In the nearly eight years during which San Jose Police Officers Association executive director Joanne Segovia was allegedly running an international dope ring out of her home and office, one of the largest recipients of donations from the SJPOA was its fellow Bay Area police union — the San Francisco Police Officers Association.
The San Jose union sent $45,000 north to the San Francisco union between late 2015 and January, 2023. Additionally, it contributed $24,000 to the 2019 political action committee supporting Suzy Loftus in the San Francisco DA’s race against Chesa Boudin. The San Francisco police union quarterbacked that fundraising effort, passing the hat among fellow unions to raise more than $650,000 to buttress Loftus against Boudin — a failed effort that may even have been counterproductive.
The SJPOA also made a token $1,000 donation to a Boudin recall committee.
In recent years, fentanyl overdose deaths have soared in San Francisco and statewide. This, along with chaotic city street conditions and overt misery, helped fuel Boudin’s successful recall.
On the state level, the San Jose police union also made a number of donations to law-and-order causes, even as its executive director was purportedly re-enacting “Breaking Bad” within its office. It gave $20,000 to a PAC that supported traditional law-enforcement candidates, and $10,000 toward battling a 2016 statewide measure that would’ve repealed the death penalty; it also supported a separate California measure to expedite the process of executing condemned prisoners.
In the time period that federal charging documents claim San Jose police union executive director Joanne Segovia was importing fentanyl and other opioids, the San Jose Police Officers Association spent just shy of $188,000 on either San Francisco causes or larger statewide matters.
‘Sorry, I’m on a business trip because we had 2 officers that got shot!’
Our messages to the San Jose and San Francisco police unions have not yet been returned; the two agencies are represented by the same spokesmen. But, one day after the United States Attorney for Northern California on Friday filed charges against Segovia, the San Jose police union president stated in the press that its 20-year executive director, who is not a sworn officer, acted independently — and he claimed that no other police or union officials are tied into this affair.
But this forces the question of just how thorough an investigation the union undertook in the 24 hours following federal charges regarding an alleged yearslong international opioid ring being operated out of its office. It also warrants asking how Segovia’s remarkably cavalier behavior documented in the federal charging document eluded the notice of an office full of cops; a KTVU stand-up outside Segovia’s San Jose home caught a shiny new Genesis G80 luxury sedan in the driveway of the woman her former colleagues are now calling a mere “office manager” and “grandma.”
The March 29 charges filed by the office of new U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey immediately went viral due to their cinematic nature. Segovia, a 64-year-old longtime stalwart of the police union, was charged with having some 61 shipments of fentanyl and other opioids mailed to her home over the course of nearly eight years. In at least one instance, she used her work address, the San Jose Police Officers Association, as her return address on shipping labels.
In an image she purportedly sent to drug-dealing associates, which was obtained by the feds, Segovia carelessly had her business card visible in a snapshot of a receipt on her computer screen.
She also seemed to take no pains to hide her day job from the people from whom she was allegedly purchasing drugs in Canada, China, Spain, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, and Singapore (these packages were innocuously labeled “Wedding Party Favors,” “Shirts Tops,” “Gift Makeup,” “Chocolate and Sweets,” “Food Supplement,” “Health Product,” and even “Toys.”).
Intercepted messages to her associates included: “Sorry, I had 50 new officers starting today so if I’ve been tied up all morning I’ll be back …” and, in another message, “Sorry, I’m on a business trip because we had 2 officers that got shot!”
Donation patterns
The San Jose Police Officers Association’s donations also reveal an interesting dynamic that sets it apart from its more bombastic San Francisco counterpart. While it behaves much like any traditional police union on statewide matters — and sends dollars northward for the SFPOA to spend as that union sees fit — in South Bay matters, the police union is part of a center-left and labor coalition.
It donated healthily to center-left, labor-friendly politicians like Assemblyman Evan Low, Assemblyman Ash Kalra, and former State Sen. Jim Beall. The police union also endorsed also-ran Cindy Chavez in San Jose’s recent mayoral race, and she was the labor-backed and more left-leaning option in that contest.
Perhaps this explains why the surreal and explosive situation of federal dope-smuggling charges being filed against the longtime executive director of the police union is hitting so differently in San Jose than if such a wild occurrence came to pass in San Francisco. Left-leaning politicians and organizations in San Francisco would jump at the chance to pillory the police union here.
But that’s not happening in San Jose, perhaps because that union is a prominent member of the center-left/labor faction of the regional government.
Additional reporting by Will Jarrett.
I don’t believe grandma acted on her own. She must have been.protected by one or two.or more in the association.
I love it,
Rocky above in comment here suggests legalizing drugs.
De-Criminalizing will do.
You get a scrip and go to the drug store just like for any other drug.
We ain’t reinventing the wheel. Brits have done it for years and Portugal big success.
And, any cop shop that sends tens of thousands to SF to stop Judicial Reform is not liberal whether they’re tied to unions or not.
RLE says she’s “boutique” but who were her customers ?
Maybe if we ask, GPT-4 can sort this out.
While you’re at it, if you have that version or are working on later, ask it if the Dominion Voting Machines can be hacked.
Decriminalize drugs and Elect our Police Chief !
Go Niners !!
h.
I think the union plead innocence without any investigation and they deserve to be called out for that. I do not give a darn who they support, no one supports dealing these drugs!
Liquor companies kill hella more people than this cop Joanne Segovia and others like her, but we have to spend $50,000 a year imprisoning her for a decade or more while nothing bad happens to these liquor execs who are getting rich from their vile products.
More reason to end the war on drugs and legalize everything YESTERDAY.
PM Pillon flexing their grand intelligence… What could go wrong with legalizing all drugs
Rico act the police union and dept. Sure, she wasnt acting alone.
100% this!! There is no way she was acting alone for this long.
Either they were in on it or they are so terrible at policing that they need to be gutted to the core and hire new people.
In my opinion, the complaint indicates she is small-time designer drug dealer who by and large avoided fentanyl. I would wager she is a full-on addict.
I find it extremely hard to believe that she, all by her lonesome self, set up and ran this long running criminal enterprise. More likely, she’s being set up to take the fall.
I’m not discounting that she had a hand in things, especially administering the inventory, but there’s a whole lot more here, yet to be uncovered. In my humble opinion.
if she was working with police officers, I doubt she will rat out anyone since she would be afraid for her safety while in police custody. there’s no way she could run a drug ring by herself but considering it’s probably police officers, there’s going to be very little evidence to be found.
I don’t know man, I think she was a victim of the system.
If it’s found that she was heavily involved in trafficking of fentanyl that led to overdoses, should she receive the death penalty, something we were contemplating as a society not long ago. I dunno. Maybe.
Who was? We can barely even get these guys in jail at all, much less the death penalty. However I 100% support her and anyone involved doing hard time.
This woman needs about 20 years behind bars. Not only to spread death and injury among our citizens but to do it under cover of authority is despicable. As a pain patient it is already difficult to get my medicine in order to lead a normal and productive life. I have to drug test and get looked over and assessed if I am a criminal almost every time I fill my prescription. All I need is for selfish and harmful people to keep this type of behaviour up and I may not be able to get it at all.
Send Segovia up with the “BIG GIRLS.”