Former Official Fined $27,000 : Courts: Robert Munoz pleads guilty to violating a conflict-of- interest law while he served on a state job-training panel. He tells the judge he is ‘truly sorry.’

A former state job-training official from Oxnard was fined $27,000 and sentenced to three years of probation Friday for violating a state conflict-of-interest law.

Robert Munoz had pleaded guilty a few hours earlier to two misdemeanor criminal charges stemming from actions while he was a member of a state panel that awards job-training contracts.

Criminal prosecutions under the 17-year-old Political Reform Act have been rare.

“I don’t recall another prosecution under the act in Ventura County,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Matthew J. Hardy said.

Municipal Court Judge Herbert Curtis III said the Munoz case represented a serious breach of the law.

“You made an extreme error in judgment,” Curtis told Munoz.

Munoz, 56, now a resident of Barstow, apologized to the court for violating the law.

“I am truly sorry for any of the actions I took in this matter,” he said.

Between 1986 and 1990, Munoz, a longtime Oxnard resident and insurance broker, was a gubernatorial appointee on the state Employment Training Panel.

Munoz pleaded guilty to breaking the law in June, 1990, when he voted to extend a $2-million job-training contract to Boskovich Farms, a Camarillo-based vegetable grower.

According to the government, Munoz previously had received about $40,000 in consulting fees from the grower and should have disqualified himself from the vote.

A second charge to which Munoz pleaded guilty was failure to report $15,000 of income from Ebasco Constructors in 1989 on his annual statement of financial interest, which is required of state officials.

Neither the grower nor the construction firm were charged with any wrongdoing.

Under the law, Munoz could have been sentenced to a year in jail and fined up to $55,000.

In a deal with the county prosecutor, two other misdemeanor charges were dropped when Munoz pleaded guilty.

Curtis followed the recommendation of a Ventura County probation officer, placing Munoz on what is known as conditional probation. That means he does not have to report periodically to a probation officer.

Under the terms of the fine, Munoz will be allowed to pay the $27,000 at the rate of $500 a month, beginning in December.

Hardy told the court that Munoz “betrayed an important public trust and there is no justification for that.”

Still, he told reporters later, it was appropriate to keep Munoz out of jail.

“I don’t think it’s terribly responsible or ethical for prosecutors to send out a message that we’re going to abuse or humiliate (defendants). That’s not what (prosecutors) are supposed to do.”

Both Munoz and his attorney, Hector C. Perez of Newport Beach, declined to talk with reporters after the sentencing hearing.

According to the probation report presented to the court, Munoz declared that he makes $2,500 a month as a Barstow businessman.

The report said that Munoz “repeatedly stated” he had made “a mistake in judgment” that led to Friday’s sentencing.

“However, he does not think he harmed anyone but himself in all this,” the report said.