David Alexander

Day 5 Becker Perjury Trial: Damage Control And Campaign Financing

Another public relations person for the San Francisco 49ers and the treasurer for its independent campaign committee testified for the prosecution Thursday in the perjury trial of Santa Clara City Council Member Anthony Becker.

Deliberations on the fifth day of the perjury trial of the Santa Clara vice mayor didn’t get off to a great start, with both sides requesting multiple conferences with Judge Javier Alcala. Seemingly frustrated, the judge told the lawyers, “I have had double-murder cases go smoother than this.”

Despite the inauspicious start, as the day went on, deliberations smoothed out a bit. After finishing testimony from the city’s IT manager, Christopher Jackson, the prosecution called two witnesses.

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The first was the woman who replaced Rahul Chandhok as head of communications for the 49ers, Elena Caple. The second was the attorney who acted as the treasurer for the DeBartolo Corporation’s independent campaign expenditure committees during the 2020 and 2022 elections, Russell Miller.

Shavon Henry, an associate attorney with Goodwin Proctor, the pro bono law firm on Becker’s defense team, rounded out Jackson’s testimony. She inquired whether Jackson’s search of Becker’s accounts showed that he printed or shared the leaked civil grand jury report.

While Jackson conceded he was unable to find any such record, Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky’s redirect clarified that, had Becker used his personal phone or city email from a home computer, he could have obfuscated the leak.

After the judge dismissed Jackson, Elena Caple, the 49ers vice president of corporate communications and public affairs, detailed the days following the report’s leak. She said she was heading to a doctor’s appointment when she got a call from Chandhok telling her “a report would be coming out … that it would be biased.”

She said Chandhok never told her, nor did she ask, how he got the report.

Investigating whether any of the civil grand jurors were biased became a priority, she said. After seeing the report, Caple said she was “surprised.”

“It is not something you see every day … and it was certainly disappointing that it contained inaccuracies,” Caple said. “We were surprised at the breadth of inaccuracies in the report.”

Caple then went on to detail the 49ers media relations damage-control plan after receiving the report. The team began crafting a strategy to push back on the information in the report, much of which was critical of Becker, a candidate the team wanted to see elected mayor.

Getting the team’s message out before the report’s release was critical, Caple said. That way, her team could staunch any bleeding the report might cause. A Signal exchange among the team characterized the reason for leaking the report as a way to “take the wind out of Gillmor’s sails.”

“It was our experience that Gillmor had often used news like this to her advantage,” Caple said.

Although Caple said she agreed with the overall strategy, she was uncomfortable with the messaging, which characterized the report as a “farce.” She said she didn’t “relish” having to “deliver that message.”

The District Attorney’s Office gave Caple immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.

Further, a letter to then-City Manager Rajeev Batra began with the line, “I received a copy of the report titled Unsportsmanlike Conduct from several press outlets.”

Malinsky asked Caple to assume the team had gotten its hands on the report because Becker had given it to them. Given that the team was supporting him for mayor, Malinsky asked whether it would be a good idea for the team to throw him under the bus.

“I don’t think that would be good for any campaign,” Caple said.

Next, the prosecution called Miller to the stand. The majority of Miller’s testimony solidified his expertise as an attorney who handles political campaigns. He was the treasurer for the 49ers’ independent campaign expenditure committees that supported Becker in 2020 and 2022.

Miller has handled political campaigns for more than 30 years, acting as treasurer for, in his words, “hundreds” of independent expenditure committees.

Most of testimony from Miller established that the 49ers did not give any money to Becker for his campaign. Further, he detailed that Becker could not coordinate with the team in regard to the content of the campaigns supporting him or the ones opposing his opponents.

Malinsky spent much of his questioning, sussing out how much money the 49ers spent supporting Becker.

Hayes Hyde, a partner at Goodwin Proctor, established that Becker couldn’t hold “even a dollar” used to support him hostage in exchange for a vote on a given topic. Claiming Malinsky’s theory was that the 49ers spent an “inordinate amount of money” supporting Becker, Hyde began introducing evidence of the 49ers’ spending on other candidates before Alcala excused the jury for the day.

The jury reconvenes Friday afternoon.

Day 5 Becker Perjury Trial: Damage Control And Campaign Financing

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