Why does Cal-OSHA keep a manager with a history of abuse and alleged misconduct?

In 2021, a Cal-OSHA district manager assigned to the Santa Ana office pleaded guilty to 14 felonies in a bribery scheme involving cash for reduced fines; it was among the worst scandals in the agency’s history.

After the conviction of Richard Fazlollahi, Erika Monteroza, spokeswoman for the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees Cal-OSHA, said the case demonstrated the department’s “commitment to cooperate fully in investigations of criminal wrongdoing of our own department. We take allegations of impropriety seriously.”

Despite that pledge and within months of the guilty plea, Cal-OSHA placed a man with a criminal history of abuse in charge of the office that protects Orange County’s 3.2 million people.

Cal-OSHA first hired Ujitha “AJ” Perera in 2015 as a safety inspector while he was facing domestic abuse charges in Tulare County for battering a woman he had been in a relationship with, false imprisonment, child endangerment and dissuading a victim from reporting a crime.

In his first week on the job with Cal-OSHA, Perera reached a deal, pleading no contest to a reduced charge of disturbing the peace. The judge imposed domestic violence sanctions, including a stay-away order and 52 weeks of court-ordered classes for abusers — a program that examines “the nature of violence, the dynamics of power and control, and the effects of abuse.”

But according to current and former officials who have worked with Perera, as well lawsuits and in complaints to the state auditor, he has bullied staff, improperly ordered citations downgraded and promoted and hired unqualified staff who allegedly exaggerated their experience.

He is still in the job.

Alexis Lopez, a safety inspector working under Perera, filed a lawsuit in 2023 alleging verbal abuse and orders “to make inappropriate citations or not follow policy and not cite employers when citations were warranted. ” The lawsuit states: “The district manager is supposed to guide the investigator in enforcing Title 8 of the state of California’s safety and health regulations.” It also notes that “Perera was very controlling” and that “many investigators wanted to leave the office due to a lot of the unethical and integrity issues at the Santa Ana office.”

The department settled Lopez’s lawsuit for $40,000 and reassigned him to another office. Monteroza said in an email that the taxpayer funded settlement did not include admission of wrongdoing.

Perera did not respond to requests to comment.

Assemblymember Liz Ortega, D-San Leandro, who had prompted a state audit that in 2025 found Cal-OSHA was closing cases without inspection, said, after seeing documents related the Santa Ana Cal-OSHA office: “How can we expect employers to follow the law when the agency that is supposed to enforce it won’t even do that?” she said.

The Department of Industrial Relations declined to answer specific questions. In a statement, spokeswoman Denisse Gomez said DIR “takes allegations of misconduct seriously and reviews them through the appropriate processes.”

What we found

The Bee’s investigation into Perera reveals allegedly improper actions and hiring. Documents, records and interviews show:

• At least a half-dozen complaints filed with DIR management included bullying complaints; a lawsuit was filed; and whistleblower referrals were made to the state auditor.
• Using state resources and on state time, Perera ran an off-the-books real estate and construction business. At his rental properties, Perera watched his workers through video cameras he monitored from California.
• In 2025, DIR hired Perera’s wife Judith Perera. Her work experience included more than a decade working for a perfume company owned by the couple.
• Perera also was listed as a supervisor on his wife’s application for a state safety inspector job, vouching for her work at Aromas & Perfumes, a business the two owned together. She also claimed thousands of hours of safety experience managing a KFC and an Arby’s.
• Perera hired an office tech — whose qualifications the department had rejected twice — as a safety inspector. In her first year, she closed 15 of 35 inspections with no citations, including cases involving an amputation, a brain injury and broken ribs, sometimes without interviewing the injured worker.
• At least three employees supervised by Perera have filed bullying complaints with DIR’s Office of Equity and Risk. All were rejected, including one last year that concluded that an alleged incident in which Perera yelled at an employee at his desk did not meet the “the definition of workplace bullying.”
• A mobile mechanic whose thumb was torn off said he was not contacted during the inspection of his accident. The “no-violation” finding that resulted is now being used by his employer to fight his workers’ compensation claim.

A side business that broke OSHA rules

According to interviews and records, Perera built an off-the-books real estate and construction business, parts of which operated in Ohio. Some documents called it Jaya-Sri Investments LLC.

