US District Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha is expected to decide on Friday if he will allow former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament to withdraw a guilty plea he entered into almost four years ago for multiple fraud charges.
[Read: Key Figure in Anaheim Corruption Scandal Looks to Reverse Guilty Plea]
In the summer of 2022, Ament pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud for allegedly defrauding a cannabis company and fraudulently obtaining a $62,000 COVID-relief business loan, one count of lying to a financial institution and one count of submitting a false tax return.
Now, Ament claims he accepted a plea deal based on bad advice from his previous lawyer, Salvatore Ciulla.
Ament says he’s innocent, that he delivered on his promises to the cannabis company, and he cooperated with the FBI on the belief the charges would go away.
“In relying on that legal guidance, Mr. Ciulla told me that I could, and should, plead to the facts alleged in the Plea Agreement and Information, even if I did not believe them to be true and accurate. Mr. Ciulla said this was acceptable under federal law,” he wrote in his sworn statement on Nov. 4.
“In following that advice, and based on his representations that it was lawful and in my best interests, I admitted to committing acts that I, in truth, did not commit. I have since come to understand that Mr. Ciulla’s legal guidance on this point is not accurate.”
Ciulla and Ament’s current attorneys, Daniel Silva and Ashwin Ram, did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Ciulla also did not provide a declaration he made to the court in response to Ament’s claims.
Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a Tuesday email U.S. Attorneys filed their opposition to Ament’s motion under seal and could not comment on why they were against Ament’s effort to withdraw his guilty plea.
Daniel Ahn, a former senior federal prosecutor on the case, said Ciulla has substantial criminal law experience.
“The essence of what Ament pleaded guilty to, really, is just straight up fraud. It’s not overly complicated material. Somebody who is a bread and butter criminal defense lawyer, in my view, can easily ascertain the issues,” he said in a Tuesday phone interview.
“These things kind of weigh in his favor in terms of – was he capable of representing Ament competently during those negotiations? and it seems to be the answer is yes.”
Ament’s Friday hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the U.S. Courthouse in Los Angeles.
It comes following former City Manager Jim Vanderpool’s resignation after facing renewed scrutiny over his close ties to Ament’s Chamber of Commerce that was pushing the failed sale of the Angel Stadium, which would later become enveloped in the city’s corruption scandal.
[Read: Anaheim’s City Manager Resigns]
Defrauding a Cannabis Company?
In his plea agreement, Ament admitted to devising and participating in a scheme to defraud at least $225,000 from a cannabis company by claiming the money would be used to create a cannabis task force to lobby for the legalization of retail weed sales in Anaheim.
He also admitted to not telling the company that $41,000 of that money would end up in his own bank account after hiring a consultant to manage the task force who later sent Ament tens of thousands of dollars in kickback payments.
In his sworn statement, Ament said the task force did the work they were hired to do and that he did not plan to improperly keep money from the cannabis company.
“The Task Force was a genuine, legitimate, and productive group of professionals from around Orange County. We all worked diligently, in good faith, to develop a beneficial and responsible cannabis ordinance for the City of Anaheim,” he wrote.
Ahn said it’s going to be an uphill battle for Ament to try and withdraw his guilty plea, pointing to a recent Supreme Court case, Kousisis v United States, where Justices ruled wire fraud can occur even without economic loss.
“Even if Ament is taking the view that the victims didn’t suffer loss because they got what they paid for, Kousisis says that doesn’t matter, because you can still have wire fraud even if there is no loss.”
Ahn also said Ament might be depending on a separate concurrence stemming from the same Supreme Court case that found an element of wire fraud is materiality – if a false statement or misrepresentation was capable of influencing someone to part with money.
Ahn said the problem is the concurrence doesn’t impact the current law.
“His argument might be, ‘well, who cares if I pocketed some of the money? It doesn’t go to the essence of the bargain, which was forming a cannabis task force, so that’s not material so I didn’t commit wire fraud.’ But I think the challenge there is those concurrences are not the law,” he said.
“There hasn’t been an intervening change in the law, so there’s no just reason for him to be able to withdraw his plea based on the current state of the case law,” he said.
Last fall, prosecutors tried to get U.S. District Judge Aenlle-Rocha to drop the cannabis related charge but he denied the request.
Ahn said Aenlle-Rocha made the right call.
The effort came after Aenlle-Rocha sentenced former influential Democratic powerbroker Melahat Rafiei to six months in prison after she pleaded guilty to attempted wire fraud in a case also stemming from the Anaheim Corruption Scandal.
[Read: OC Democrat Lobbyist Gets Six Months in Jail for Attempted Wire Fraud]
Rafiei also cooperated by helping prosecutors investigate Ament according to their filings, noting she recorded phone calls with him that later led to his charges.
Todd Ament, The Chamber of Commerce & a Corruption Scandal
Ament’s initial guilty plea came on the heels of FBI agents describing him as a ringleader of a group of powerful insiders who controlled policy making through elected officials at Anaheim City Hall.
In an FBI affidavit that publicly surfaced in 2022, federal agents alleged Ament and the group carefully orchestrated meetings with certain city officials – hosting private retreats to discuss matters expected to be publicly debated by the Anaheim City Council.
In 2023, independent investigators hired by the city alleged Ament was part of a conspiracy to divert $1.5 million from the $6.5 million bailout the city gave its tourism bureau at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to a chamber controlled nonprofit.
The multi-million dollar bailout was given to the tourism bureau to market the Disneyland Resort area at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when the city’s tourism industry was shut down indefinitely.
Meanwhile, new leaders for the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce announced last year that they would rebrand and stay out of politics after the over 100-year-old organization almost shut its doors in the years following Ament’s reign.
The chamber is seeking to be considered a victim of Ament’s alleged fraud and is calling on the court to make Ament pay them $41,000 in restitution.
Ament’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 13 at 11 a.m. at the U.S. Courthouse in Los Angeles.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.