Onetime state Assemblyman Tom Calderon is set to be sentenced today on a federal money-laundering charge expected to bring a reduced sentence of no more than a year behind bars.
Calderon pleaded guilty in June to helping conceal bribe money his brother, former Democratic state Sen. Ron Calderon, was receiving from undercover agents working for the FBI.
Prosecutors are recommending that U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder order Tom Calderon to pay an $18,000 fine and serve a year of supervised release after he is released from prison.
In papers filed with the court, federal prosecutors wrote that the Calderon brothers are representative of a climate “where waves of dark money infect politics and flood the worlds of many politicians.” Tom Calderon’s sentence “should be part of disrupting that comfortable climate of corruption and a step towards restoring public trust in the democratic system,” according to the document.
The siblings were indicted by a Los Angeles federal grand jury in February 2014.
Ron Calderon, the target of the investigation, was charged with two- dozen felony counts alleging wire fraud, mail fraud, honest services fraud, bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and aiding in the filing of false tax returns.
The former state senator subsequently pleaded guilty to a mail fraud charge, admitting that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for performing official acts as a legislator, according to his plea agreement.
Prosecutors said Ron Calderon pocketed $88,000 in bribes, as well as gourmet meals and golf outings, from a medical company owner and an undercover FBI agent posing as a film executive. He was suspended from the state Senate in March 2014, and his term in office ended nine months later.
Tom Calderon represented his Montebello-area district in the California Assembly from 1998-2002.
According to his plea agreement, Tom Calderon allowed $30,000 from an undercover agent to be funneled through his Calderon Group as payment for his brother to support lowering the threshold for California’s film tax credit from $1 million to $750,000.
He deposited the $30,000 into the company’s bank account and then wrote a check for $9,000 to his brother’s daughter, according to prosecutors.
“Defendant conducted these financial transactions in order to conceal and disguise the fact that the money represented the proceeds of bribery,” prosecutors wrote.
Ron Calderon’s plea deal — under which federal prosecutors promised not to seek a prison sentence of more than about six years — came several weeks before he was scheduled to go on trial. He is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 19.
