After a nearly two-year legal battle that rocked the Santa Clara community, Anthony Becker — the former vice mayor who resigned in December following his perjury conviction — was sentenced to 40 days in county jail that he will serve non-consecutively on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Judge Javier Alcala announced the decision Friday morning in Santa Clara County Superior Court in Morgan Hill following an apology from Becker — the first time he’s made one publicly — “to the people of Santa Clara for this long ordeal.”
Santa Clara City Councilmembers Kevin Park and Suds Jain also made pleas to the judge, asking for leniency for a friend they described as hard-working and a “dedicated public servant.”
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen and Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky asked Alcala for “significant jail time” in a January memo to the judge. The prosecutors argued that the ex-Santa Clara official “has shown no remorse,” citing a report that said Becker told his probation officer that he felt his conviction was “about politics” and that “justice was not served.” But the county’s probation department, and one of Becker’s attorney — deputy public defender Chris Montoya — asked that he receive only probation.
Alcala’s decision comes nearly two years after Becker’s April 2023 indictment on charges related to him leaking a bombshell Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report about the San Francisco 49ers’ influence on the city of Santa Clara and then lying about it under oath. His highly anticipated trial began the day after Election Day last year, in which Becker’s failed reelection bid resulted in him falling to last in a three-way race for his District 6 council seat.
The prosecution called more than a dozen witnesses over the course of several weeks, while the defense called none and Becker declined to take the stand. On Dec. 5, after only a few hours of deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom with their verdict, finding Becker guilty of violating his duty as a government official and then later perjuring himself in front of a grand jury investigating the source of the leak.
The report at the center of Becker’s trial was “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” — a 2022 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report that was set to be released a few weeks ahead of Election Day. At the time, Becker was challenging Mayor Lisa Gillmor for her seat.
But the report, which sent shockwaves through Santa Clara, was leaked several days before it was supposed to be made public. The 49ers were spending heavily on the 2022 mayoral election, and shelled out more than $1.4 million trying to get Becker elected and another roughly $1 million attacking Gillmor.
The NFL team called the report a “hatchet job,” and it was revealed at trial that the 49ers investigated whether any of the grand jurors who authored the report were biased.
The prosecution relied heavily on its star witness: Rahul Chandhok, the 49ers’ former chief of communications. Chandhok, who now works for the United States Soccer Federation, testified that Becker leaked him the report.
Throughout the trial, Becker’s attorneys fought to cast doubt in the minds of the jury and argued that he wasn’t the only one who had access to the report before it was public.
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