The San Francisco 49ers investigated members of a Santa Clara
County civil grand jury that sharply criticized the team’s political influence
over the Santa Clara City Council, accused the grand jurors of corruption
without evidence and released personal information about them, documents and
interviews show.
Three experts on civil grand juries, watchdog panels convened
by California courts to probe local government, said they had never before seen
this level of aggressive criticism. One of them, retired state senator and San
Mateo County Superior Court Judge Quentin Kopp, said the attacks by the team,
which operates publicly funded Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, may have crossed
the legal line.
Kopp, who supervised civil grand juries in his years on the
bench, called comments about the panel members by 49ers spokesperson Rahul
Chandhok “rife with personal innuendoes.” Kopp acknowledged subjects of a grand
jury report are free to rebut the panel’s findings. But after reviewing
Chandhok’s statements, Kopp said, “They appear to have investigated personally
every grand juror.
“If I were the grand jury judge, I would issue an order to the
49ers... to show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court,” Kopp
said. “I believe personal attacks on individual jurors could amount to jury
intimidation.”
Chandhok dismissed the report as “election propaganda” in an
email Thursday to The Chronicle. He also wrote, “We did not and would never use
any kind of intimidation tactics.”
The grand jury report was critical of the 49ers’
influence over the Santa Clara City Council in a long-running battle over
stadium management and revenue. Three days before the report’s scheduled
release, on Oct. 7, a leaked copy was posted by the Silicon Valley Voice,
a news website.
Chandhok soon distributed a 1,200-word statement calling the
report “a shocking political hatchet job” containing “dozens of lies.” He
claimed the grand jury had been “stacked” with Mayor Lisa Gillmor’s allies. The
49ers have spent millions of dollars in an effort to unseat Gillmor, a vocal
critic of the team and CEO Jed York.
The 49ers learned the home addresses and religious practices
of the jurors, according to an email Chandhok previously sent to The Chronicle.
Chandhok wrote that “several” jurors lived within one mile of Gillmor or former
City Attorney Brian Doyle. Chandhok also noted one juror (whom he named) went
to a church attended by Doyle, a longtime 49ers critic fired last year by
the team-friendly council majority.
Chandhok described the grand jury to reporters as a “kangaroo
court” and “a partisan group of cronies co-opting the justice system,”
according to news accounts. He also accused grand jurors of “corruption,”
telling several media outlets, “This corruption of the justice system is
outrageous, unethical and the public deserves an independent investigation.”
Anthony Becker, the mayoral candidate whom the 49ers are
backing in this year’s election with more than $2 million in contributions,
made similar comments in a press release, calling the report “a political hit
piece.”
Neither the grand jury nor the county’s judges have responded
publicly to the 49ers’ criticism.
In the ensuing days, two grand jurors said they were followed
or surveilled by people they didn’t know, The Chronicle has learned. It could
not be determined who was responsible for the alleged surveillance.
One juror complained of being “tailed” by another motorist
while driving, according to two sources familiar with the juror’s account. The
sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly
on the matter.
A second juror complained of seeing an unknown intruder on
their property, according to the sources. At least one of the jurors’ accounts
was relayed to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. A
spokesperson for the district attorney declined comment.
The civil grand jury remains in session through the end of
December. If grand jurors have been intimidated, that could affect future
investigations.
The grand jury, a 19-member panel of volunteers screened by
county judges and selected by lot, began an investigation in July of the
49ers’ financial disputes with Santa Clara over the operation of Levi’s
Stadium. The panel’s 61-page report, titled “Unsportsmanlike Conduct,”
charged that five City Council members regularly “put the 49ers’ interests
ahead of the city’s interests” and may have violated state and local ethics
laws.
When the grand jury released the report, it noted two
panelists had recused themselves from working on the investigation. State law
requires recusal if a grand juror is biased or appears to have a conflict of
interest.
Chandhok seized on the information about the recusals, falsely
claiming “at least two members of the jury involved in creating this report
have already been removed due to conflicts of interest.” He also said, “We
anticipate more will be uncovered.”
Chandhok didn’t elaborate on how he thought the grand jury
came to be “stacked” with Gillmor’s friends. Nor did he cite evidence of
corruption or conflicts of interest. But it was clear from his statements that
the 49ers had begun investigating the grand jurors before their report was
issued.
The identities of the jurors are public, on the Superior Court
website, but their home addresses are not listed. In addition to finding the
addresses and the jurors’ places of worship, the 49ers also examined the
panel’s personal relationships: Chandhok named one grand juror as the “current
or former partner” of a “Gillmor ally.” In fact, that juror had been divorced
for years, and the former spouses had little contact with one another, people
who know them said.
Chandhok wrote that another grand juror, whom he named, was a
“close relative” of a Gillmor “real estate ally,” whom he also named. But that
grand juror was one of those who recused themselves, The Chronicle has learned.
A second expert on civil grand juries said it’s not uncommon
for the targets of a probe to push back. But he said he had never heard of
grand jurors being accused of corruption, or having details of their personal
lives investigated and publicized by the subject of a probe.
“I’ve not seen what you’re describing,” said Lou Panetta,
outgoing president of the California Grand Jurors’ Association, an organization
that provides support for grand juries. “I’ve not seen anything where the
subject of an investigation does backgrounders on grand jurors and makes an attempt
to undermine their credibility.”
Peter Hertan, president of the Santa Clara County chapter of
the grand jurors association, read the grand jury report and didn’t see the
“evidence of bias” the 49ers claimed. Hertan said of the team’s criticism of
jurors, “If you don’t have the facts on your side, you go after the law. If the
law is not on your side, you go after the opposing team.”
San Francisco Chronicle
Lance Williams, Ron Kroichick
Nov. 3, 2022
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