Data extracted from Santa Clara Vice Mayor Anthony Becker’s phone and presented in court this week showed the city official deleted Signal — an encrypted messaging app he allegedly used to leak the civil grand jury report — several months after the leak occurred.
Fernando Ramirez Jr., a criminalist with the Santa Clara County Crime Laboratory who performed a forensic analysis of Becker’s phone, appeared as an expert witness at his trial on Tuesday and Wednesday. After reviewing documents showing his work, Ramirez testified in Santa Clara County Superior Court in Morgan Hill that the information “suggests that an uninstall was performed” on Becker’s phone on Dec. 28, 2022 at 9:09 a.m.
The Santa Clara vice mayor met with the District Attorney’s Office later that day.
Becker is on trial for allegedly leaking “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” — a 2022 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report that criticized the relationship between several members of the Santa Clara City Council and lobbyists for the San Francisco 49ers — as well as felony perjury for allegedly lying about the leak under oath. The report was set to be released to the public on Oct. 10, 2022, but appeared in several media outlets a few days prior.
Becker allegedly used Signal to send the report to the 49ers as well as a local news outlet. Rahul Chandhok, the NFL team’s former chief of communications, testified last week that Becker gave him the report on Oct. 6 before its public release date.
Because the app was deleted from Becker’s phone before it was seized, Ramirez testified that only “remnants” of messages or other data could be recovered. Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky presented in court evidence that showed Ramirez was able to find proof of both phone calls and messages that Becker made or received via Signal, and that he first installed the app on his phone on March 29, 2021.
According to Chandhok’s testimony last week, the former 49ers exec had used Signal to communicate with Becker prior to October 2022. Chandhok also used Signal to communicate with other members of his team and with consultants when they worked to craft a response to the report, which the 49ers called a “hatchet job.” Many of those messages were set to disappear after a certain amount of time.
While cross-examining Ramirez on Wednesday, Christopher Montoya — a public defender and member of Becker’s five-person legal team — questioned the criminalist about his lack of credentials or certificates in certain areas.
“For example, you would not have a doctor that’s not board certified?” Montoya asked.
Ramirez said the day prior that he has roughly 300 hours of training in the area that the prosecution called him to testify to, though he has not served as an expert witness at a trial before.