LOS ANGELES
A former Compton city councilman pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges of bribing a Baldwin Park city councilman to secure commercial marijuana permits and evading federal taxes by failing to file returns for four years and concealing more than half a million dollars in income.
Isaac Jacob Galvan, 38, of Compton, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and one count of evasion of tax assessment.
He remains free on a $10,000 bond and agreed to pay $323,557 in restitution to the IRS.
According to his plea agreement, Baldwin Park began permitting the cultivation, manufacture, and distribution of marijuana in June 2017.
Soon after, then-Councilman Ricardo Pacheco, 62, began soliciting bribes from businesses seeking marijuana-related permits and development agreements, court documents state. Pacheco served on the city council from 1997 until resigning in June 2020 and was mayor pro tem in 2018.
Galvan, who served on the Compton City Council from 2013 to 2022, offered consulting services to W&F International Corp., a Diamond Bar-based import-export business seeking a marijuana permit in Baldwin Park.
Prosecutors say Galvan facilitated $70,000 in bribes to Pacheco from Yichang Bai, 52, of Arcadia, W&F’s owner and operator. Bai has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in February 2026.
Pacheco then voted in favor of the company’s permit in June and July 2018 and later supported W&F’s bid to relocate its operations, prosecutors said.
Galvan and Bai also took steps to conceal the source of the payments, including using checks from third parties with blank payee lines that Galvan later delivered to Pacheco, who arranged for the checks to be cashed, according to the plea agreement.
Galvan also admitted he failed to file federal income tax returns from 2017 through 2020 and concealed his ownership and control of I&I LLC, which prosecutors described as a shell company used to solicit and facilitate bribes.
In total, he failed to report approximately $560,525 in income for those years, causing a tax loss of $115,816, the government said.
U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II scheduled Galvan’s sentencing for June 8, 2026. He faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in federal prison on the bribery count and up to five years on the tax count.
Pacheco pleaded guilty in June 2020 to a separate bribery charge for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes, including $20,000 in cash, from a Baldwin Park police officer working at the FBI’s direction in exchange for support of a police union contract, prosecutors said.
His sentencing is scheduled for March 30, and he has agreed to cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigation.
The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation are investigating the case.