5 Sentenced in Campaign Money Laundering Case

Five members of a politically prominent Eastside business group have been fined and sentenced to community service after pleading guilty to obstructing justice in a state Fair Political Practices Commission investigation of a campaign money laundering case.

Steven A. Soto, president of the Mexican American Grocers Assn., received the heaviest sentence Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court--a suspended, 180-day jail term; three years’ supervised probation, 800 hours’ work on Caltrans road crews or graffiti cleanup teams and a $2,000 fine.

Association officials Joe Hernandez, Jerome Wilson Lloyd and David Villafana were all placed on three years’ probation and fined $2,000. Community service for the three ranged from 675 hours for Villafana to 300 hours for Hernandez. Rosemarie Faris, another association official, was sentenced to two years’ probation and 150 hours of community service. She was fined $1,000.

In 1995, felony charges arising in connection with thousands of dollars in allegedly illegal campaign contributions were filed against the five. FPPC senior counsel Mark Morodomi said that in December, the five pleaded guilty to lesser misdemeanor charges of obstructing the FPPC investigation of the case.