Former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament is now claiming he’s innocent after pleading guilty to multiple fraud charges in 2022, just weeks before he was set to be sentenced for those crimes.
Ament, a key figure in the 2022 Anaheim corruption scandal, submitted a motion last month to withdraw the guilty plea he entered into more than three years ago arguing that he accepted a plea agreement based on bad advice from his former lawyer, Salvatore Ciulla.
“I told my prior counsel, Salvatore Ciulla, that I could not admit to the facts alleged in the Plea Agreement. The reason: the facts were untrue,” Ament wrote in his sworn statement on Nov. 4. “Despite my protests of my innocence and an inherently flawed factual basis, Mr. Ciulla directed me to plead guilty.”…