Ventura County Man Sentenced to Two Years in Federal Prison for Bribing Los Angeles County Officials and Cheating on His Taxes: Enrique Contreras of Newbury Park was sentenced to 24 months in prison for paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes ... https://t.co/SfcSSDCRmK— FBI Los Angeles (@FBILosAngeles) July 28, 2020
U.S. Dept of Justice
Monday, July 27, 2020
LOS ANGELES – A Ventura County man was sentenced today to 24 months in federal prison for paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to public officials in Los Angeles County in order to secure government contracts for his electrical contracting company.
Enrique Contreras, 40, of Newbury Park, was sentenced by United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner, who also ordered him to pay $821,366 – $600,000 to Los Angeles County and $221,366 to the United States Treasury – in restitution.
Contreras pleaded guilty in May 2019 to one count of bribery and one count of subscribing to a false tax return. He paid his restitution amount prior to today’s sentencing hearing.
To secure lucrative contracts from the Los Angeles County government for his Lancaster-based low-voltage electrical wiring company, Tel/Pro Voice and Data, Inc., Contreras bribed two County officials with payments totaling $600,000. Then, in an effort to conceal the bribes and lower Tel-Pro’s taxable income, Contreras falsely claimed that some of the bribe payments, along with other personal expenses, were legitimate business expenses incurred by Tel-Pro.
As a result of those fraudulent deductions, Contreras failed to report a total of $636,454 in income from 2013 to 2017 and he owes $221,366 in unpaid taxes.
The two County officials who accepted Contreras’s bribes were Mohammad R. Tirmazi, 51, of Alta Loma, who was an employee at Los Angeles County’s Internal Services Department, and Thomas J. Shepos, 71, of Palmdale, a public official formerly employed by the County in the Real Estate Division.
From 2013 to 2016, Contreras made cash payments to Shepos, totaling approximately $200,000 to $300,000, in exchange for Shepos providing non-public County information to Contreras and helping Contreras secure County contracts.
Last month, Tirmazi was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for accepting nearly $300,000 in bribes from Contreras and then failing to report the income he received from those bribes and a side business on his federal tax returns.
Shepos pleaded guilty in November 2018 to accepting bribes and is scheduled to be sentenced on December 7.
One of the individuals from whom Shepos admitting receiving bribes was real estate developer Arman Gabaee, 59, of Beverly Hills. Gabaee was arrested and subsequently indicted on federal bribery charges in 2018, which includes allegations that he offered to buy Shepos a $1.1 million home in Northern California’s wine country. His trial is currently scheduled for November 3 before United States District Judge George H. Wu.
This matter was investigated by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ruth C. Pinkel and Lindsey Greer Dotson of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section.
Mohammad R. Tirmazi, 51, of Alta Loma was working in the county's Internal Services Department when he accepted bribes from 2014 to 2017 from the owner of a low-voltage electrical wiring vendor that performed work for the county.https://t.co/jrpOZjtD2A— KFI AM 640 (@KFIAM640) June 23, 2020
L.A. County public official sentenced to one year in federal prison for accepting bribes and cheating on income tax returns https://t.co/gh5CBrG6WJ— US Attorney L.A. (@USAO_LosAngeles) June 23, 2020
U.S. Dept of Justice
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
LOS ANGELES – A public official in Los Angeles County’s Internal Services Department was sentenced today to 12 months and one day in federal prison for accepting nearly $300,000 in bribes from an electrical contractor and then failing to report the income he received from those bribes and a side business on his federal tax returns.
Mohammad R. Tirmazi, 51, of Upland, was sentenced by United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner, who also ordered Tirmazi to pay $420,010 in restitution to the County of Los Angeles and the Internal Revenue Service.
In May 2019, Tirmazi pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging him with federal program bribery and subscribing to a false tax return.
Tirmazi worked for the county, first as a supervising telecom engineer and then in 2016 as a section manager for the voice video and application division of the county’s Internal Services Department. He accepted bribes from Enrique Contreras, 40, of Newbury Park, the owner of Tel-Pro Voice & Data, Inc., a vendor that performed low voltage electrical wiring for the county. From late 2014 to 2016, the owner of Tel-Pro paid defendant with cash, checks and gifts. In sum, the bribes totaled $299,707.
In exchange for the bribes, Tirmazi approved change orders requested by Contreras for, among other things, work that did not occur and materials that were not used on county projects.
Tirmazi did not report, or did not force Contreras to correct, violations of the county’s Building and Safety Code or the National Electrical Code that Tirmazi uncovered during inspections of Tel-Pro’s work. Some of those violations related to asbestos removal and Tel-Pro’s failure to properly install cables. Tirmazi admitted in his plea agreement that he generally considered Tel-Pro’s work to be “shoddy,” but he overlooked its poor work because of the bribes Contreras paid him.
Tirmazi formed a Whittier-based company called TEQ Solutions, LLC as a way to conceal bribe payments from Contreras, court filings state. Contreras, who bribed Tirmazi with cash and gifts, also paid Tirmazi with checks made payable to TEQ Solutions that were disguised to look like payment for legitimate services rendered. Because TEQ Solutions did no work for Contreras or Tel-Pro, the checks were nothing more than bribes.
To hide his ownership of TEQ Solutions, Tirmazi used a third party to file the business paperwork and open a bank account. To lower TEQ Solutions’ taxable income, and thus keep more of the bribe money he received, Tirmazi issued sham IRS Form 1099s to make it appear as though other individuals had received income from TEQ Solutions for work legitimately performed.
Tirmazi failed to report on his tax returns for years 2014 to 2016 a total of $355,107 of income he received from bribe payments and a side business selling IT equipment.
Contreras pleaded guilty in May 2019 to federal program bribery and subscribing to a false tax return. He admitted in his plea agreement that he failed to report a total of $636,454 of income he received from 2013 to 2017 as a result of his improper deduction of bribe payments and other personal expenses.
In his plea agreement, Contreras also admitted to bribing two county officials—Tirmazi and Thomas J. Shepos, 70, of Palmdale, a public official formerly employed by the county in the Real Estate Division. Shepos pleaded guilty in November 2018 to accepting bribes and is scheduled to be sentenced on December 7. Contreras’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 27.
From 2013 to 2016, Contreras made cash payments to Shepos, totaling approximately $200,000 to $300,000, in exchange for Shepos providing non-public county information to Contreras and helping Contreras secure county contracts.
One of the individuals from whom Shepos admitting receiving bribes was real estate developer Arman Gabaee, 59, of Beverly Hills. Gabaee was arrested and subsequently indicted on federal bribery charges in 2018. His trial is currently scheduled for November 3 before United States District Judge George H. Wu.
Tirmazi, Contreras, and Shepos have agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.
These cases were investigated by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation.
These cases are being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ruth C. Pinkel and Lindsey Greer Dotson of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section.
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