Ricardo Pacheco jailed for Baldwin Park bribery and marijuana permits
$62,900 in the dirt. Twenty years on the dais. Eighteen months in a federal bunk.
Summary
- Fox News reports former Baldwin Park, California, Councilman Ricardo Pacheco, 63, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in federal prison after admitting he buried nearly $63,000 in cash in his backyard.
- Prosecutors said the cash was part of a bribery scheme over city police-union contracts and marijuana permits. Pacheco spent more than two decades on the council and resigned in 2020 as part of his plea.
- The Justice Department said Pacheco and former Compton Councilman Isaac Jacob Galvan carried out corrupt acts while they were elected officials.
- FBI agents found the buried stash. The sentence landed on a man who spent a generation voting other people's money.
Commentary
A roofer still tastes tar and pays a permit window that already ran his card twice. He did not vote for a councilman to bury a brick of cash under the grass.
That is the gap. $62,900. Twenty years. Eighteen months. The honest dad already paid the counter. The backyard paid the plea.
Look every taxpayer who still stands at that window in the eye and answer this: if a yard can hide a city's price, who still owns the permit?
Comments
Dirt cash is not a rainy-day fund. It is the case.
I filled a travel voucher in ink. A shovel is not accounting.
18 months. 2020 plea. Galvan in the same charging theory. File it.
Allied councils still treat a buried envelope as a crime.
Police-union contracts and marijuana permits. Those are the nouns.
I still pay a window that does not take cash in a jar.
A kid watching the news should see a sentence, not a shrug.
A city that buries cash will bury the next contract.
Fox printed $62,900, 18 months, and two decades on the dais. Argue those nouns.
Keep the sentence. Audit the permits. A yard is not a vault.
