Ex-Compton city councilman pleads guilty to bribery charge – NBC Los Angeles

A former Compton city councilmember has pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges after he was accused of bribing a Baldwin Park city official to receive commercial marijuana permits, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Isaac Galvan, 38, facilitated $70,000 bribes to former Baldwin Park City Councilman Ricardo Pacheco, who began soliciting bribes in June 2017 in exchange for marijuana cultivation, manufacture and distribution permits within the city limits, federal prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, Galvan first paid Pacheco a $10,000 bribe in August 2017 to secure Pacheco’s support for a future consulting client’s marijuana permit.

Galvan, who later provided consulting services to W&F International Corp., a Diamond Bar-based import-export business, while serving on the Compton city council, secured the marijuana permit for the company in exchange for $70,000.

After receiving the bribe, then-Baldwin Park City Councilman Pacheco voted in favor of granting W&F International Corp. a marijuana permit in June and July of 2018, the Justice Department said.

Yichang Bai, the owner and operator of W&F, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges alleging he helped orchestrate the bribery scheme. He was scheduled to go to trial in February 2026.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Galvan and Bai tried to cover up illegal payments to Pacheco.

Pacheco pleaded guilty in June 2020 to a federal bribery charge unrelated to the marijuana-permit scheme and agreed to cooperate in the government’s public corruption probe. He is expected to be sentenced in March.

In addition to pleading guilty to one count of bribery, Galvan also pleaded guilty to one count of evasion of tax assessment. Galvan admitted that he failed to file federal tax returns between 2017 and 2020.

In one tax evasion case, Galvan tried to cover up his ownership of a shell company that he used to solicit bribes from public officials and pay bribes.

The federal government assessed that Galvan failed to report over $560,000 in income tax, causing a loss of $115,816 to the U.S. government.

Galvan, who remained free on $10,000 bond, was scheduled to be sentenced on June 8, 2026.

After the bribery scheme took place, Galvan was accused of conspiring to rig the outcome of the Compton City Council District 2 election in June 2021. Prosecutors had alleged that he and others arranged for people who did not live within the Compton district to register and vote illegally.

Although Galvan was declared the winner by a single vote against his opponent Andre Spicer, a judge overturned the result, determining four the votes cast for Galvan were illegal.