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Four people, including top brass in the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, have been indicted in bribery schemes for donations to Sheriff Laurie Smith’s reelection campaign in exchange for highly coveted gun permits.
A grand jury issued two indictments on Thursday, Nov. 19, against Undersheriff Rick Sung, 48, and Capt. James Jensen, 43, who are accused of requesting bribes for concealed firearms licenses, also known as CCW licenses. Insurance broker Harpreet Chadha, 49, and Apple’s Chief Security Officer Thomas Moyer, 50, are accused of offering bribes to receive the permits, District Attorney Jeff Rosen said during a press conference on Monday morning.
The two-year investigation by the district attorney’s office found that Sung, who was allegedly aided by Jensen in one instance, held up the distribution of CCW licenses and refused to release them until the applicants gave something of value. Investigators determined some of the money was sent to Sheriff Smith’s reelection campaign, Rosen said.
Sung has been indicted on three counts of asking or receiving a bribe by an executive officer, a felony, for incidents dating between Oct. 1, 2017 and April 30, 2018, for allegedly asking for a bribe from Chadha and for asking for a bribe from Moyer between Dec. 7, 2018 and Feb. 14, 2019, according to the redacted indictments. Jensen, who was previously indicted, is also now charged with asking for or receiving a bribe by an executive officer for the scheme involving Moyer.
Moyer and Chadha each face a single count of bribing an executive officer. So far, 13 people have been indicted in the bribery schemes. Three people pleaded guilty on Aug. 31 and Oct. 19, Rosen said. Thirty-two witnesses testified before the grand jury, including former U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, according to the indictment witness list.
Sung and Jensen allegedly held up four gun licenses from Apple employees and extracted from Moyer a promise that Apple would donate iPads to the sheriff’s office. A donation of 200 iPads worth nearly $70,000 was ended at the last minute after Aug. 2, 2019, when Sung and Moyer learned that the district attorney’s office had issued a search warrant seizing all of the sheriff’s office’s CCW license records.
Sung allegedly received a promise from Chadha of $6,000 worth of luxury box seat tickets to a San Jose Sharks hockey game at the SAP Center on Valentine’s Day 2019. Sheriff Smith’s family members and some of her biggest political supporters held a small celebration of her reelection as sheriff in the suite, according to a statement from the district attorney’s office.
Sung is the highest ranking law enforcement officer ever indicted in the county, Rosen said.
Capt. James Jensen, a past spokesperson in the sheriff’s office, was previously indicted in the concealed carry weapon (CCW) license bribery case. Gun permits, known as CCW permits, are not easily obtained. The manager of an executive protection company, AS Solution Inc., allegedly received the gun permits for his executive protection agents in exchange for a $90,000 bribe to Smith’s reelection campaign between April 2018 and August 2019. Multiple people, including a local gun parts manufacturer and an attorney, were also indicted.
“Undersheriff Sung and Capt. Jensen treated CCW licenses as commodities and found willing buyers. Bribe seekers should be reported to the District Attorney’s Office, not rewarded with compliance,” Rosen said.
“Call this quid pro quo. Call it pay-to-play. Call it give to get. It is illegal and deeply erodes public confidence in the criminal justice system.
“When high-ranking members of a law enforcement agency are at the heart of a bribery scheme, it tarnishes the badge, the honor, the reputations and — tragically — the effectiveness of all law enforcement agencies,” Rosen said.
The defendants are expected to surrender shortly, he said. They will be arraigned on Jan. 11 at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. If convicted, the defendants could receive prison time.
Sung has been placed on administrative leave and Jensen has been on administrative leave since August. The sheriff’s office continues to cooperate with the District Attorney’s Office, the agency said in a Nov. 20 statement.
On Monday, the sheriff’s office issued another statement: “As law enforcement officers, we are held to the highest moral and ethical standards. This is a difficult time for our organization, however our goal remains to provide the highest level of public safety to the residents of Santa Clara County. The hundreds of men and women who represent the Sheriff’s Office will continue to serve our community with compassion, honesty and integrity.”
