Former San José Police Union Director Pleads Guilty to Smuggling Opioids

Updated 12:30 p.m.

The former executive director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association pleaded guilty on Tuesday to illegally importing opioids.

Joanne Segovia entered her plea in San José federal court as part of a deal with federal authorities about a year and a half after she was first charged in connection with an international drug ring that Homeland Security investigators were monitoring.

While Segovia had previously maintained her innocence, she agreed in August to accept responsibility for her actions as part of a deal with U.S. prosecutors.

“Ms. Segovia is relieved to be able to admit responsibility and culpability for what she did,” Adam Gasner, her attorney, said Monday. “As a sober person who has had time to reflect on the wrongfulness of her conduct, it’s time for her to take the next step towards closure of this case and her personal healing.”

While working as the lead civilian administrator for the San José police union, Segovia allegedly had thousands of illicit pills shipped to her home over several years that she ordered on both her personal and office computers and redistributed some of those pills elsewhere in the U.S., authorities said.

Under the current plea deal, Segovia is being charged with one count of illegally importing tapentadol, a potent painkiller listed as a Schedule II controlled substance by the U.S. government.

Segovia was originally charged, in March 2023, with one count of attempting to import a form of fentanyl that authorities found on patches and stickers in a package addressed to her from China.

However, U.S. prosecutors in August removed that charge, saying there was an “error” in the testing of the substance, with subsequent testing showing no evidence of fentanyl in the package.

U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee spent much of the hearing Tuesday advising Segovia of her legal rights. Lee then asked Segovia how she chose to plead to the count against her, to which Segovia responded with one word: “Guilty.”

Gasner has attempted to portray Segovia as someone struggling with a substance use disorder, not a kingpin or drug distributor, who became involved in a drug shipping network as a result of her vulnerability and addiction, saying she was taken advantage of by other bad actors.

Under both the original and current charge, Segovia could face a maximum of 20 years in prison. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 21, 2025.

After Tuesday’s hearing, Gasner suggested that probation, rather than incarceration, would be a suitable punishment for Segovia, who he said is recovering from addiction and deserves compassion.

“I don’t believe additional incarceration will reduce the chance that Ms. Segovia would be a recidivist or increase the chance she’d be a recidivist,” he said outside the courthouse. “I believe that her being convicted of this very serious crime and making these admissions and having to be supervised is certainly a punishment for what she has done.”

From October 2015 to January 2023, Segovia had at least 61 drug shipments mailed to her home from various overseas origins, according to last year’s original criminal complaint against her.

While the shipping information for the packages claimed they contained innocuous items like “wedding party favors,” “gift makeup,” and “chocolate and sweets,” investigators alleged they contained drugs.

Between July 2019 and January 2023, officials intercepted five shipments intended for Segovia, finding thousands of pills, including the synthetic opioids tramadol and tapentadol, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

In court on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tartakovsky, the lead prosecutor in the case, revealed as of yet unreported details of the investigation, including that Segovia ordered more than 17,000 tapentadol pills between April 2021 and September 2023 for what he said was her personal use.

Investigators previously said they seized drugs both at her house and her office.

The allegations against Segovia, which San José Mayor Matt Mahan at the time called “disturbing,” sent shockwaves through the South Bay last year, sparking protests outside City Hall amid demands that city leaders stop taking donations from the powerful police union.

But police union representatives have long denied that any officers or other civilian staffers knew about Segovia’s actions. The union fired her shortly after the allegations surfaced and said the organization was fully cooperating with federal investigators.

It also launched an internal investigation looking into possible changes within the organization to beef up oversight and accountability and root out issues like this sooner.

The union doesn’t plan to release the findings of that investigation until Segovia’s case is concluded, Tom Saggau, a union spokesperson, told KQED. Shortly after the allegations surfaced last year, the police union insisted it was working to transparently address the concerns around the allegations aimed at Segovia, with Sean Pritchard, its president, even penning an opinion piece in The Mercury News about the organization’s efforts to ensure public trust in the organization.

But that same week, the union walled off access to major portions of its website, including pages that list its board members and staff, which now require a member login to view — a change that Pritchard said was aimed at protecting its members and staff.

Sean Allen, a retired Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department sergeant and board member of Lodge 65 of the California Fraternal Order of Police, said he still questions how Segovia’s criminal actions went undetected in an organization full of police officers.

“How this got under their nose, I just don’t believe that’s possible,” Allen said.

“Police departments, police personnel, law enforcement personnel at all levels tend to try to keep their issues internal,” he added. “And many times, they go without resolution. They simply don’t want the public to know what’s going on.”

But Saggau called Allen’s comments “silly.”

“It’s just a silly thing for an individual to say that everybody that’s interacted with Ms. Segovia for over 20 years should have known that she was doing whatever it was she was doing,” he said. “By his implication, then if any of his coworkers have crossed the line, he should have known about it.”

Even though Segovia was officially the executive director of the police union, Saggau and some former police union officials described her as more of an “office manager” with a limited scope of responsibilities. Following the allegations, Saggau even referred to her as the “grandma” of the union.

Gasner, meanwhile, underscored that Segovia’s actions were “separate from her employment” at the police union.

“Her private actions should not look negatively upon her employer or the police in any way. They did not participate or engage or assist her in this endeavor,” he said. “And so, therefore, I hope that the trust that the public has in the police in Santa Clara County remains high.”