The judge has set a tentative date of March 4, 2024 to start the perjury trial of Santa Clara City Council Member Anthony Becker. The date was set despite a request from the defense attorney for more time to prepare for the trial.
During the trial setting hearing, Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky requested the March trial date. Becker’s attorney, public defender Chris Montoya, asked the judge to instead schedule another trial setting hearing in February. Montoya said he did not feel comfortable setting a trial date when he had yet to receive approximately 10,000 pages of discovery from the DA’s office.
Malinsky explained to the judge that his office requested a drive for the documents on Oct. 30 but did not receive the drive until just before Thanksgiving, approximately three and a half weeks later. Montoya explained that his office needed to gain approval to purchase of an $800, 10 terabyte drive specifically for this case.
“We requested, on Oct. 30, a hard drive so that we could provide them with discovery,” said Malinsky after the hearing. “They provided us with the hard drive right before Thanksgiving. And we’re now going to put the discovery onto the hard drive and provide it to them.”
When asked how long a process like that would “normally” take, Malinsky replied, “I don’t think there’s a normally.”
The judge decided to split the difference. He set a March 4, 2024 court date while also scheduling a Feb. 7, 2024 status hearing to determine whether or not Becker’s attorney had adequate time to review the thousands of documents connected to the case.
The case was assigned to Department 24, which means a new judge. That judge can push back the trial date further if necessary.
This was the third trial setting hearing for Becker. The other two occurred in August and September. In early May, he entered a “not guilty” plea to charges of perjury and violation of duty.
According to the DA’s office, Becker perjured himself when he told the Santa Clara Civil Grand Jury that he did not distribute a copy of the “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” Civil Grand Jury report to members of the public.
I appreciate the straigh tahead matter of fact reporting in this piece.
But I do want to note that a more complete piece that gives fuller context to this all would note that Anthony Becker is accused of leaking the confidential draft report to a corporate special interest that had and would spend millions of dollars supporting his political ambitions and that corporate special interest is the Forty Niners. And that Becker is also accused of having leaked the draft report to Carolyn Schuk of this very publication and this lead to this publication being the very first to write a long and detailed article on the draft report with this article having been penned by the very author of this piece.
.
Simply stating “members of the public” makes it seem as if Erika is trying to obscure these important accusations. Perhaps because she knows that they are facts. She is in position to know after all.
We are a country of laws. A person is assumed innocent until proven guilty. Please get off your soap-box. Becker has declared himself innocent. So, let the trial begin. Let the facts come out. Do not presume the role to be both the judge and the prosecutor.
Buchser2 the SC way is to create gossip and an illusion of guilt. it would be wonderful to look into how many other people have been maligned over the years, left out in the cold, disgraced, treated with disrespect? what developers gave to campaigns in the day to gain favor? Its the SC Way and it goes back to the 60’s
For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.
“Our lives are but specks of dust falling through the fingers of time. Like sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”