{"id":197491,"date":"2026-02-28T02:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/197491\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T02:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:58:16","slug":"ex-anaheim-chamber-ceo-todd-ament-makes-argument-to-court-for-withdrawing-is-guilty-plea-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/197491\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Anaheim Chamber CEO Todd Ament makes argument to court for withdrawing is guilty plea \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been nearly four years since former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament pleaded guilty<\/a> to several white-collar crimes in a deal with federal prosecutors \u2014 cooperation that fed an investigation resulting in jail time for a former mayor and a deal to sell Angel Stadium being canceled.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Feb. 27, Ament, whose sentencing has been delayed multiple times, walked into a Los Angeles courthouse with his attorneys asking to withdraw his plea agreement, saying he\u2019d received bad advice from his prior attorney.<\/p>\n

Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha heard from Ament\u2019s attorneys and a federal prosecutor in the afternoon hearing, saying at the end he would consider the request but not offering a timeline on when he might deliver a decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis counsel told him that it\u2019s business as usual, to plead guilty, even if you\u2019re not guilty,\u201d Ashwin J. Ram, one of Ament\u2019s new attorneys, said, offering the court arguments for why it would be reasonable to decide that Ament had not willingly committed the alleged crimes, as well as witness testimony to his innocence.<\/p>\n

Ament did not address the judge on Friday, but in a previous letter to the court, said he\u2019d privately maintained his innocence with his previous counsel, but pleaded guilty \u201cbased on his representations that it was lawful and in my best interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amidst an FBI probe into allegations of corruption in Anaheim, federal prosecutors charged Ament in 2022<\/a> with making false statements to a financial institution while seeking a loan in 2020 to purchase a second home in Big Bear.<\/p>\n

In a later plea deal<\/a> with prosecutors, Ament pleaded guilty to submitting a false tax return, lying to a mortgage lender and to two counts of wire fraud and agreed to cooperate with the federal government\u2019s ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n

An FBI investigator\u2019s affidavit filed with the initial charge referred to recorded conversations and confidential informants, painting a grim picture of Anaheim politics and naming Ament<\/a> as a leader in a self-described \u201ccabal\u201d of political and business insiders and alleging the group may have been exerting influence in City Hall.<\/p>\n

Ament cooperated by wearing a wire for the FBI, recording conversations with then-Mayor Harry Sidhu, for whom Ament was a close political advisor. At one point, Sidhu was recorded saying he hoped to elicit a $1 million campaign contribution from the Angels after the baseball club\u2019s owner purchased Angel Stadium. Prosecutors have not alleged any wrongdoing on the part of the Angels.<\/p>\n

Sidhu, who in 2023 agreed to his own plea deal with federal prosecutors, was sentenced in 2025 to two months in prison<\/a>. Prosecutors argued he obstructed federal investigators in their corruption probe.<\/p>\n

The Anaheim City Council canceled the sale for $320 million of Angel Stadium and its surrounding properties. City leaders are just starting to discuss resuming consideration of the stadium\u2019s future.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ament\u2019s charges stem partly from an alleged attempt to defraud a local cannabis company, asking for at least $225,000 from company employees and vowing the money would be used to launch a cannabis task force and lobby the cities of Anaheim and Irvine to legalize retail weed sales; instead, Ament admitted to pocketing some of the money.<\/p>\n

But both prosecutors and defense attorneys on Ament\u2019s case agreed in August on revising Ament\u2019s plea deal<\/a>, and prosecutors have twice recommended dropping the cannabis-related fraud charge.<\/p>\n

Judge Aenlle-Rocha shot down those attempts.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ament\u2019s lawyers are now pushing to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he\u2019d been ill-advised by his previous counsel.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore entering my guilty pleas, as documented in the plea agreement, I told my prior counsel, Salvatore Ciulla, that I could not admit to the facts alleged in the plea agreement,\u201d Ament wrote in his November letter to the court asking to withdraw his pleas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason: the facts were untrue. Despite my protests of my innocence and an inherently flawed factual basis, Mr. Ciulla directed me to plead guilty, to proffer my guilty pleas to the court, and to accept the factual basis in the plea agreement at my plea hearing,\u201d Ament said.<\/p>\n

Ciulla did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

In the same letter, Ament described Melahat Rafiei, a former consultant and Democratic Party of Orange County executive<\/a>, to be \u201cone of (his) main political rivals\u201d in the county.<\/p>\n

Rafiei, another key witness for FBI investigators, was sentenced in August to six months in prison for wire fraud<\/a>, followed by three years of supervised release and a $10,000 fine.<\/p>\n

Her arrest also stemmed from an alleged attempt to defraud local cannabis company employees, but Ament, in his letter to withdraw his plea, called the cannabis task force \u201cgenuine, legitimate and productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all worked diligently, in good faith, to develop a beneficial and responsible cannabis ordinance for the city of Anaheim,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Melissa S. Rabbani, a federal prosecutor on the case, argued against Ament being allowed to withdraw his plea deal, based on repeated actions and how late in the game Ament was raising this issue.<\/p>\n

\u2018Closing this chapter\u2019<\/p>\n

Still for the court to decide is whether the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce will be recognized as a victim in Ament\u2019s case. The organization is seeking $41,000 in restitution.<\/p>\n

Dara Maleki, founder of The Pizza Press, stepped up last year to lead the chamber as its interim president and CEO<\/a> just as the 130-year-old organization was on the cusp of shuttering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make sure Todd ends up in jail. We\u2019re trying to build our relationship back with the city,\u201d Maleki said, referring to the chamber\u2019s larger goal of restoring public trust through restructuring and transparency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe $41,000 is only a small representation of his self-serving nature, of taking money that should have been due to the organization,\u201d Maleki said, \u201cand we hope that the judge sees that he not only victimized other businesses, he victimized people, communities and organizations, and one that he was paid to represent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ament is scheduled now to be sentenced in April.<\/p>\n

As of their latest court filing, federal prosecutors were supporting a day in jail, or time served for Ament, as a reward for his cooperation. Prosecutors also recommended restitution of $225,000 and a fine of $9,500.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on defendant\u2019s cooperation, the government respectfully recommends that the court impose a sentence of one day (time served),\u201d according to a brief filed by prosecutors in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking forward to obviously closing this chapter from, realistically, Anaheim\u2019s past,\u201d Maleki said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd at the end of the day,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019ve got to trust in the process and wait.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been nearly four years since former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament pleaded guilty to several…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,15261,165,164,7,1312,1071,100,611,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-197491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-city-hall","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-courts","14":"tag-local-government","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-orange-county","17":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}