Harry Sidhu Admits to Obstructing FBI Probe into Failed Stadium Sale, Lying to FBI Agents, and Expecting $1 Million for Leaking Confidential Information.
SANTA ANA, California
The former mayor of Anaheim agreed to plead guilty to federal felony charges for obstructing an FBI public corruption investigation by destroying evidence, officials stated.
HJe also pleaded guilty of making false statements to FBI agents, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
In court documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, Harish “Harry” Singh Sidhu, 66, of Anaheim, also admitted cheating California tax authorities and making false statements to the Federal Aviation Administration about his helicopter purchase.
Federal prosecutors Wednesday filed a criminal information charging Sidhu with one count of obstruction of justice, one count of wire fraud, and two counts of making false statements to the FBI and the FAA.
In a plea agreement also filed Wednesday, Sidhu agreed to plead guilty to the four offenses.
According to his plea agreement, Sidhu – a longtime member of the Anaheim City Council who was elected mayor in 2018 – admitted that while the City of Anaheim was negotiating the sale of Angel Stadium to the Los Angeles Angels Major League Baseball club, he sought out and became a member of the city’s negotiating team for the stadium sale.
While on the negotiating team, Sidhu provided confidential information about the city to people working for the Angels. This was so that the Angels could buy Angel Stadium on favorable terms for the baseball club.
After secretly providing the information he had received in his position as mayor, Sidhu later was recorded saying he expected a $1 million campaign contribution from the Angels after the baseball club purchased Angel Stadium, the plea agreement states.
“Mr. Sidhu was elected by and pledged to work for the residents of Anaheim, but he violated that pledge and their trust on numerous occasions to look out for special interests,” said Donald Alway, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “Mr. Sidhu deceived his colleagues and weakened the city’s official strategy by divulging intellectual property, then lied to the government when his corruption was discovered.”
Sidhu admitted that he knowingly destroyed evidence by deleting multiple email messages and documents intending to obstruct the FBI’s investigation of public corruption related to the city’s attempted sale of Angel Stadium.
In the plea agreement, Sidhu specifically admitted he deleted an email message he had sent on July 21, 2020, with an attachment drafted by lawyers for the city, which contained confidential negotiation information related to the potential sale of Angel Stadium, including a discussion of issues related to price.
Sidhu also admitted in his plea agreement that he deleted a September 2020 email message about secret mock Anaheim City Council meetings involving Sidhu, two other City Council members, and representatives of the Angels – including the team president and a team lawyer.
Those mock City Council meetings would precede the scheduled public City Council meeting about the city’s proposed sale of Angel Stadium.
The deleted email message had an attachment titled “Angels Council Debate Prep,” which detailed the topics on which each participant of the mock City Council meetings should focus, and it added “[Angels] team available to help develop ‘zingers’, responses, and other points to improve performance.”
Sidhu also admitted he had provided a confidential appraisal range to the Angels in 2019, months before the appraisal was made public.
During the investigation, FBI agents secretly recorded multiple statements by Sidhu about the $1 million campaign contribution that he expected to receive after the City of Anaheim sold Angel Stadium to the Angels, the plea agreement states.
Sidhu also admitted that he lied about the Angel Stadium sale negotiations and related matters when FBI agents interviewed him on May 12, 2022.
For example, during that interview, Sidhu falsely stated that he was expecting “nothing” from the Angels after the Angel Stadium sale, when in truth, he was expecting to receive a $1 million campaign contribution for his election after the sale.
Sidhu also admitted to lying about using his personal email for city business. “Not only did [Sidhu] conduct City business using his personal email, but he also communicated with some City staff using that staff’s email, purposely avoiding using the staff member’s official City email address,” the plea agreement states.
In his plea agreement, Sidhu also admitted that in late 2020, he tried to defraud the State of California of approximately $16,000 in sales tax revenue by using an Arizona address to register a helicopter he had just purchased, even though he lived in Anaheim.
Sidhu admitted that he fraudulently used a mailing address in Scottsdale, Arizona that actually belonged to an Anaheim businessperson.
Sidhu also admitted that he provided false information about the helicopter to the Federal Aviation Administration when he submitted an “Aircraft Registration Application” that he signed and certified as true but which falsely claimed his permanent mailing address was in Arizona.
Sidhu faces more than 30 years in federal prison.
The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation are conducting an ongoing investigation into this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles E. Pell and Melissa S. Rabbani of the Santa Ana Branch Office are prosecuting this case.