Jury tampering: Defendant accused of trying to pass note

A San Jose man has been charged with jury tampering for allegedly trying to pass a note to a juror in his drug-dealing trial explaining why his 4-year-old daughter had died in a fire, evidence that a judge had excluded, authorities said Wednesday.

Jose Chavez, 31, had been on trial for possession of methamphetamine for sale in July, more than six months after his daughter, Kyra Chavez, and her grandparents, Bulmaro Maldonado and Mariana Maldonado, were killed in a meth-related fire in San Jose the week of Christmas 2012.

Chavez wasn’t linked or charged in connection with the fire, and Judge Julia Alloggiamento of Santa Clara County Superior Court ruled that any evidence related to the fire wouldn’t be admitted in his trial.

But Chavez, who was out of custody, wrote a note “in which he explained the circumstances of his daughter’s death,” prosecutors said.

Chavez wrote “jury” on the outside of the note, then enlisted his stepfather to deliver it to a woman on the jury that Chavez had determined looked “sort of kind,” authorities said.

On July 26, during a break in the case, the stepfather approached the juror and tried to give her the note, said Deputy District Attorney Daniel Rothbach. The juror refused to take it, and the stepfather allegedly threw it away.

The juror notified the bailiff, who recovered the note. The stepfather is not being charged in the case.

Rothbach said he didn’t know the specifics of what Chavez had allegedly written. But “all that matters is he was ordered, as with everybody in the trial, not to have contact with the jurors,” the prosecutor said.

Chavez was convicted in the underlying drug case and faces up to 10 years in prison. He faces up to six years in prison if convicted of felony jury tampering.