The NAACP on Wednesday will respond to drug-related charges against a longtime San Jose police union executive.
Joanne Marian Segovia is charged with attempting to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a fentanyl analogue. If convicted, she faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
Segovia, 64, does not have to enter a plea until she is formally indicted in federal court later this month. She has not spoken on her behalf.
The NAACP will be joined by a coalition of community groups and watchdogs calling for greater accountability at 2 p.m. outside San Jose City Hall.
Starting in 2015, Segovia had at least 61 drug shipments mailed to her San Jose home from India, Hong Kong, Hungary and Singapore with manifests that listed their contents as “wedding party favors,” “gift makeup,” “chocolate and sweets” and “food supplement,” according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed last week.
Segovia worked for the union since 2003, planning funerals for officers who die in the line of duty, being the liaison between the department and the officers’ families and organizing office festivities and fundraisers, according to the San Jose Police Officers Association.
"She's been the grandma of the POA," Police union President Sean Pritchard said of Segovia. "This is not the person we've known, the person who has worked with fallen officers' families, organized fundraisers for officers' kids - just not who we've known over a decade."
Pritchard said Segovia acted alone in the suspected crimes.
Federal prosecutors said that in 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted a parcel being sent to her home address that contained $5,000 worth of Tramadol, a synthetic opioid, and sent her a letter telling her they were seizing the pills. The next year, the CBP again intercepted a shipment of Tramadol valued at $700 and sent her a seizure letter, court records showed.
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But federal officials didn’t start investigating Segovia until last year when investigators found her name and home address on the cellphone of a suspected drug dealer who is part of a network that ships controlled substances made in India to the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the complaint. That drug trafficking network has distributed hundreds of thousands of pills in 48 states, federal prosecutors said.
Segovia used WhatsApp messaging service and her personal and office computers to order thousands of opioid tablets and other pills to her home and agreed to distribute the drugs elsewhere in the United States, prosecutors said.
On at least one occasion in 2021, Segovia shipped the illicit drugs to a North Carolina address by using the police union’s UPS account, prosecutors said. That address is linked to at least five illicit drug seizures, they said.
Investigators found hundreds of photographs in a WhatsApp chat on Segovia’s cellphone, including an image of the UPS shipping slip and another one of a computer screen showing a PayPal payment to an Indian name and Segovia’s police union business cards under it.
“Based on my training and experience, I know that shippers of controlled substances often send receipts and tracking numbers as proof that they in fact sent a package. I believe that the receipt provided by SEGOVIA was offered by her as proof that she sent a package to the North Carolina addressee,” David Vargas, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigation, wrote in the affidavit.
According to the complaint, Segovia continued to order controlled substances even after being interviewed by federal investigators in February. On March 13, federal agents seized a parcel in Kentucky, containing valeryl fentanyl, addressed to Segovia. The package allegedly originated from China three days earlier and declared its contents as a “clock,” prosecutors said.
San Jose Police Department Chief Anthony Mata provided the following statement last week:
"I have become aware of the investigation and charges by an outside agency of a civilian employee of the San Jose Police Officers Association. This news is disheartening and comes as a shock to me and the leaders and membership of the SJPOA. I want our stakeholders to know that the civilian employee was never employed in any capacity by the San Jose Police Department."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
