An Oakland businessman with a checkered past and connections to the Sheng Thao raid claimed this month that Alameda County DA Pamela Price tried to shake him down for $25,000. His attorney just produced some documents that kind-of, sort-of support his claim.
There is some connective tissue between the Recall Sheng Thao campaign and the Recall Pamela Price campaign, other than the same billionaire bankrolling both. That additional piece of connective tissue is a man named Mario Juarez, described by the Chronicle as “an Oakland businessman with a history of financial troubles who twice ran for city council.”
Juarez’s involvement with the June FBI raid of Thao’s home is that he is an alleged Sheng Thao “straw donor” accused of funneling illegal donations to Thao’s campaign, and was also curiously beaten up outside the headquarters of the company accused of orchestrating those illegal donations. He’s facing allegations of bilking investors out of $4 million plus felony charges of bouncing $50,000 worth of checks. His involvement with the Price recall is that he accused Price of trying to extort $25,000 out of him, in the form of a donation to fight the recall.
Now Juarez’s attorney claims he has evidence supporting the extortion claims. The Bay Area News Group reports his lawyer has produced documents showing that Price was aggressively meddling in Juarez’s check-bouncing case to a highly unusual degree. That attorney produced investigative notes written by someone in Price’s office — we have no idea who — that say, “The bottom line is that this case was handled differently from other cases.”
And the court filings also show that Price’s former chief assistant DA Otis Bruce Jr. sent an email to his junior prosecutors telling them to “not to do anything — like dismiss the case — because DA Pamela Price would not be happy with that.” Notes on the case from an unidentified assistant said that this email “seemed strange, as he had never done this before.”
Bruce apparently also sent communications to his junior prosecutors saying, “please keep us notified about the status of this case – any plea negotiation or discussions – before any offer is extended” by the DA’s office.
It should be noted that Juarez is also a longtime vocal critic of Pamela Price. He created a pro-recall website BadPam.com, which chides her for being “4 TIMES A LOSER!” in previous elections. This is ironic, since Juarez himself has twice run for office and lost.
Price has not commented on the extortion allegations, except at an October 16 press conference at which she told reporters to “consider the source of the information,” and added, “I certainly am not in the history or the practice of extorting money from anyone, much less a criminal defendant.”
To be clear, this is not a smoking gun of proof that Price tried to extort someone. But it’s proof that Price did handle prosecuting Juarez’s felony check-bouncing charges differently than her office handled other felony check-bouncing cases, for whatever reason.
Both the Sheng Thao recall and the Pamela Price recall votes are Tuesday. But if Pamela Price is recalled, there’s some chance that the Mario Juarez case might keep her name in the headlines even after she’s chased out of office.
Images: (Left) VABA via Youtube, (Right) Pamela Y Price via Facebook
