A former Baldwin Park city councilman and a former Compton city councilman were each sentenced Monday to 18 months in federal prison for corrupt acts committed while in office, including taking and paying tens of thousands of dollars in bribes tied to a police union contract and marijuana permits. Ricardo Pacheco, 63, of Baldwin Park, and Isaac Jacob Galvan, 39, of Compton, were sentenced the same day in a case that has stretched across multiple Los Angeles County jurisdictions for years.
According to FBI Los Angeles, Pacheco must forfeit $219,755 and was fined $10,000, while Galvan was ordered to pay $323,557 in restitution. The bureau said the pair engaged in the payment and acceptance of tens of thousands of dollars in bribes, some of which went toward securing a police union's support and others toward obtaining official city permits for marijuana cultivation.
Pacheco's involvement first came to light after a 2018 undercover FBI sting, in which a Baldwin Park police officer paid him $37,900 — including $20,000 cash handed over in an envelope at a local coffee shop — in exchange for his vote on a $4.4 million police union contract, according to the Los Angeles Times. Pacheco agreed to secretly cooperate with federal prosecutors after getting caught, opening the door to the wider corruption probe that followed.
Cash Buried in the Backyard
When federal agents later searched Pacheco's home as part of the broader public corruption investigation, they seized $83,145 in cash, including $62,900 that Pacheco had buried in two separate locations in his backyard, the San Bernardino County Sentinel reported. That discovery underscored just how much illicit cash had flowed through the scheme by the time investigators closed in.
The cannabis side of the case centered on Galvan, who paid Pacheco an initial $10,000 bribe in August 2017 and later facilitated $70,000 in additional bribes from client Yichang Bai to secure Pacheco's votes approving marijuana cultivation and relocation permits for Bai's company, W&F International Corp., according to Department of Justice records. Bai, the 52-year-old owner of the Diamond Bar-based import-export firm who hired Galvan as a consultant, previously pleaded guilty for his role in orchestrating the bribery scheme and was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison, Los Cerritos Community News reported.
Tax Evasion Added to the Charges
Galvan's federal plea agreement also resolved separate tax evasion charges after he admitted to hiding $560,525 in unreported income and failing to file federal tax returns from 2017 through 2020, the Los Angeles Times reported. That undisclosed income helped explain the $323,557 restitution order handed down alongside his prison sentence.
Galvan had already lost his Compton City Council seat once before under separate circumstances. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge overturned his narrow June 2021 runoff win — an 855 to 854 victory over challenger Andre Spicer — after finding four illegal non-resident votes had been counted, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A Corruption Network Beyond Two Officials
The case did not stop with Pacheco and Galvan. The Department of Justice announced in December 2024 that former Baldwin Park City Attorney Robert Tafoya and former Commerce City Manager Edgar Cisneros had secretly pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges, with Tafoya admitting to funneling bribes for Galvan and evading $650,000 in federal taxes. Separately, former San Bernardino County Planning Commissioner Gabriel Chavez pleaded guilty in November 2022 to federal bribery charges for acting as an intermediary who funneled bribes from cannabis operators through his own company to Pacheco, per Department of Justice records.
The fallout has extended into civil court as well. A federal civil jury awarded cannabis business owner David Ju $1.9 million in damages against the City of Baldwin Park and former officials including Tafoya and Pacheco after finding they committed civil fraud in the city's cannabis licensing process between 2017 and 2020, according to Southern California Cannabis Industry news.
Why Cannabis Permits Became a Target
Industry analysts point to a statewide pattern that helps explain why local cannabis licenses became such a lucrative target for corruption. A March 2024 California State Auditor report found that 57% of California local jurisdictions prohibited retail cannabis businesses as of February 2025, creating artificial market scarcity that state auditors warned significantly increases permit values and heightens incentives for municipal public corruption, according to Southern California Cannabis Industry news.
Hoodline has previously covered Galvan's guilty plea to bribery and tax evasion, as well as the initial federal indictment against him and Bai back in 2023. Monday's sentencing closes out the criminal case against Pacheco and Galvan, though the civil litigation and financial fallout from the scheme continue to work through the courts.
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