A guilty plea on multiple federal fraud charges will stick with former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament – for now – after a federal judge heard arguments on whether Ament could backtrack his plea Friday afternoon without issuing a ruling.
[Read: Key Figure in Anaheim Corruption Scandal Looks to Backtrack Guilty Plea]
U.S. District Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha said he did not know how long it would take to decide if Ament could withdraw his guilty plea and pushed his sentencing hearing to April 17.
Ashwin Ram, a lawyer for Ament, argued the former Chamber of Commerce CEO pleaded guilty on bad advice from his previous attorney Sal Ciulla, with Ram saying Ament was innocent because he never intended to defraud anyone.
Ram said Ciulla told Ament to take a plea agreement even if he was innocent “to get a good deal,” despite the former chamber CEO raising concerns.
“Mr. Ament is innocent of the charges he pled guilty to,” Ram told Aenlle-Rocha on Friday. “I believe Mr. Ciulla was out of his water, out of his depth.”
Ament is trying to reverse his plea years after he first 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.
Ram argued that Ament did not willfully submit a false tax return and was trying to correct it, never spent the COVID-relief business loan and returned the money.
U.S Attorney Melissa Rabbani said Ament’s arguments weren’t “plausible” and questioned why it took years to try to reverse his plea and not come forward with concerns sooner.
“The timing is significant,” Rabbani said. “It’s not an accident that two and half years passed.”
A spokesman for Ament’s attorneys declined to comment after Friday’s hearing.
Ament’s lawyers argued that he was still cooperating with the government on a separate case and they wanted to wait until he was done before raising the concerns about Ciulla.
Rabbani pushed back.
“I don’t know why cooperation in any form would delay raising the issues,” she said, something Aenlle-Rocha also questioned.
Ament’s guilty plea in 2022 came on the heels of FBI agents describing him in a sworn affidavit as a ringleader of a group of powerful insiders who steered policy making through elected officials at Anaheim City Hall.
Later, 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.
Since last fall, Ament argued he accepted a plea deal based on bad advice from Ciulla, his previous attorney.
He also said he was innocent, that he delivered on his promises to the cannabis company, and he cooperated with the FBI on the belief his charges would go away.
Under sealed documents, U.S. prosecutors filed their opposition to Ament’s motion to back track his guilty plea.
Ciulla defended himself against Ament’s claims in a declaration submitted to the court, but it was not publicly available. Ciulla did not respond to email questions on the matter earlier this week and did not provide the declaration.
Friday’s hearing comes after two other prominent political figures implicated in the 2022 corruption scandal were sentenced last year for crimes.
In August, Melahat Rafiei, former head of the Orange County Democratic Party was sentenced to six months in jail by Aenlle-Rocha for attempted wire fraud.
[Read: OC Democrat Lobbyist Gets Six Months in Jail for Attempted Wire Fraud]
About a year ago, former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu was sentenced to two months in jail, a year of supervised release and a $55,000 fine after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice by destroying records about the attempted Angel Stadium land sale.
[Read: Disgraced Former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu Sentenced to Two Months in Prison]
Sidhu also pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration, along with wire fraud stemming from a helicopter purchase in which he tried evading California sales tax.
Ament cooperated with the government in the case against Sidhu in part by recording conversations.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
