A former Baldwin Park city attorney has pleaded guilty to taking bribes in an apparent web of Southern California payoffs to local government officials who helped marijuana businesses obtain cannabis permits, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Robert Manuel Nacionales Tafoya, 62, of Redondo Beach entered a guilty plea about a year ago, on Dec. 5, 2023, to federal bribery and tax evasion charges, federal prosecutors said. Plea agreements involving Tafoya and another local official, former Commerce City Manager Edgar Pascual Cisneros, 42, of Montebello, were unsealed on Dec. 5. Both former officials are now cooperating with federal agencies in an ongoing corruption probe, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
The plea agreements indicate that after June 2017, when Baldwin Park began issuing marijuana permits, a former city councilman, Ricardo Pacheco, sought bribes from companies applying for such permits.
“Tafoya facilitated a bribery scheme involving former Compton City Councilmember Isaac Galvan, in which Galvan sought to obtain a marijuana permit for his consulting client, also through bribes to Pacheco,” a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release states. “Tafoya further admitted to evading payment of approximately $650,000 in federal tax liability.”
Cisneros aided a business to get a marijuana permit and related actions through about $45,000 in bribes, according to prosecutors, and a company consented to pay Cisneros $235,000 or more to finalize the permit.
The unsealing of the plea agreements prompted a California state legislator, Rep. Bill Essayli (R-Riverside), to suggest the conspiracy over marijuana dispensary permits may go even higher than the local level.
In a letter to legislative leaders, Essayli said that within Tafoya’s plea agreement is a description of a bribery scheme involving “Person 20.” This information suggests that a state legislator was involved in illegal cash payments involving such permits, according to Essayli, who requested that state officials investigate ethics violations by the elected official.
“‘Person 20’ is described as an unindicted co-conspirator who received $30,000 in illegal cash payments to his or her campaign for state elected office and was subsequently successful in being elected to the Legislature,” Essayli’s letter states. “‘Person 20’ is also accused of soliciting a bribe payment in the amount of $200,000 to secure a marijuana dispensary permit from the city of Baldwin Park.”
In another statement, the lawmaker called the actions of elected legislators a sign of “a rotten culture of corruption in Sacramento.”
Attorney Tafoya’s license to practice law is still active, according to the California State Bar’s website, but a “consumer alert” is included in the listing.
“The attorney has been charged with a felony,” the alert says. “The felony matter is pending in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.”
The current Baldwin Park city manager, Enrique Zaldivar, said in a statement emailed to the Southern California Record that the city has been focused on restoring transparency and integrity.
“While the corrupt and unethical actions of former city officials from the past in dealing with the cannabis licensing program have come to light, the city has brought integrity to its management of the cannabis program by adopting uniform standards and consistent requirements for all cannabis applicants and operators, with all proceedings taking place in public (City) Council meetings and being guided by a special legal counsel,” Zaldivar said.