One worker for his side business, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation, and a witness, said he fell from an Ohio rooftop in 2021 after Perera did not provide a safety harness. He said he still struggles with chronic pain.

“I said to AJ, how can you work for Cal-OSHA and do everything so unsafely?” the injured worker said in an interview.

Garrett Brown is a former Cal-OSHA inspector and special advisor to Cal-OSHA’s former chief Ellen Widess. “There’ve been people that have been fired from Cal-OSHA for running businesses on state time,” he said. “It’s totally in violation of the code of conduct. How could you possibly oversee worker safety when you yourself are exploiting workers and violating the labor code?”

Police reports from Ohio — where Perera purchased several homes and then transported workers there from California — show that Perera allegedly placed his hands on the neck of a woman who worked for him. He was also in a relationship with her.

After the relationship soured, Perera used his DIR email to tell her that, “in order not to be homeless,” the woman should accept $2,000 in exchange for not contacting his employer — and sign over the title to a car she had purchased.

Complaints to the state auditor

In 2024, Perera made an office technician a safety inspector. According to state salary records maintained by Transparent California, Chriselda Rosales’s salary grew from $43,368 to $114,060, a salary bump of $70,000.

The promotion prompted two complaints to the state auditor, which said she lacked the safety experience and technical knowledge to investigate workplace accidents that can result in amputations, brain injuries and other life-threatening injuries.

One complaint to the auditor filed in July stated:

“Attached for your immediate review are the official state applications for both Chriselda Rosales and Judith Perera, both of which contain heavily embellished employment histories designed to deceptively bypass CalHR minimum qualifications for specialized investigator positions.

“Prior to her clerical role, Ms. Rosales’s primary professional experience consisted of working as a dental office manager and an apartment property manager. These roles completely lack the required foundational safety engineering or technical enforcement experience mandated by California civil service specifications for an ASE.

“Judith Perera: Ms. Perera’s actual professional background is limited to fast-food and retail environments, including stints at KFC, Arby’s, and operating as the co-owner of a retail perfumery with her husband.”

Neither Rosales or Judith Perera responded to requests for an interview.

Rosales’ two state applications — one for the office technician job, and one a few years later to become a safety engineer, Cal-OSHA’s title for its inspectors — describe two different careers.

At the dental office where she worked 16 years, her 2021 application listed her as “Office Manager/Biller,” handling patient records, scheduling and payroll with the “fax machine, copier, scanner, punch holer.” By 2024 in her application for a more senior position, the same job under the same supervisor added the title, “Safety Coordinator.”

The new description of her dental office role included safety related tasks: “conducted monthly trainings on blood-borne pathogens,” and conducted “regular safety inspections to ensure compliance with various regulatory agencies including Cal/OSHA.”

Rosales also used another job description from a position as an apartment complex manager. In her 2021 application she stated that her job at Magnolia Manners apartment as Property Manager included “bookkeeping rental payments and invoices along with checking credit checks, processing applications for vacant units and handle complaints.” In 2024, “Compliance Coordinator” was added to the Property Manager description. The new duties including monthly fire extinguisher inspections, a hazard communication program for pool chemicals, and enforcing protective equipment rules “per T8” — the safety code she would soon be hired to enforce.

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In a phone interview, Davy Kady, who was listed as a supervisor at Magnolia Manners, said the earlier description of Rosales job duties as a property manager was more accurate. “Chriselda is a great person, a very hard worker,” he said. “But In terms of workplace safety expertise, that wasn’t part of the job in a technical way.”

“In my view, her entire experience was fabricated,” said Mary Christian, a former Cal-OSHA official who filed the complaint with the state auditor in July describing the appointment as “an intentional subversion of the state merit system.”

“So now you have a situation where someone owes a debt,” she said. “Given the very recent corruption in this office, that’s a very bad recipe and needs to be investigated.”

Two months after the promotion, Richard Contreras, a colleague who absorbed her clerical work, complained to the state auditor: “How can an Office Technician with 18 years of employment and zero safety experience or education based on application become an Associate Safety Engineer?”

An example of a workplace accident

One workplace accident she investigated involved Cristian Rodriguez, a mechanic for Lucas Builders, an Orange County company. Rodriguez was drilling a mounting hole the day after Thanksgiving in 2024. The bit caught a pipe strap and wrenched him off a ladder, tearing off his thumb and mangling his hand. He has since had multiple surgeries.

