LOS ANGELES — The mayor of Pico Rivera and the owner of an education consulting firm have been charged with improperly reimbursing family members and friends for donating money to a candidate who was running for a seat on Montebello’s school board, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced June 23.
Pico Rivera Mayor Gustavo Vidal Camacho, 54, and Luis Diaz Rojas, 55, are set to be arraigned Oct. 8 in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on one felony count each of conspiracy to commit improper identification of a campaign contributor and one misdemeanor count each of making a campaign contribution under a false name or improper identification of a campaign contributor, prosecutors said.
Camacho and Rojas, owner of the DelTerra Group, allegedly engaged in a scheme to launder contributions to Joanna Flores, a Montebello Unified School District board member, according to prosecutors.
The company specializes in managing school construction projects and has worked on projects in Montebello, Pico Rivera and Whittier over the years, many of which involved litigation.
An independent audit in 2018 of the firm’s work on a project for the Montebello Unified School District called on the firm to refund money the district had paid or prove how it had provided services to the district.
