Header Image Robert Tafoya resigned as legal counsel for the West Valley Water District in Rialto on Thursday, Nov. 10
Orange County Register
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has revealed that Baldwin Park’s former city attorney and Commerce’s former city manager secretly pleaded guilty a year ago to charges related to their participation in a cannabis bribery scheme that has resulted in the arrests of nearly a half-dozen Southern California public officials so far.
The two men’s involvement was detailed in prior plea agreements, but the charges against them were not unsealed until Thursday, Dec. 5. Both Baldwin Park’s Robert Tafoya and Commerce’s Edgar Cisneros quietly resigned from their positions in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and have agreed to cooperate in the ongoing investigation.
As part of the deal, Tafoya also pleaded guilty to evading payment of approximately $650,000 in federal taxes.
The plea deals with Tafoya and Cisneros follow similar arrangements made with former Baldwin Park City Councilmember Ricardo Pacheco and former San Bernardino County Planning Commissioner Gabriel Chavez. The FBI originally nabbed Pacheco during 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 turnover $302,900 in bribes, including $62,900 found buried in his backyard.
Tafoya and Cisneros facilitated the bribes to Pacheco to their own benefit, according to their plea agreements. 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 had family friends cash checks written by one of the clients, W&F International, to conceal the payments to Pacheco, according to federal investigators.
