Building Inspector Agrees to Plead Guilty in Bribery Case a Day After His Eagle Rock Colleague is Indicted

A Los Angeles city building inspector from Altadena agreed to plead guilty in a federal bribery case yesterday, a day after one of his colleagues, an Eagle Rock resident, was indicted by a federal grand jury on similar bribery charges following their arrests by the FBI on April 9, according to a Department of Justice prosecutor.

Raoul Joseph Germain, 59, of Altadena and Hugo Joel Gonzalez, 49, of Eagle Rock, were arrested following investigation into allegations that they took cash bribes in exchange for granting permit approvals on residential construction projects in South Los Angeles.

Germain was caught on camera accepting $6,000 in bribes from an undercover FBI agent in a sting after the agency received a tip-off about the building inspector. Gonzalez allegedly received at least $9,000 in bribes from an informant and an undercover agent.

Germain could receive a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, according to Assistant United States Attorney Joe Akrotirianakis. Both Germain and Gonzalez worked on the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, which is responsible for inspection of construction projects in the city.

According to the criminal complaint, both inspectors were accused of taking bribes by a residential developer who was in contact with the two inspectors in the course of doing construction work in the city.  The informant, who is not named in the complaint, told the FBI that he had personally made 30 to 40 bribes to department inspectors. The FBI began an investigation against the two after a work site supervisor contacted the federal agency in the summer of 2010.

Those bribes included paying for vacations for inspectors, buying materials at stores associated with the inspector, or doing construction work at the home of inspectors. Gonzalez accepted his first documented bribe in August 2010 in exchange for signing inspection cards for two properties—an act that he described to the informant as “preferential treatment,” according to the FBI.

In exchange for the bribes, the inspectors did not inspect any of the projects they were responsible for assessing for compliance with city building codes. The  inspectors were put on administrative leave on Feb. 28.

German was approached by an undercover FBI agent who told him he was paying too much in bribes to another city inspector. Germain then offered to sign off on inspection papers in return for $1,500, according to the complaint.

An arraignment for Gonzalez is scheduled after 8:30 a.m. on Monday in the U.S. District Court in the Roybal Federal Building on Temple Street downtown.