rarely, if ever, met.

With time off for good behavior, the former leaders of the small, working-class town could serve as few as two years behind bars. Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy could also give them more lenient sentences including probation.

The salary scandal in the southeast Los Angeles County city exploded in 2010 when the enormous paychecks of the town’s top leaders were exposed. Part-time council members were making nearly $100,000 a year, and the city’s administrator, Robert Rizzo, had a total compensation of $1.5 million annually, making him the highest paid municipal leader in California, and likely the nation.

Subsequent investigation revealed that Rizzo had lent city money, wrote his own contracts and provided false documents about the size of his salary. The city was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy when Rizzo, the city’s second in command and the police chief were forced to resign.

Rizzo pleaded no contest to 69 felony corruption charges last year and is set to be sentenced in March. He also pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud charges. The judge has said she probably will sentence him to 10 to 12 years in prison.

Attorneys for Bello, Jacobo and Hernandez met last week with Deputy Dist. Atty. Sean Hassett in Kennedy’s chambers, where the prosecutor made the offer. Hassett previously laid out the deal to lawyers for Cole and Mirabal.

The defendants would still be required to pay restitution to Bell, but the amount has not been determined.

The defendants are due in court Friday, when they could plead guilty or the judge could set a date for retrial.

The first trial ended chaotically with a deeply divided jury and Kennedy saying “all hell had broken loose.”

Jurors deliberated 17 days before returning the mixed verdict, which included the acquittal of a sixth former council member, Luis Artiga. One juror then asked the judge to reconsider the guilty verdicts. During deliberations another juror complained about the heated deliberations and asked the judge to “remind the jury to remain respectful and not to make false accusations and insults to one another.”

But later, in an interview with The Times, one juror said dissension on the jury worsened as the deliberations went along

“The verdicts came out and then it got weird,” said Stanley L. Friedman, who represents Oscar Hernandez, the town’s former mayor.