Convicted fraudster who donated to John McCann’s campaign after he helped cut her sentence headed back to prison

John McCann speaks on voting night Chris Stone On the last day of his first term in January U S President Donald Trump issued scores of pardons and commutations including one to a South County businesswoman whose plea for release from prison was supported by Chula Vista s then-deputy mayor John McCann Back then McCann mentioned that he was questioned to assistance the woman then known under her married name of Adriana Shayota by her brother Andres Camberos the former owner of Chula Vista s first legal cannabis business McCann called her an incredibly good person who got caught up in a massive food counterfeiting and fraud scheme headed by her husband Joseph at the exporting firm they both owned He wrote a letter that was part of the clemency package that landed in front of Trump But just six weeks after her release according to federal prosecutors in San Diego Adriana was back in the fraud contest with her brother Over the next two years her second food fraud scheme netted them an estimated million in profits court records show They also contributed money to political campaigns including McCann s campaign finance records show The brother and sister each contributed the maximum allowed under the city law to McCann s mayoral campaign And months later Adriana Camberos dropped a contribution into the coffers of The Neighborhood Leadership Coalition a political action committee sponsored by the Lincoln Club of San Diego County That committee spent on a variety of campaigns and causes that year the records show But chief among them was independent expenditures opposing the campaign of McCann s opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar In all the PAC shelled out nearly opposing Campa-Najjar s bid in by far its largest expenditure on a single candidate that year McCann won that race with of the vote Now he s running for the District seat on the county Board of Supervisors McCann gained the preponderance votes in a primary electoral process April and faces runner-up and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre He faces an uphill fight in the district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a - margin The outcome in the nominally nonpartisan race will affect the overall makeup of the Board of Supervisors which is now split with two Republicans and two Democrats The board faces a number of crucial issues in the coming years including budget issues tackling the housing and homeless dilemma and anticipated new taxes and fees the acting board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer called for in a speech April In an interview McCann read a report reiterating he was questioned to write a letter in assistance as did other unknown area leaders years ago and noted the Aguirre campaign was dredging up a five-year old story as the runoff campaign got underway In I along with other locality leaders was solicited to write a letter to aid the reduction in the sentence of Adriana Shayota he explained I believe in giving people second chances Understanding she was a mother with no prior convictions and completing almost half of her -month sentence I provided a letter of aid for her commutation to her family Miss Shayota was given a remarkable opportunity to restore her life I was saddened she chose instead to engage in illegal activity after her commutation This is unfortunate but she will suffer the consequences of her choices McCann explained that he met Andres Camberos while touring Grasshopper Delivery the first licensed cannabis dispensary in Chula Vista The two had attended Bonita Vista High School albeit at different times and Andres Camberos recounted him about his sister s plight McCann disclosed he researched the episode and then decided to write the letter He announced he did not know of the family s campaign contributions in I was not aware of them at the time he commented I was purely too busy campaigning Campaign finance records show in the Lincoln Club committee spent funds on separate campaigns and opposed four candidates None received the level of opposition as Campar-Najjar s race The committee spent about opposing the campaign of San Diego Unified School Board candidate Cody Petterson and a total of against two candidates running for county supervisor and mayor of Vista The campaign consultant for Aguirre blasted McCann s connection to the Camberos Mayors are supposed to stop criminals but John McCann helps them out of prison and takes their money instead revealed consultant Dan Rottenstreich The scam Adriana Camberos and then-husband Joseph Shayota were convicted of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods and copyright infringement in federal court in San Francisco in for a scheme involving the -Hour Vigor drink The administration explained their company Tradeway International had a deal with the makers of the potency drink to distribute the product in Mexico The manufacturer sold them bottles with labels in Spanish at a discount from the price for distributors in the U S territory Instead the Shayotas re-labeled the bottle scraping off the Spanish language labels with a razor blade then slapping on bogus English labels They then sold the drink back into the U S area at U S field prices Later the company brazenly concocted its own home brew version of the drink and for nearly a year sold millions of bottles of the drink in the U S Adriana Camberos began her -month sentence in December Her family began seeking her release nearly right away according to an account in The New York Times hiring lawyers and filing a petition for clemency Just two months after she began serving her sentence Andres Camberos made a donation to a Trump re-election campaign committee according to federal records After getting her grant of clemency federal prosecutors explained the siblings engaged in a similar scam This time they purchased from manufacturers a wider array of goods snacks beverages everyday consumer goods according to court records with the promise to sell them in Mexico or in prisons and rehabilitation centers in the U S They bought the goods again at discount And again the products were sold back into the U S area at regular prices and the two pocketed the difference in prices as profit Read the rest of the story at inewsource org