California Politician Points Finger At Brother – Corruption

Former Assemblyman Tom Calderon pleaded guilty to money laundering.

In exchange for his plea, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will move to dismiss six other money laundering counts and seek, no more than 12 months in prison.  But in a rare twist, this plea also came by having Tom Calderon implicit his brother, former state Senator Ron Calderon of corruption.

Ron Calderon still faces 24 counts, including money laundering, tax fraud and bribery – a federal grand jury found that Ron had accepted $88,000 in brides from an undercover FBI agent.

Mike Sprague, Whittier Daily News, writes:

The written agreement states Tom Calderon and his brother Ron Calderon concealed the fact that Ron, a former state senator from Montebello, received bribes from two undercover FBI agents. One of the agents posed as a movie studio executive offering a $30,000 bribe in exchange for help in the Legislature for lowering the threshold for California’s film tax credit from $1 million to $750,000.

The money was deposited into the Calderon Group, the public relations and lobbying company Tom Calderon founded after leaving the Assembly. Later, a $9,000 check was written to Ron Calderon’s daughter.

Ron Calderon is scheduled to go trial July 19 on 24 counts of public corruption, mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery and money laundering. Tom Calderon isn’t required to testify against his brother.