Former Commerce city manager gets 2 years’ probation for cannabis bribes
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced former Commerce City Manager Edgar Cisneros to two years’ probation and ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine for his part in a wide-ranging cannabis bribery scheme that has swept up elected officials from across Southern California over the past five years.
Cisneros, while working as a consultant to a cannabis company, funneled at least $45,000 in bribes to former Baldwin Park Councilman Ricardo Pacheco in an attempt the secure a permit in Baldwin Park for his client. In exchange, the company promised to pay Cisneros $175,000 once the permit was acquired, according to his plea agreement.
To conceal the bribes, Cisneros’ consulting firm, ViceVale, entered into a sham agreement with a marketing company run by Gabriel Chavez, a former San Bernardino County planning commissioner who served as an intermediary between Pacheco and those looking to buy his votes.
The former Commerce city manager, who resigned in November 2023 just days after he secretly pleaded guilty to the bribery charge, told investigators that while he never knew “with absolute certainty” that Chavez was splitting money with Pacheco, he suspected it and “deliberately avoided learning the truth.”
He admitted that he knew if he did not pay Chavez, his client would not receive a permit in Baldwin Park, according to the plea agreement.
Cisneros, while serving as the city manager in Huntington Park in 2017, also awarded a $14,500, no-bid contract to Chavez’s company and made a $5,000 donation to a church associated with a school attended by Pacheco’s child, according to court filings.
Less than a year later, Cisneros, having moved onto Commerce, took $25,000 in bribes from another cannabis consultant who had clients vying for permits in Commerce. The payment was under the guise of Cisneros helping to secure a permit in Montebello, but Cisneros admitted he did nothing for the money and understood it was meant to influence decision-making.
Cisneros continued to use his position in the city’s leadership for personal gain. In 2021, he leased two city-owned lots for $2,700 per month total to a company looking to capitalize on the high demand for truck and trailer parking in exchange for an undisclosed cut of a $10,000-a-month fee paid to a middleman. The go-between collected $100,000 to $120,000, the “vast majority of which was provided to” Cisneros, according to a plea agreement.
Commerce lost out on potentially millions of dollars in rent due to Cisneros’ actions. A Southern California News Group investigation uncovered the suspiciously low rents in 2022. The city continues to rent at least two other properties to companies tied to the original tenant.
Cisneros resigned from Commerce before his guilty plea became public and received roughly $400,000 in extra pay from the city through a severance agreement. The city has pledged to explore “all options to recover funds or damages resulting from any wrongdoing” last year, but so far has taken no public action on the matter.
The FBI originally nabbed Pacheco as part of an unrelated sting operation, during which Pacheco accepted a bribe from a police officer — working undercover for the FBI — in exchange for voting in support of a union contract. Since then, the FBI has systematically taken down others who assisted Pacheco’s efforts to collect bribes during Baldwin Park’s rollout of cannabis in 2017.
The former councilman was forced to turn over $302,900 in bribes, including $62,900 found buried in his backyard.
Pacheco, Chavez, Cisneros and former Baldwin Park City Attorney Robert Tafoya all pleaded guilty to charges as part of the investigation and agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for leniency.
Tafoya, Baldwin Park’s city attorney for nearly a decade, allegedly worked with Compton Councilman Isaac Galvan — who also has been arrested but has pleaded not guilty — to funnel bribes to Pacheco to secure a cannabis permit for one of Galvan’s consulting clients. Tafoya, who pleaded guilty to bribery and tax evasion charges, had family friends cash checks written by one of the clients, W&F International, to conceal the payments to Pacheco, according to federal investigators.
Cisneros, prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, is the first of the group to be sentenced.
Tafoya’s sentencing date is currently under seal. The State Bar flagged his license in February as a result of his conviction and is set to suspend it in April.
Pacheco and Chavez are scheduled for sentencing later this year. Galvan’s trial is currently set to begin June 10.