Man admits to making truck drivers pay bribes

Lodi resident ordered to pay $46K in restitution; he could get year in jail

A Lodi man must repay truckers a total of $46,000 and could spend up to a year in jail after pleading guilty in a case prosecutors said was San Joaquin County's first commercial bribery prosecution.

James Melvin Canclini, 42, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one felony count each of tax evasion and grand theft, as well as a misdemeanor charge of harassing some of the witnesses who would later testify against him.

Canclini, who had spent his entire adult life working for T&T Trucking, pleaded guilty on the second day of his preliminary hearing, Deputy District Attorney Steve Taylor said Thursday.

Until he was fired, Canclini was working as a dispatcher at the trucking firm, located in south Lodi on the east Highway 99 Frontage Road. For at least three years, he took money from truck drivers, in exchange for preferable delivery runs.

If a truck driver did not cooperate, Canclini would either not give the trucker any jobs or would send him on the runs he did not want.

In one instance, according to an arrest affidavit, Canclini charged a 27-year driver $50 a month, starting in 2000, in order to keep the driver from having to travel to Los Angeles. The fee was gradually increased to $150. When the trucker stopped paying, he got fewer jobs.

"This is the first time we've had a case involving a shakedown so someone can keep their jobs," Taylor said. "We're going into rough times in the economy and we want to make it clear that anyone who tries to shake down people to keep their jobs is going to have to answer to the sheriff and the court."

Canclini could not be reached for comment and his public defender, Dorothy Mead, said she could not comment until the case was complete.

Attorneys and Judge Xapuri Villapudua agreed to postpone sentencing to July so Canclini could try to gather money toward restitution, Taylor said. If Canclini has repaid the money by then, sentencing could be postponed further so he can stay out of jail, Taylor said.

"The main thing is to do what we can for the truckers," he said.

The investigation began nearly two years ago, when T&T Trucking conducted an internal review and subsequently fired Canclini in December 2006. When owner and president Terry Tarditi had enough proof, and also learned that Canclini had kept records of the bribes, he went to authorities.

The truck drivers themselves never would have come forward, both Taylor and Tarditi said, because many were immigrants who didn't know bribery is a crime. Some would even take Canclini food, in addition to the money.

"It wasn't right," Tarditi said. "That's not the way we did business and I wanted to make things right."

Sheriff's investigators got a warrant to search Canclini's Lodi home and found a notebook, later dubbed "Exhibit 6" in court, in which Canclini had detailed the monetary transactions over a three-year period. It was even kept near his tax records — and the income was never reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

Investigators still believe Canclini got more money, but Taylor said they had no actual proof, other than witnesses who said he'd bragged about taking bribes for years.

Canclini was formally charged in early October, when he asked for a public defender and was jailed on $250,000 bail. One day later, he posted bond through a Martinez bail bond company. Bond agents collect a 10 percent fee, meaning that Canclini paid $25,000.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the preliminary hearing started this week. Just as the first truck driver was about to testify, Canclini asked for a plea deal.

Because he pleaded guilty to income tax evasion for three years, the IRS will likely take administrative action against him. It wasn't clear Thursday whether he will have to pay back taxes if he does return the money to the victims.

For Tarditi, who had spent about six hours on the witness stand this week, it was a relief. He was upset that his trusted truck drivers had ever been victimized, and said he now has checks and balances so it will never happen again.

"There's always dishonest people who are going to take advantage of you," Tarditi said. "This was one for the good guys."

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.