Former Building Inspector to Face More Charges

The district attorney’s office plans to file additional charges against the former chief building inspector of Manhattan Beach for a double-billing scam that allegedly netted him about $85,000 in two years.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryant Bushling said Thursday that his office will be filing charges of perjury, grand theft and misappropriation of public funds June 17 when Mohamed Ganaba, 48, has a preliminary hearing on previous charges of perjury and conflict of interest for personally doing the engineering calculations on some plans submitted for building permits.

In the most recent case, investigators said they discovered that from 1993 to 1995 Ganaba would ask an outside engineering firm to bill Manhattan Beach for work that had already been done by the building department. The engineering firm reportedly was told by Ganaba to use two subcontractors and pay them for the work.

Investigators said the subcontractors turned out to be two female friends of Ganaba whose names were on two joint bank accounts with the former Manhattan Beach building inspector.

Manhattan Beach Police Det. Ed Medlock said the department is investigating whether the women were aware that their names were being used on the joint bank accounts that totaled $85,000.

Ganaba resigned in September after being on administrative leave since July.

At that time, building permit technicians Yvette Deans and Mary Llewellyn alleged that over a four-year period Ganaba made numerous unwanted sexual comments and advances toward them. In July, they filed lawsuits seeking nearly $30 million in damages from the city, Ganaba and his boss, Byron Woosley, who also resigned. The city settled the suit for $325,000.

During the depositions for the sexual harassment lawsuit, it was alleged that from 1988 to 1995 Ganaba was working for an outside architectural firm doing engineering calculations for building plans later submitted to the city building department for a permit.

Neither Ganaba nor his attorney Don Stansbarger was available for comment.