The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday filed 34 felony charges against former county elected official Joseph Canciamilla for allegedly illegally using campaign funds.
Canciamilla, a Pittsburg resident, resigned last October from his position as county clerk-recorder and in November agreed to pay $150,000 to the California Fair Political Practices Commission after admitting to spending more than $130,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses such as vacations.
The district attorney’s office charged him with 30 counts of felony perjury on 30 separate campaign disclosure forms, as well as four additional felonies related to grand theft of campaign funds for his personal use. The allegations span from 2010 to 2016 and involve nearly $262,000 in funds.
Prosecutors said they were notified in early 2017 by the state Franchise Tax Board of possible criminal activity associated with campaign accounts for Canciamilla, who also has previously been a county supervisor and state assemblyman.
The district attorney’s office said improper expenditures made by Canciamilla’s campaign committees included a personal vacation to Asia, restaurant meals, airfare, repayment of a personal loan, and transfers to his personal bank accounts.
“Canciamilla’s behavior is troubling and he must be held accountable,” Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton said.
His first court appearance in the case is scheduled for July 27.
How many other government officials around him allllll those years and no one suspected or reported a thing?
And that is all we’ve been told about.
Once a crook…
What did that crooked DA get for his crimes?
This joker will get about the same.
Go Diana
That’s a start. Let’s take a look the rest of them now. Public office is a duty not a **cking free for all. All these bums are guilty of the same thing from top to bottom VOTE EM OUT. I’m voting for anyone who already has money and only wants to serve. Every politician in this county is officially put on notice, work for the people, protect the constitution or you’re OUT
Hell Yess , finally, someone who actually knows what’s going,
I think he needs to issue a Canciamilla-culpa. Ba dum dum
Are they going to investigate how many of his friends he did favors for?
The swamp runs deep!
You never heard any of this crap during the tenure of his predecessor, Steve Weir, who held the office for many years without incident.
One was a public servant, the other a politician: guess which was which.
It’s no surprise! Does anyone really think that people in office really care about us? They’re only in it for votes, kickbacks and money. This is why we’re in the situation that we’re in. The Mayor’s of those Cities that are burning down are not even supporting their Police Department. They’re to afraid of losing votes. So now, Officers are leaving. Good for them. Wake up people. The ones we should be taking our frustrations out on are our Public Officials who use us as pawns to get what they want and get richer.
well at least the comments are geared in the right direction
corruption breeds when a single party system reigns
yet most voters are oblivious to that fact and always go with the smoooooth talking slickster ….whos words make them feel cozy and warm and sleepy
the irs caught on to this guy ….that is the only reason ….he was nabbed
his cronies all looked the other way
keep voting for corruption
the actual American citizens fighting for America will fix your mess like we do all the time
ever wonder why your parents were able to support you at your same age now
and you struggle pay check to paycheck
its called democrat lockdown .….your being taxed over and over for nothing
to keep you down and sucking the democrat teet programs to secure your vote
it is what is done in corrupt countries all over the world ….
at least there is that to be a part of…… right….oooh sorry …left
We live paycheck to paycheck because of stagnation of wages.
Another thing is we allow wealthy foreigners to buy their way into America by investing in it.
Taxation also changed drastically in the 80’s. Remember “Trickle Down Theory?” Removing high taxes off the millionaires during this time so CEO’s wages shot up from around $300,000 to multi millions.
Rich people can only get so many hair cuts and buy so many cars and wear so many clothes.
$262 K ….. That’s it?
LoL! Right offhand I can remember one politician who blew $6 billion and can’t account for any of it…. lotsa other blatant violations of the law as well….no charges ever filed, and she laughed at the very idea of ever being indicted for ANYTHING!
Vote all of these losers out including the DA’s who will not prosecute and agree with the catch and release before it gets any worse than it is already.
What? Another crooked California democrat?
@Sam- Amen!!
Hope he had great vacations. Hard to trust an irishman
My wife and I got our marriage license early October and Joe was the one who signed it for us and everything. Like two weeks later we were told to return to get a new license and we had no clue why. A new lady signed the license for us this time, and Joe was still behind the counter doing work in some form for them. We thought it was really weird, and then the news broke that the guy who originally signed our license had been suspected of campaign fraud. Pretty crazy haha.. now we have two marriage licenses, one signed by a crook and another by his replacement.
Per the SF Chronicle, “Canciamilla to pay half of the fine personally and half from campaign funds.”
So the theft continues. He should have to pay the entire fine personally and not be allowed to steal (yet again) from his campaign fund to pay for his inability to follow the law. And to think he was trying to become a judge!?
Is he paying restitution out off his pocket?
His wife, Dr. Laura Canciamilla is president of the Pittsburg Unified School
District’s School Board.
As for Joe, maybe he was just borrowing the money and planned to pay it back?
How long before we learn she is soon to be his EX wife?
Chrissy, Really???
He was not planning on paying it back
He tried to cover it up at the county. He got caught and now needs to
be accountable for his actions. He should go to jail and he should
Pay every penny back out of his own money,
Not campaign funds.
Chrissy, Chrissy, Chrissy …
Just stop.
The culture of politics in CoCo County is rotten. Former DA Mark Perterson, convicted felon and disbarred attorney. Current DA Diana Becton plagiarized 7 times on her application for the DA appointment. Now Joe Canciamilla, who passed himself off as “Hard Working Joe”. Well, at least he took a “go big or go home” approach with his alleged $262,000 theft.
I checked Canciamila’s CA attorney bar license today. He’s still licensed, although inactive. No disciplinary records on public file. Yet.
Don’t forget Gus Kramer. He’s still in office.
Why do the voters in CCC keep electing crooks?!?! They even keep re-electing Gus Kramer, who has quite the history. Ugh.
I never concern myself about taxes. That will only upset people when you have no control over the taxes that are created by our government. As long as they find abuse of how our taxes are applied than I could care less. A complete waste of time. Have fun getting mad at stuff you can’t fix.
You most certainly do have control over taxes. For example, you control the Special Assessment on your yearly Property Taxes by not voting “yes” on every bond measure that comes along. Property taxes are regulated for everyone by measures that were approved by voters in the 70s limiting how much they can be raised yearly and for the county to do otherwise is illegal. You control the sales taxes you pay by not voting “yes” on attempts to raise them. If you’re paying attention, you certainly do have control over attempts to raise taxes by the people you elect. Vote out those who support raising taxes, for example, Julie Pierce in Clayton, Laura Hoffmeister in Concord, Cindy Silva and Kevin Wilk in Walnut Creek. Controlling your taxes simply requires that you pay attention. Are you paying attention? Obviously not if you think you can’t control them.
That just means the “Carni” will simply transfer to another circus leaders’ ring and now a worse vacuum service master will emerge. Got to hand it to those elect me elect me first elitists. My understanding too is that the State has suffered losses by racketeers for decades, if not longer, and with very little legal recourse available.
Who pays for this? Indentured servants, women, children, the current legal slave trade.