On April 2, she and Perera signed a notice of “no violation,” concluding that “the IE (injured employee) misjudged a hazardous situation.”

Carlo Panameno, Rodriguez’s workers’ compensation representative, said he does not believe Rosales tried to contact his client.

“Cristian was just waiting to talk to them,” he said. “But the call never came.”

Panameno criticized the investigation.

“I’ve worked on hundreds of workers’ compensation cases. This one haunts me the most,” Panameno said. “I have a lot of respect for the work that Cal-OSHA does, but something was just off here.”

Since the accident, Ramirez said in a text, more surgeries are scheduled. “I’m in still in pain every day,” he said.

Panameno said the investigation and consequences — without citations, his client loses some worker’s compensation benefits — are troubling. “Cristian is such good guy. He was just living a simple American dream, taking care of his family, which includes an autistic kid, tinkering with cars on weekends,” he said.

DIR did not respond to specific questions about the investigation involving Rodriguez’s accident and the lack of an interview. Spokesperson Gomez said: “Once a complaint is filed, workers have multiple opportunities to participate in the review process. For example, workers may speak privately with Cal/OSHA about workplace conditions, and a worker representative may accompany a Cal/OSHA inspector during an onsite inspection.”

A job for Perera’s wife

In her complaint, Christian also cited a job recently obtained by Judith Perera, Ujitha Perera’s wife, who in 2025 became a safety inspector for a new Central Valley-based Cal-OSHA unit created to protect farmworkers after a series of deaths and accidents on farms.

Her resume listed a 2000 associate’s degree in general studies and a 2024 medical-assistant diploma from an adult school. Her work history was a perfume business she ran with her husband, followed by management jobs at a KFC and an Arby’s.

Records show that DIR rejected some of Perera’s qualification claims, writing on a document that Perera submitted, that five years Perera worked at a KFC as a manager was “NQ” because “the information listed below does not exceed 50% of safety enforcement duties.”

At the fast-food restaurants, she described daily safety inspections for hazards including “working around hot oil” and ensuring employees followed lockout procedures “when cleaning machines at end of work shift.” In total, she claimed 27,508 hours of safety experience.

The 15,600 hours total she claimed from 13 years running the perfume business with her business was more than the 12,480 work hours that DIR requires in safety engineering experience without a safety engineering degree.

In a document submitted by Perera titled “Response to Notice of Minimum Qualifications Review” Perera wrote that even though her job titles “may not explicitly include the wording of ‘Safety Engineer,’” her experience fell within the scope of the job.

DIR did not respond to specific questions about Perera’s appointment to the farmworker protection unit. “When DIR initially determines that an applicant may not meet the minimum qualifications for a position, the applicant is notified and given an opportunity to provide additional information for review, as required,” Gomez said.

At the perfume company, she wrote, she conducted “bi-weekly hazard inspections” at 13 retail locations, covering “slips trips and falls, electrical hazards, ladder use, trash compactor LOTO,” and “acted as the point of contact for all Cal/OSHA matters.” “LOTO” is “Lockout/Tagout,” a safety procedure to ensure that dangerous electrical equipment is completely shut off.

The supervisor listed on her application was her husband.

Neither Judith Perera nor Rosales, Christian wrote in her complaint to the state auditor, “possesses the rigid professional background, safety training, or technical credentials required to act as a state enforcement investigator.”

‘We need the District Manager’s trust’

A year before Perera recommended Rosales for the promotion, a departing inspector wrote to top officials about the office.

The inspector was Kevin Britz, who came to Cal-OSHA after seven years in private-sector safety. He said Perera took an early interest in him. By June 2023, Britz was disillusioned.

“People were filing complaint after complaint,” he said. “There was never any discipline. No one ever came to investigate or supervise.”

In his last week on the job, Britz put his concerns about Perera in writing to Cal-OSHA Chief Jeff Killip and DIR Director Katie Hagen, both of whom have since left the department. Inspectors, he reminded them, confront “gruesome and grisly scenes of bodily injury and sometimes death.”

“To the upper management reading this, PLEASE understand that we are professionals. We need the District Manager’s trust and support and we don’t have it.”

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