Transcript says sheriff hid use of suite at NHL games
Employee states that Smith’s actions were to skirt gift reporting
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith sought to hide her use of a penthouse suite at a San Jose Sharks game two years ago by having an employee buy cheaper seats in her name, to avoid gift-reporting obligations for use of the suite that is now targeted by an indictment against her second-in- command, according to newly released transcripts of grand jury testimony.
The circumvention was described by management analyst Lara McCabe in her Nov. 16 testimony to a criminal grand jury, which would later hand down bribery charges alleging favor-trading for coveted concealed gun permits involving Undersheriff Rick Sung, a top Apple security executive, a prominent supporter and a sheriff’s captain who doubled as a close adviser.
Smith’s alleged obfuscation is contained in the last third of more than 1,300 pages of transcripts that
also reaffirmed suspicion of a fast- and-loose policy for issuing concealed carry weapons licenses by her office, in which political allegiance was paramount, with Sung serving as a loyal enforcer who leveraged the licenses to secure that support.
On Monday, Sung, Apple’s
global security director Thomas Moyer, businessman Harpreet Chadha and sheriff’s Capt. James Jensen were arraigned remotely by Judge Eric Geffon. They pleaded not guilty to bribery charges first announced in November. Geffon denied a defense motion to seal the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings.
According to the indictment, Sung and Jensen are accused of extracting a donation of 200 iPads from Moyer to hasten the release of concealed gun permits for four executive security agents protecting Apple CEO Tim Cook. Sung is separately charged with holding up a gun license for Chadha so he would donate his wife’s company’s suite for Smith to celebrate her latest re- election.
Even though the sheriff was a listed guest in the suite, McCabe says Smith handed her a credit card to purchase three of the cheapest seats for the Feb. 14, 2019 game for Smith, Sung and Jensen costing a total of $147. None of the tickets were used, and McCabe testified Smith asked for this expressly as a way to circumvent California Fair Political Practices Commission reporting requirements for gifts valued over $50. One seat in the luxury suite was valued at more than seven times that amount.
When asked by Deputy District Attorney Matt Braker to affirm that contention, she said, “I believe, yes this was a way to get around reporting a gift,” and “The sheriff wanted to avoid putting this on her Form 700.”
Braker followed up: “She said that to you?” McCabe answered, “Yes.” The statement stands as the most direct claim of wrongdoing against the
sheriff in a case that has mostly tainted her by virtue of her position leading the agency.
Deputy District Attorney John Chase, head of his office’s public integrity unit, and Braker shepherded the two-week grand jury session. Unlike an earlier related indictment, which characterized Jensen as the linchpin in a narrative where nearly $90,000 in political donations were discussed in a direct trade for the gun permits, the latest charges portray Sung as the engine, with Jensen on the periphery.
“Make no mistake about it,” Braker said in his closing statements to jurors. “It is Rick Sung who is the driving force in both instances.”
The prosecutors presented a more circumstantial case than in the first indictment last August — in which a co- conspirator who cooperated with authorities literally recorded the words “quid pro quo” being said — and keyed in on testimony from sheriff staff and high-level employees for Apple and Chadha depicting Sung making the “unusual” move of holding up their CCW permits. The prosecutors also drew jurors’ attention to how the licenses became quickly available after the iPad donation promise and Chadha’s donation of his $365-ahead Sharks suite.
Smith has not been charged with any crimes to date. In the first grand-jury hearings, Smith and Sung invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in refusing to testify. The personal attorneys for Smith and Sung did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Chadha’s attorney said in November that his client’s indictment was “a grave miscarriage of justice” and retaliation for objecting to prosecutors’ insistence that his donation sheriff’s office of a penthouse suite at the SAP Center for a Feb. 14, 2019, Sharks game was a “quid pro quo.”
The transcripts describe a protracted renewal process for C ha d ha that started in 2017 and wasn’t resolved until two days before that hockey game. There is copious correspondence between Chadha’s executive assistant and sheriff’s office staff processing CCW licenses, in this case then-public information officer Sgt. Reginald Cooks.
Chadha’s application process came up in the earlier grand jury during Cooks’ testimony. As prosecutors were looking to establish the amount of control Sung had over the licensing process, Cooks recalled that on Feb. 12, 2019, he was abruptly ordered to fast-track Chadha’s permit, even though compulsory fingerprint scanning hadn’t been completed.
Other testimony, by former PIO Sgt. Richard Glennon, seemingly reaffirmed accusations of political favoritism in the CCW approval process, describing his commanders’ orders that unless he was instructed otherwise, applications from people lacking political connections or prominence “were put into that filing cabinet and never touched again.”
Nearly two years into Chadha’s efforts to renew his permit, and after Smith had already secured reelection, Braker argued to jurors that it was “remarkable” that his permit was issued two days before the Sharks game.
“Sung refused to do his job and interfered with the CCW being delivered until he got something of value from Mr. Chadha,” Braker said.
The guest list at the
Shark s game included many of Smith’s strongest supporters: Businessman Gary Bechtel, who in testimony was described as being romantically involved with the sheriff at the time; Smith’s daughter Shannon and her husband; Nvidia founder Chris Malachowsky; philanthropists Frank and Marilyn Dorsa; and C yberCSI founder Dave Sanders.
Chadha , Jensen and Sung were there. Former longtime South Bay politician and former Congressman Mike Honda was also a guest, as was Christopher Schumb, a Smith supporter and fundraiser who was charged with Jensen in the first indictment.