San Jose police union fentanyl ‘grandma’ case takes a turn

The federal drug smuggling case against Joanna Segovia, the “grandmother” of the San Jose police union, has taken a stunning turn.

A criminal complaint against Segovia last year charged her with one count of attempting to smuggle fentanyl into the Bay Area. But at a Thursday hearing – in a case drawn out by repeat delays – lead federal prosecutor Joseph Tartakovsky said subsequent tests on a package they intercepted and initially found to have tested for fentanyl were incorrect.

“The government has concluded that the test was an error,” Tartakovsky said at the hearing.

The development Thursday means the charge against Segovia changes from attempting to smuggle fentanyl to attempting to smuggle Tapentadol, another highly addictive painkiller. Both drugs carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if Segovia is convicted.

She entered a non-guilty plea on Thursday in response to the revised charge, but her attorney said the plea could change. Another hearing has been set for Oct. 8 to be presided over by Judge Eumi K. Lee.

“She’s going to be admitting to the importation of those drugs,” Gasner told San Jose Spotlight. “She was an abuser herself and to the extent that any drugs were turned around and distributed is the result of her being taken advantage of.”

The information supersedes authorities’ 13-page criminal complaint against Segovia in March 2023, which outlined several years of activity that investigators said was consistent with shipping and receiving illicit drugs.

Tartakovsky’s announcement stunned onlookers in the courtroom on Thursday. But Segovia’s attorney said he’s pleased the government admitted what “we always knew to be the truth.”

“This case is not a fentanyl case, it’s never been a fentanyl case,” Gasner told reporters outside the courthouse. “There were mistakes in the testing that originally caused the complaint to allege that drug (was fentanyl). Of course in our communities fentanyl is a trigger word and a serious situation which causes a lot of emotional reactions – often for very good reason.”

Segovia was a police union office manager until the federal charges prompted her firing in April last year. She was nabbed last year in a broader Homeland Security investigation into an international Bay Area drug smuggling network.

The fentanyl charge centered on a package labeled as containing a “clock” – sent from China and addressed to Segovia – which was seized by federal agents in Kentucky and was initially found to have contained valeryl fentanyl.

The case has been drawn out due to more than a dozen requests for extensions in the case. Will Edelman, Segovia’s initial attorney, recently withdrew from the case citing health and personal issues and was replaced by Gasner.

Federal authorities in March 2023 accused Segovia of using her personal and office computers to order thousands of opioid and other pills to her home and agreed to distribute the drugs elsewhere in the United States. In at least one instance, she used the police union’s UPS account and return address to ship a package to North Carolina, which investigators believe was a drug shipment.

Investigators said Segovia lied to them when confronted, and tried to blame her housekeeper for the entire scheme. Segovia was placed on paid leave the month she was charged, when the union was notified by federal officials of the investigation, and searched her office and home. Investigators said they found pills in both locations. At her office they seized 283 Tapentadol pills, another synthetic opioid.

Between July 2019 and January 2023, officials intercepted shipments to her home from China, Hungary, India and other countries and “found that they contained thousands of pills of controlled substances, including the synthetic opioids Tramadol and Tapentadol.” Some of the packages contained thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs.

Segovia is alleged to have used encrypted WhatsApp communications to handle logistics for the pills. Between January 2020 and March 2023, the complaint said Segovia exchanged hundreds of messages with someone using a phone with an India country code to discuss shipping and payment details for pills.

When confronted by investigators about her involvement, officials said she at first tried to deny she had ever ordered anything but supplements and claimed to “work for the police department.” She also refused to let investigators see her CashApp transactions.

In a follow up interview with investigators, officials said she lied and attempted to shift blame onto a woman she characterized as a “family friend and housekeeper,” who she said has a substance abuse problem. Segovia’s CashApp account was used for 127 transactions that investigators said was likely for drug purchases, and was linked to her police union email account.

A June 2021 photo sent from her WhatsApp account shows an HP computer monitor that appears to be Segovia’s monitor at work, displaying a PayPal website receipt for $999.99, sent to an entity with an “apparent Indian name,” the complaint said.

“Several items are visible in the area in front of the monitor, including a San Jose Police Officers’ Association letter opener with a business card containing Segovia’s name and notes containing apparent POA-related codes,” the complaint said.

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.