Nearly a month after resigning as Baldwin Park’s city attorney amid a federal corruption probe in which he was implicated in a bribery scheme surrounding cannabis businesses, Robert Tafoya has resigned as general counsel at Rialto’s West Valley Water District.

Tafoya submitted his resignation via email to water district General Manager Van Jew about 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, a water district source said on condition of anonymity. Top water district officials declined to comment.

Tafoya, 60, of Covina resigned as Baldwin Park’s city attorney on Oct. 12 after nearly a decade in that post. His decision to step down came just days after he was implicated in a pay-to-play scheme with former Baldwin Park Councilman Ricardo Pacheco involving cannabis companies wanting to do business in the city.

That revelation was contained in federal documents pertaining to Pacheco’s plea agreement and unsealed with the Oct. 7 announcement that former San Bernardino County Planning Commissioner Gabriel Chavez had agreed to plead guilty to funneling bribes through his company to Pacheco in exchange for the councilman’s votes and influence in the Baldwin Park cannabis permitting process.

Election scheme

Those documents linked Pacheco and Tafoya to a scheme to help former Baldwin Park Police Chief Mike Taylor get elected to the water district’s board of directors in November 2017 in a quid pro quo exchange for Tafoya landing a contract as the district’s general counsel and Pacheco an assistant general manager.

From left, Michael Taylor and Ricardo Pacheco . (San Gabriel Valley Tribune file photos)

A marijuana company owner wanting to do business in Baldwin Park contributed $10,000 to Taylor’s campaign, comprising nearly half of the more than $21,000 raised for Taylor during the election and most of all of which was made possible by Pacheco’s web of contacts who were trying to get business permits in Baldwin Park, according to the Department of Justice.

Tafoya, according to the DOJ, crafted hit piece mailers to disseminate during Taylor’s campaign.

Upon Taylor’s successful electon to the water district board, Taylor immediately brought an item before the board recommending Tafoya be retained as the district’s general counsel, which the board approved.

Taylor, according to the DOJ, subsequently coordinated with former board President Clifford Young, now deceased, to create an assistant general manager position for Pacheco paying him nearly $190,000 a year.

Taylor and Young resigned from the water district’s board of directors, Taylor on July 27 and Young on Jan. 3. Young died in August.

Taylor did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

Pacheco case

In an unrelated case, Pacheco agreed to plead guilty in June 2021 to a federal bribery charge for accepting $37,900 from an undercover police officer working as an FBI informant in return for voting in favor of the Baldwin Park Police Association’s 2018 contract with the city. Under his plea agreement, Pacheco agreed to continue cooperating in the federal investigation.

Neither Tafoya, Pacheco nor Taylor have been charged in connection with activities related to the West Valley Water District, which serves 82,000 customers in the communities of Bloomington, Colton, Fontana, Rialto, parts of unincorporated areas in San Bernardino, and Jurupa Valley in Riverside County.

While district officials would not comment on Tafoya’s resignation Friday, agency spokesperson Socorro Pantaleon said in October, when the allegations regarding Taylor, Tafoya and Pacheco were made public, that the district was “deeply disturbed” by the information.

SCNG investigation

The revelations follow an exhaustive yearlong investigation by the Southern California News Group that began in 2019 and included a review of more than 3,000 pages of financial documents and hundreds of pages of court records.

The investigation uncovered myriad problems within the district, including the employment of consultants without contracts, hiring managers and consultants with dubious backgrounds and legal difficulties, and the spending of more than $740,000 to settle lawsuits with former employees. The findings were later confirmed by a California State Controller’s Office audit.

Past legal woes

The federal allegations against Tafoya are the latest in a series leveled against the embattled lawyer in the last several years, some of them at the water district, where political in-fighting saw board members and administrators often clash.

Once allied with Taylor and Tafoya, Young sued Tafoya in February 2019, alleging he participated in bribery and kickback schemes involving other board members and contracted attorneys and consultants. Also named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit were former Chief Financial Officer Naisha Davis and former assistant board secretary Patricia Romero.

Young named Taylor and Pacheco as co-conspirators in the litigation, despite having supported Taylor in his 2017 election campaign and allegedly helping secure Tafoya’s and Pacheco’s employment contracts at the district.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge, however, dismissed the lawsuit in February 2020, concluding the plaintiffs failed to make their case and that it was the “equivalent of a smear.”

In September 2019, a state appellate court upheld more than $36,000 in sanctions against Tafoya, concluding he filed a frivolous disability discrimination lawsuit against Popchips Inc. and Sonora Mills Foods Inc. on behalf of a client in September 2017. The court determined, among other things, that Tafoya walked out on his client during lunch break on the second day of trial, never to return, forcing his client to complete the trial alone. Tafoya later claimed he got sick.

Additionally, Tafoya ignored repeated evidence of the frivolity of the case and his client’s deceit, and engaged in “scorched-Earth litigation tactics to dramatically and unnecessarily increase the costs of litigation in hopes of extorting a settlement from the defendants,” the court determined.

Tafoya could not be reached for comment Friday. Listed phone numbers for his law office in Los Angeles were disconnected and he did not respond to an email.