The top official with the San Jose police union on Thursday responded to the drug-related charges against the union's executive director in an exclusive interview with NBC Bay Area.
The president of the San Jose Police Officers Association talked about the indictment of Joanne Marian Segovia, the union's longtime executive director.
"She's been the grandma of the POA," Police union President Sean Pritchard said of Segovia, who has worked for the union for nearly 20 years. "This is not the person we've known, the person who has worked with fallen officers' families, organized fundraisers for officers' kids - just not who we've known over a decade."
Segovia, 64, is charged with attempting to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a fentanyl analogue. If convicted, she faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
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U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Tatum King said in a release Segovia is suspected of using her home and office computers - and even the union's UPS account - to order and distribute thousands of opioids and other pills.
Pritchard said Segovia acted alone in the suspected crimes.
"No indication, zero, that anyone else is involved," he said. "No sworn officers. No civilian employees."
Federal prosecutors allege that Segovia had 61 drug shipments mailed to her San Jose home from Hong Kong, Hungary, India and Singapore. She then distributed them by mail to other states.
In complaint No. 44, Segovia's phone number is linked to an Alabama man who died of an overdose in 2022.
The union president said this is a sad example of the scourge of drugs, but not a reflection of the San Jose Police Department itself.
"We have the hardest working, most dedicated, committed officers there is," Pritchard said. "This is no reflection of who they are as individuals, what they do for our community, nor what they stand for as a profession."
A criminal complaint was filed Monday, alleging that between October 2015 and January 2023, Segovia had at least 61 shipments mailed to her home, from locations that included Hong Kong, Hungary, India, and Singapore.
The shipments had labels that included "Wedding Party Favors," "Gift Makeup," and "Chocolate and Sweets," federal officials said.
Between July 2019 and January 2023, investigators intercepted five shipments and found thousands of pills of controlled substances, including the synthetic opioids Tramadol and Tapentadol. Certain parcels were valued at thousands of dollars' worth of drugs.
Segovia is a resident of San Jose and has worked at the police union since 2003. Representatives of the San Jose Police Association could not be reached for comment on Wednesday evening.
The complaint against Segovia was unsealed on Tuesday.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Segovia was apprehended as part of an ongoing Homeland Security investigation into a network that was shipping controlled substances into the Bay Area.
Segovia allegedly used encrypted WhatsApp communications to plan for receiving and sending pill shipments.
The complaint describes a period between January 2020 and March 2023 during which Segovia is alleged to have exchanged hundreds of messages with someone using a phone with an India country code. The messages reportedly discussed details for shipping and payment of pills and contained hundreds of pictures of tablets, shipping labels, packaging, payment receipts, and payment confirmations.
Segovia allegedly used her office at the San Jose police union to distribute controlled substances. In one instance, Segovia was told by a supplier to send a package to a woman in North Carolina. Segovia then allegedly sent the supplier a photograph of a shipment made using the UPS account of the San Jose Police Officers' Association.
According to the complaint, Segovia continued to order controlled substances even after being interviewed by federal investigators in February. On March 13, federal agents seized a parcel addressed to Segovia in Kentucky, containing valeryl fentanyl, a fentanyl analog. The package reportedly originated from China on March 10 and declared its contents as a clock.
Retired San Jose independent police auditor, LaDoris Cordell, questions how all of this activity was going on under officers’ noses for years.
“That’s the concern that the community is going to have. If your job is to protect us, what are you doing where somebody is housed in your very building and for five years was engaged, if it’s true, in drug dealing?” she said.
To that, Pritchard said, "There wasn’t a lot of people coming in and out of the office. There wasn’t all this high volume traffic where people were having constant contact with her.”
San Jose Police Department Chief Anthony Mata provided the following statement on Thursday:
"I have become aware of the investigation and charges by an outside agency of a civilian employee of the San Jose Police Officers Association. This news is disheartening and comes as a shock to me and the leaders and membership of the SJPOA. I want our stakeholders to know that the civilian employee was never employed in any capacity by the San Jose Police Department."
Bay City News contributed to this report.
