Calabasas man found guilty of bribery

Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten has announced the conviction of Bahram Rafi Gholizadeh, a 59-year-old Calabasas resident, on a felony commercial bribery charge.

During the 1990s, Gholizadeh was employed by Pacific Bell as a contract administrator. Gholizadeh oversaw the process by which companies bid on contracts with Pacific Bell for the excavating work at construction sites in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

An investigation revealed that one of the companies that regularly bid for Pacific Bell excavation contracts, Northridge-based Northwest Excavating, Inc., was paying Gholizadeh for his disclosure of the amount of competitors’ confidential bids. Northwest would then bid on the project with the benefit of the information provided by Gholizadeh.

Gholizadeh awarded Northwest more than 100 Pacific Bell excavation contracts during the time that Northwest was paying him for information on competitors’ bids.

Gholizadeh plead guilty to a single felony count of commercial bribery.

He remains out of custody on a $10,000 bond pending his sentencing hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m., Sept. 21 in Division 11 of the Ventura County Superior Court.

The crime of committing bribery under these circumstances carries a maximum possible sentence of three years in state prison.