SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the former head of the nation’s largest public pension fund to 4½ years in prison in a case in which he acknowledged accepting bribes and trying to steer investments to help an associate.
Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer called the case against Federico Buenrostro seriously troubling before sentencing the former chief executive of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
Buenrostro pleaded guilty two years ago, acknowledging that he started taking bribes around 2005 to try to get staff members to make investment decisions that helped Alfred Villalobos, an investment manager and former board member of the pension fund.
Buenrostro said he accepted more than $200,000 from Villalobos as well as a trip around the world. He apologized to the court before he was sentenced, saying he was humiliated, embarrassed and deeply ashamed.
Villalobos killed himself last year, weeks before he was set to go on trial. He had pleaded innocent to fraud charges.
Buenrostro’s guilty plea came out of a yearslong investigation into the role of money-management firm middlemen, called placement agents, in helping clients win investment business from the pension fund. The fund manages health and retirement benefits for state employees and has about $290 billion in assets.
As part of his plea deal, Buenrostro acknowledged giving Villalobos access to confidential investment information and forging letters that allowed firms connected with Villalobos to collect a $14 million commission on $3 billion worth of pension fund investments.
The former executive faced up to five years in prison, but the U.S. attorney’s office asked for a shorter term last week, citing Buenrostro’s cooperation in the case against Villalobos. He also has agreed to pay back $250,000 to the state, prosecutors said.
They sought the shorter sentence despite Buenrostro being sent to jail when he violated the terms of his probation on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge by making contact with the victim, authorities say. He pleaded no contest in that case in March.
Still, prosecutors said his actions should not “nullify his hard work to provide information to the Department of Justice and others while fully embracing the full scope and impact of his own corrupt conduct.”