SoCal city officials plead guilty in sprawling cannabis bribery scheme

Two more former Southern California city officials have admitted to participating in a cannabis corruption ring where bribes were funneled to a Baldwin Park City Council member in exchange for his influence in obtaining marijuana business permits. Former Commerce City Manager Edgar Cisneros and former Baldwin Park City Atty. Robert Tafoya have both copped to their role in the pay-to-play scheme and agreed to cooperate in ongoing public corruption investigations. The two men secretly pleaded guilty last year to federal corruption charges. This became public knowledge when the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed their plea agreements on Thursday. The racketeering operation began in June 2017 when then-Baldwin Park City Councilmember Ricardo Pacheco starting soliciting bribes from marijuana companies for permits to operate in the San Gabriel Valley community. The sprawling bribery scheme shattered public trust in San Gabriel Valley politics and helped prompt the launch of a 2023 statewide audit aimed at curtailing bribery, conflicts of interest and other misdeeds in the marijuana licensing business. According to the recently unsealed plea agreement, Cisneros provided $45,000 in bribes to Pacheco to secure a permit for a marijuana company. Cisneros was promised $235,000 in the deal. In November 2023, Cisneros quietly resigned from his role in Commerce, a city of 11,700 residents in southeast L.A. County, and pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges. Tafoya similarly facilitated a bribe to Pacheco to help W&F International Corp. obtain a marijuana business permit, and has separately admitted to evading some $650,000 in federal tax payments. He resigned as Baldwin Park city attorney in 2022 and pleaded guilty to federal bribery and tax evasion charges in December 2023. Pachecho, the former City Council member who headed the illicit scheme, entered a plea agreement in 2020 admitting to soliciting bribes from weed businesses — including an unsuccessful attempt to wring a whopping $150,000 payment from a consultant working for a local cannabis distributor. The FBI first caught Pachecho in a 2018 sting operation that was unrelated to cannabis permits. Pachecho accepted $37,900 in bribes from a Baldwin Park police officer in return for supporting the Baldwin Park Police Assn.'s contract with the city. That police officer was working undercover with the FBI. Pachecho then began secretly cooperating with the FBI to help the bureau with its ongoing investigation of public corruption in the San Gabriel Valley, which ultimately led to half a dozen arrests. He agreed to forfeit almost $220,000 in illegal proceeds as part of his plea agreement and is scheduled for his sentencing hearing in February. Former Compton City Councilmember Isaac Galvan and his client Yichang Bai were arrested in September 2023 on a federal grand jury indictment alleging they paid $70,000 in bribes to Pacheco in exchange for his support for W&F International Corp.'s marijuana permits. Both men have pleaded not guilty, and their trial is scheduled for June. In addition, former San Bernardino County planning commissioner Gabriel Chavez was also tied up in the scandal. In a November 2022 plea agreement, he admitted acting as an intermediary to funnel bribes from weed businesses to Pacheco. Chavez's sentencing hearing is scheduled for April.