{"id":216920,"date":"2026-03-12T20:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216920\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T20:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:11:08","slug":"unsealed-records-in-anaheim-corruption-case-unveil-santa-ana-covid-contract-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216920\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsealed records in Anaheim corruption case unveil Santa Ana COVID contract probe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A legal row over whether a former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce leader can withdraw from his plea deal in a corruption case<\/a> has revealed allegations about a federal investigation into COVID testing contracts at the Santa Ana Unified School District.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha ordered court records unsealed ahead of a scheduled March 18 hearing in the criminal case against Todd Ament, the ex-chamber chief executive. <\/p>\n

The documents include a declaration from Sal Ciulla, an attorney who represented Ament in the past.<\/p>\n

Ament, who faced four felony charges<\/a> in 2022 before taking the plea deal<\/a>, has argued that Ciulla advised him to accept the agreement, which included admitting guilt to receiving a $41,000 retail cannabis related kickback, even though he maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n

Ciulla disputed the account.<\/p>\n

\u201cI advise the client that they \u2014 and not me \u2014 must decide whether or not to plead guilty,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIf they are innocent, they should not plead guilty and instead go to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ament later sought to withdraw from the plea deal during a meeting with Ciulla. <\/p>\n

It was during that meeting, which took place in the fall of 2022, that Ciulla claimed Ament informed him that he was under investigation for \u201chealthcare fraud\u201d related to a COVID clinic that had a contract with the federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe allegation was that the clinic had overbilled the government,\u201d Ciulla stated.<\/p>\n

\"Santa <\/p>\n

Santa Ana Unified has cooperated with authorities in the COVID contract probe<\/p>\n

(James Carbone)<\/p>\n

Prior to Ciulla\u2019s unsealed declaration, Ament\u2019s role in brokering and profiting from Santa Ana Unified pandemic contracts had publicly surfaced before, but without authorities formally alleging any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n

Santa Ana Unified appeared in an independent corruption report<\/a> commissioned by Anaheim and released publicly in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanta Ana Unified is not being investigated for any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate fully with authorities,\u201d said Fermin Leal, a district spokesperson. \u201cBecause this remains an open legal case, we cannot provide any comment at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Firas Tamary, an agent listed for Diagnostic Lab Services, told investigators that his company received a lucrative contract from the school district \u2014 worth over $100 million \u2014 to conduct weekly COVID tests on students and staff during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

A contract template obtained by TimesOC that was not attached to the agenda shows the district wouldn\u2019t be charged any fee for the services rendered. The money, instead, would come from health insurers and federal pandemic CARES Act funds.<\/p>\n

Accurate Health Partners, a company founded by Ament, would be responsible for collecting swabs, though it did not appear in the contract. Tamary claimed Ament told him that he had an inside contact at the district and the votes needed to approve the contract were all but assured. <\/p>\n

It remains unclear who Ament was referring to in regards to the votes. <\/p>\n

During the Aug. 24, 2021 school board meeting where the no-bid contract was unanimously approved, Dr. Sara Nazir, the district\u2019s executive director of risk management, told school board members that Anza [Vang], an executive with the Orange County Health Care Agency at the time, linked her with Ament.<\/p>\n

But the relationship between Diagnostic Lab Services and Ament allegedly soured soon after.<\/p>\n

\u201cTodd came to me and said he had a second lab that was willing to give him a joint venture,\u201d Tamary told Anaheim-hired investigators. <\/p>\n

He claimed that the move, and a request for higher swab collection rates, would violate state and federal government contract laws. <\/p>\n

Tamary maintained that after Ament\u2019s ask for a joint venture and more money per swab from Diagnostic Lab Services was declined, he \u201cbasically stole\u201d the contract from them.<\/p>\n

The district worked with MedLab 2020 after terminating the Diagnostic Lab Services contract, another company employee told investigators. The swab does not appear on any school board agendas. <\/p>\n

Attorneys for Ament argued that unsealing records about an \u201cuncharged\u201d and \u201cunrelated\u201d investigation would cause irreparable harm to their client\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis investigation is non-public and may be ongoing,\u201d they stated. \u201c[Ament] was never informed that he was a target of criminal or civil fraud, or a false claims investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unsealing the records and exposing the investigation, they argued further, \u201cmay eventually require disqualification of all available prosecutors who have been exposed to [Ament\u2019s] otherwise privileged communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Los Angeles, declined to comment. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Ament\u2019s attorneys also did not comment for this story.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, the U.S. Department of Justice sent Ament a civil investigative demand related to the False Claims Act, a federal law concerning, in part, healthcare fraud against the government.<\/p>\n

The U.S. attorney\u2019s office subpoenaed records about the COVID testing contracts from Santa Ana Unified in 2023 as part of a criminal investigation, according to an LAist article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Ament\u2019s attorneys argued, he has not been accused of any wrongdoing regarding Santa Ana Unified COVID testing contracts to date. <\/p>\n

If Ament\u2019s plea deal remains in place in the Anaheim probe, he is scheduled to be sentenced on April 17. <\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors have urged Aenlle-Rocha to sentence him to time-served, citing his cooperation in the criminal case<\/a> against former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A legal row over whether a former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce leader can withdraw from his plea deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1052,1804,4017,99513,99514,348,3816,14631,5681,29530,99515,37318,99516,14625,5783],"class_list":["post-216920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-attorney","tag-company","tag-contract","tag-diagnostic-lab-services","tag-firas-tamary","tag-investigation","tag-investigator","tag-plea-deal","tag-record","tag-sal-ciulla","tag-school-board-meeting","tag-school-district","tag-swab","tag-todd-ament","tag-u-s-attorney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216920","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=216920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}