The perjury trial of Santa Clara City Council Member Anthony Becker may be closer to starting. Judge Panthea E. Saban told both parties that the trial is on standby this week and set for the Master Trial Calendar for next Monday.
Both sides met in Dept. 40 on Tuesday to discuss a new set of subpoenas as well as pretrial issues.
Judge Saban met with the prosecution and defense in closed chambers before reappearing in the courtroom to go on the record. During the hearing, the court dealt with two subpoenas involving Santa Clara City Council Member Kathy Watanabe and local small business owner Kirk Vartan.
Vartan, who was in the courtroom as an audience member, seemed somewhat surprised when he was called to the podium to speak.
When the judge asked him if he had been subpoenaed, he said he had not.
When the judge asked him what he was doing in the courtroom and if he was there on his “own free will,” Vartan said, “Yes.”
Becker’s attorney, Chris Montoya, indicated to the court that his investigator had said Vartan had been served. He asked the court to compel Vartan to reappear as a potential witness for the defense.
Vartan agreed.
Meanwhile, Watanabe filed a motion to quash a subpoena by the defense for all emails “sent, received, draft[ed] or deleted” between Oct. 1, 2022 and Oct. 15, 2022 on her Google LLC account.
Watanabe represented herself in the motion filed with the court and began with the argument that Becker had “… harassed me and others in the past and it’s reasonable to believe that he will do so again.”
Watanabe cited the 2024 Civil Grand Jury report “Irreconcilable Differences,” a “report” on the Santa Clara News website and the SF Chronicle article in which she and Mayor Lisa Gillmor left a closed session because “we were concerned about our safety,” as proof of this “harassment.”
Watanabe did not mention that a third-party investigation of the closed session incident found that Becker’s behavior did not rise to the level of “hostile.” Nor does her document mention that she told the investigator that she did not feel physically threatened.
Following that, she added a legal argument to her motion to quash similar to the one Gillmor made in her motion to quash filed with the courts earlier in the case.
The judge did not hear arguments about Watanabe’s subpoena, choosing to leave it to the trial judge.
Procedural Issues Lead to Judicial Reprimand
Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky brought before the court an issue he saw with the way the defense was conducting its business.
Malinsky went on the record to say that on Friday, he learned that Montoya was not following proper procedure with subpoenas.
Malinsky said a “third party” reported that Montoya was going directly to the “third party” to access information under the guise that it was a demand from the court.
The “third party” in this case is Gillmor through her lawyer, Robert Mezzetti.
Montoya clarified that he was following up with Mezzetti on an inquiry for records in relation to a subpoena that was already approved by a judge at a previous hearing. Montoya said he believed the records were incomplete and she was not responding “correctly or accurately.”
Judge Saban pointed out that because the court released the records, Montoya would not know if Gillmor submitted incomplete documents or if parts were deemed unnecessary by the judge.
She emphasized with both parties that once a subpoena has been issued, it is against the law if either side receives subpoenaed documents before the court because the court is the “gatekeeper.” Any documents received should not be opened and submitted to the court ASAP.
She emphasized that all documents should go through the court first.
It appears some people need to slow down and make sure processes are adhered to.
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Attorney Robert Mezzetti is Cory Morgan’s father-in-law. Morgan is a SCPD lieutenant who is running for Police Chief this year. Gillmor keeps her political allies well employed.
So Mezzetti ran for Council some years ago against Becker am I right? or was that against Suds? and then He has a son in law that somehow is now running for Police Chief but like the last one we just had only a LT? And Mezzetti is Lisa’s Lawyer?
How is it Watanabe is now a lawyer too? I thought she was just a legal admin / secretary /receptionist or something along those terms.
How many other ‘allies’ are running or got connections to Gillmor or Watanabe? Can we ever get rid of these weasels who want to control our city forever. Whats in it for them? what is the cover up? why are we not doing Grand Jury investigations into these families?
The Plot thickens. Poor Becker, are they using him as the warning to others?
Pants On Fire,
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Becker is in fact being used as a warning.
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He is being used as a warning to any Santa Clara County public officials that they should not use their official positions to benefit corporate special interests improperly. And if they are questioned about it under oath they should not lie about it and perjure themselves.
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What he did is not the end of the world. But that idiot made this all very obvious and it could not be ignored.
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This very publication demonstrated that they were leaked the grand jury report and they have obviously been carrying water for Becker since he came on the scene. And the Forty Niners showed they were leaked the report by someone and Becker was the obvious prime suspect in doing this because he is the person who the Forty Niners have supported to the tune of millions of dollars in campaign spending. And then he was sworn into testimony before the grand jury and the idiot decided to lie. When not only his coconspirators knew the truth but also people uninvolved with his leaking such as Suds Jain and his campaign staffer. And he not only lied about not being the leaker but tried to concoct a laughable allegation that Gillmor might have leaked it to the Forty Niners.
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The people behind this publication and in the Forty Niners are capable and intelligent professional adults in general as opposed to Anthony Becker. He is a fool and a they surely know it. They appear to have used him as their useful idiot and if that was not their intent then they should have had the compassion to save him from himself. They should have held off on revealing the leak and just used it as a head start to formulate their coordinated response to the report after the report was publicly released.
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And they should have told Becker to just fess up to it all and not perjure himself before he did just that in testimony before the grand jury.
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Angie and Carolyn and Rahul and others all could have saved Becker from putting himself in peril of carrying the lifelong stain of being a convicted felon. It is too bad that they did not care about him enough to stop him from choosing to get himself into this big mess.
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And all for nothing. The grand jury report still came out. Becker still lost the race for mayor as he should have. It is fortunate the figurehead of our city is not being prosecuted for a felony right now because it is already bad enough that a city councilperson is. It is truly a shame that he stupidly chose his criminal course of action and none of the adults in the room took care to save him from himself.