A CCW license generally costs between $200 and $400. Under state law, it is a crime to carry a concealed firearm without a CCW license. State law requires that an applicant show “good cause” for the license, in addition to completing a firearms course and having good moral character, but the sheriff has broad discretion in determining qualified applicants, the district attorney’s office press release.
Rosen said that there could be additional indictments and charges. Asked whether Smith, who signs off on all gun permits, knew or should have known about the bribery schemes, Rosen said, “That’s your question. There’s nothing more I can say.”
Smith and Sung could not directly be reached for comment. A sheriff’s spokesperson referred only to the general statement from the agency after a request for comment from Smith.
Moyer’s attorney, Ed Swanson of Swanson & McNamara, said in a statement that his client is innocent and that his reputation has been tarnished by “baseless charges.”
“Ultimately, this case is about a long, bitter, and very public dispute between the Santa Clara County Sheriff and the District Attorney, and Tom is collateral damage to that dispute. We look forward to making Tom’s innocence clear in court and bringing an end to this wrong-headed prosecution,” he said.
Apple, in a brief statement, echoed its support for Moyer on Monday.
“We expect all of our employees to conduct themselves with integrity. After learning of the allegations, we conducted a thorough internal investigation and found no wrongdoing,” the Cupertino-based company said.
The grand jury indictment could be publicly released in the next two to three weeks if it is not sealed by the court, a move the district attorney’s office does not oppose, Rosen said.
Why would the Sheriff’s Number 2 sell gun permits for money payable to the Sheriff’s re-election campaign? To re-elect the Sheriff. How could the Sheriff not know? Important announcement Monday – indeed.
The big newspaper (editorial board) in San Jose in September called upon Sheriff Laurie Smith to resign after she had taken “the 5th” in refusing to answer questions about the scheme before a grand jury. The “important announcement” this Monday morning at 10 am must be that Smith has been indicted, formally accused by a grand jury of official misconduct justifying her removal from office and/or is resigning.
Elsewhere reported, the DA’s 10 a.m. news conference unveiled another indictment of a private-sector accomplice – not Sheriff Laurie Smith just yet.
I have wondered for a long time why getting a CCW permit in Santa Clara county has a reputation for being nearly impossible (and based on this article, apparently expensive) compared to getting a CCW permit in, say, Stockton.
I have also wondered, at each election cycle, how Laurie Smith keeps managing to get re-elected, because for many years I have been reading stories of corruption, low morale, etc. during her long tenure.
I haven’t yet received a good answer to either question.
In 2016, the second-in-command for the Fresno Police Department was convicted in federal court of felonies committed on the job. He helped run heroin sales using his position. He was sentenced to federal prison and was released earlier this year. Only in his 50s, he had a big pension waiting for him. A 2017 Fresno Bee article reported that the cop turned convict was entitled to his $93,000 annual pension because the City of Fresno had failed to follow a new state law that called for public employees to lose pensions if convicted of a felony committed through the public employment. The newspapers here should start investigating pensions – generally and for felons.
What is funny is that I ran into a similar experience with a police officer that had to resign because he falsified legal documents and the traffic court was found to have been wrong in enforcing it. All because of a LEGAL light decoration on my car, let alone being arrested. That police officer resigned from the Sunnyvale police and got a nice “Security” job with Pixar.
Does this happen to sound a lot like the Apple employee?
I can only imagine how many police officers have gone through this, getting themselves in so much trouble in their POLICE work they leave and become PRIVATE security?
When will any of these people be held accountable? IDK. But it means that the so called immunity from civil actions must be removed and that these officer must be reeducated that breaking the laws will not only possibly put you in jail, but hit you in your wallets too.
The wallets of these cops are filled with IOU’s for early exorbitant pensions. Undersheriff Rick Sung, 48, received in pay and benefits in 2019 over $391,000 from the County of Santa Clara. TRANSPARENT CALIFORNIA.COM. With the 2013 pension reform law in California, these cops may be disqualified from not only their lucrative jobs but also their sky-high lifetime pensions. That should give the DA leverage to make deals with defendants to testify about the involvement of Sheriff Laurie Smith.