Anthony Becker, Vice Mayor of Santa Clara, is on trial for perjury. Witnesses say he shared a report from the 2022 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury.
Becker is being tried on charges that he lied about whether he gave an early copy of a grand jury report to Rahul Chandhok, a former executive for the 49ers, about the team’s relationship with the Santa Clara City Council.
There were opening remarks and three days of testimony from Chandhok, the prosecution’s main witness, in Becker’s jury trial, which was led by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Javier Alcala. The trial began on November 6.
After Chandhok ended on Tuesday, four witnesses, including Steve Ngo, who used to be the temporary city attorney, testified on Wednesday. There were several news outlets that said Chandhok said earlier in the trial that Becker gave him the story.
Chandhok talked about his friendship with Becker and the 49ers in his testimony. Based on stories from several news sources, he said it would have been best for the 49ers to protect Becker, which could have caused problems with other city council members.
The team has been at odds with Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor for years, arguing about things like late-night curfews and how to run Levi’s Stadium, among other things. This year, the city and the 49ers ended their last case over public safety costs.
The group has spent a lot of money on city polls to get rid of Gillmor and stop her supporters from winning. While Becker was running for re-election, Gillmor backed Kelly Cox, who beat Becker.
Ngo spoke first at Wednesday’s hearing about the legal advice he gave councilmembers in October 2022, around the time of the report’s release.
Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky focused on an email that Ngo sent to the mayor and council members. In it, Ngo told them that privacy rules meant they couldn’t talk about the draft report before it was made public.
On Becker’s defense lawyer Grant Fondo’s attention was drawn to a different part of the email where Ngo said the law could be read as letting the council members talk about the report before it was made public. But Ngo said that his advice to keep the study secret until it came out never changed.
“I knew that the rule against reporting might not have meant much anymore since the information had already been shared, but…” “I didn’t know who told them,” Ngo said. «There was still a very clear mandate. It wasn’t put on the media, the leaker, or anyone else. It was only put on the city council and the public office.
There were several news outlets and Santa Clara groups that got their hands on the study before it came out. The civil grand jury looked into the leak but found nothing.
Maggie Carr, who worked for Milltown Partners and did public relations work for the 49ers, also testified in front of the jury. She said that after Chandhok got the report, she and other members of the public relations team met virtually to talk about how to publish the report.
Malinsky asked if giving the report to “friendly publications” was part of that conversation, and Carr said “yes.” She stated that the 49ers talked about sending the report to this publication. However, the 49ers didn’t want to be the first group to give the report to a reporter.
According to Carr, “people will often remember the first message that comes out, the first media about the story.” “You want that to include your message and your view of the situation, not the view of the other side.”
Thursday, Karen Enzensperger, who was on the grand jury in 2022, and Christopher Jackson, who is a senior IT manager for Santa Clara, also spoke. Malinsky made a lot of objections to Enzensperger’s evidence about how vague and important it was, and most of them were upheld.
Jackson was asked about the city’s security and the texts that the prosecution kept for the trial that was still going on.
Becker’s lawyers have been making the case that he isn’t the only one who lied about the report and shared it, but he is the only one who has been charged.
His lawyers sent subpoenas to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and Mayor Gillmor, asking for information on how they have handled other grand jury reports. They did this because they thought she might have leaked the report, which is something her political opponents have said for years.
