Melahat Rafiei, a former political consultant and Democratic Party of Orange County executive who became a key witness in the FBI’s corruption investigation in Anaheim, was sentenced to six months in prison on Friday.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s office had supported a probation sentence. U.S. District Court Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha handed down the 6 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, stunning many in the courtroom. Rafiei must also pay a $10,000 fine.
After prosecutors secured a bribery charge against Rafiei in 2019, she became a key witness for the FBI “to help expose corruption in the Anaheim government,” leading to guilty pleas from former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu and former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament, according to her defense attorney, Jennifer Wirsching. Once the federal investigation into Sidhu and Ament became public in 2022, the $320 million sale of Angel Stadium was canceled just before it was final.
In her plea deal, Rafiei admitted that in 2018 she was offering a cannabis company the opportunity to bribe Irvine councilmembers in exchange for getting their support in introducing and passing a law allowing retail cannabis stores to open in the city. That was why FBI agents originally arrested her.
That bribery charge against Rafiei was later dropped. No councilmembers were named in her plea agreement, nor have any allegations against any councilmembers been made by prosecutors. No current councilmembers were serving at that time.
In her January 2023 plea deal, she admitted to one count of attempted wire fraud for falsely representing to the cannabis company owner that $200,000 she had requested for services would go to the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce when she instead intended to split it equally between herself and an associate not affiliated with the chamber.
Neither Anaheim nor Irvine ended up passing any retail cannabis laws.
Prosecutors ahead of the hearing told the judge in filings that without Rafiei, the government would likely not have been able to charge Ament or Sidhu.
Sidhu spent about a month in prison this summer for his corruption charges.
Ament appeared in court on Friday before Rafiei, but his sentencing has been postponed again. He also became a witness for the FBI’s case against Sidhu and prosecutors have proposed removing one of his charges.
Rafiei had been a political consultant for several Orange County elected leaders. She was the executive director of the Democratic Party of Orange County from 2007 to 2009 and later became secretary for the California Democratic Party in 2021. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed her to the OC Fair Board in 2021. She resigned from those positions in May 2023.
