OXNARD : Former State Jobs Official Is Charged

Ventura County prosecutors filed criminal conflict-of-interest charges Friday against a former state official from Oxnard, alleging that he accepted more than $40,000 from two businesses whose job-training contracts he later voted to approve.

Robert Munoz, a member of the state Employment Training Panel until last September, was charged with two conflict-of-interest violations, Special Assistant Dist. Atty. Donald D. Coleman said.

He was also charged with two counts of failing to disclose income on financial reports that public officials must file each year, Coleman said.

All four counts are misdemeanors, and each carries a maximum sentence of six months in County Jail and a $10,000 fine.

Munoz has agreed to appear for arraignment in Ventura County Municipal Court on Sept. 10, Coleman said.

Prosecutors charge that Munoz broke the law in June, 1990, when he voted to extend a $2.3-million state contract with Boskovich Farms after receiving a consultant’s fee of about $40,000 from the Camarillo-based vegetable grower.

Munoz, a 59-year-old insurance broker, also was charged with having a conflict of interest when voting last August to award a $592,000 contract to a company partly owned by a longtime associate who leased office space from him for three years.