Two County Men Charged in Bribery Indictment

Two county men were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of taking more than $7,600 in bribes from the operator of a security business while they were deputy marshals in the federal courthouse in Los Angeles.

Joseph Gieniec, 43, of Santa Ana, who transferred out of the U.S. Marshals Service in 1986; and Gordon Tornberg, 59, of Tustin, who continues to work for that office, were accused of accepting gratuities in 1984 from Joseph Rydzewski, who owned a Santa Ana company that supplied security-guard services to the marshals.

Rydzewski, 33, of Santa Ana was charged separately with paying illegal gratuities in 1984 to Gieniec and Eugene Howell, who was a deputy marshal in 1986. Howell was not indicted.

The federal grand jury indictment does not detail what the defendants are accused of doing in exchange for the alleged bribes, except to say that the payments, most of them by check, were allegedly made “because of official acts performed or to be performed.”

Gieniec denied the charges. “Something like this is so ludicrous,” he said. “If I take a bribe, I sure am not going to do it by check.”

When reached at his home, Tornberg would say about the indictment only that “there’s a great deal of flaw in it.”

Rydzewski could not be reached for comment.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Bruce E. Reinhart, a prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, declined to comment.

The indictment said Tornberg supervised seizures of property sought by the U.S. attorney’s office. Gieniec often used workers from Rydzewski’s company, Lyons International Security, in those seizures.

Tornberg reviewed and approved Lyons’ billings, the indictment said.

While working under Tornberg from May to July, 1984, according to the indictment, Gieniec sought and accepted more than $4,232 in cash and checks from Rydzewski.

The indictment said checks for $225.62 and $817.88 paid Gieniec’s mortgages; checks for $500 and $190 went to him personally, and $2,500 was paid in cash.

Tornberg, the indictment alleges, accepted $3,465 in bribes from March to June, 1984.

According to the document, Rydzewski paid $2,165 in legal services for Tornberg, besides giving him $1,300 in cash and checks.