Update: County Political Scandal Worsens

—By Bay City News Service

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office today charged former Supervisor George Shirakawa with allegedly impersonating a San Jose City Council candidate in 2010 by sending out a fake campaign mailer meant to discredit her.

District Attorney Jeff Rosen said his office filed the felony false impersonation charge after a test by a state Department of Justice lab matched DNA on a postage stamp on one of the fliers to Shirakawa. The fliers claimed to be from Magdalena Carrasco, who was running to represent San Jose's District 5.

Rosen said the mailer, sent out in May 2010, was intended to harm Carrasco's reputation by placing her photo next to an image of a North Vietnamese Communist flag considered offensive to many South Vietnamese immigrants in San Jose.

It reads, "Vote for Magdalena Carrasco City Council District 5," and has her photo on the left and the North Vietnamese flag on the right.

In a document filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court this morning seeking a warrant for Shirakawa's arrest, district attorney's Investigator Michael Brown stated, "Carrasco went on to tell investigators that she had no knowledge of the flier until a citizen telephoned her after receiving it in the mail."

"The caller, who was Vietnamese, politely explained how 'very, very bad' this flier was to the Vietnamese community," Brown said in the document.

Xavier Campos, who was Shirakawa's policy aide while Shirakawa was a supervisor in 2010, was Carrasco's opponent in the primary and run-off elections for the council seat.

In the primary election a few weeks after the flyers were mailed, Carrasco fell short of the 50 percent majority she needed for an outright victory by just 20 votes, according to Brown.

In the subsequent runoff election, she lost to Campos by fewer than 400 votes, Brown said.

The district attorney's office conducted an investigation into who was responsible for the mailer in 2010 but was unable to come to a conclusion until the DNA on the stamp was linked to Shirakawa, Rosen said.

"The filing of this charge solves the three-year mystery," Rosen said at a news conference this morning at the district attorney's office in San Jose.

Shirakawa is expected to surrender today at the Santa Clara County Main Jail to be booked on the charge, but will then be released on his own recognizance, Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu-Towery said.

He will be arraigned on the charge in Superior Count in San Jose at 1:30 p.m. Friday -- the same time he is to be sentenced on 12 criminal charges to which he pleaded guilty on March 1, the day he resigned from the Board of Supervisors.

Shirakawa, 51, was charged Feb. 28 with four felony counts of perjury, felony misuse of public funds and seven misdemeanors for filing inaccurate campaign and government finance reports between 2008 and 2012.

Rosen said the district attorney's office wants Shirakawa to serve one year in county jail for that case and be punished separately on the campaign mailer charge, which could get Shirakawa 16 months or more in jail.

Campos had received financial campaign support from Shirakawa when he was running for City Council, Rosen said.

When asked by reporters whether the district attorney's office is looking into whether Campos was involved with the fraudulent mailers, Rosen responded, "The investigation into this matter is open."

He said he is hoping the public can provide additional information about who may have financed the phony Carrasco mailer.

Campos could not be reached for comment today.

District 1 City Councilman Pete Constant said "there's a lot of surprise and shock and dismay" among city officials about Shirakawa's alleged involvement in the campaign mailers, and that the mailers "clearly had an impact on the election."

Constant, who described Shirakawa as "an unethical and immoral politician," said that given Campos' close relationship with Shirakawa, Campos "has an obligation to let the people of San Jose know what he knew and what he suspected."

Councilman Sam Liccardo said that others aside from Shirakawa had to be involved in organizing the false mailer's production and distribution.

"I would suspect this entire idea did not emerge solely from George Shirakawa's brain," Liccardo said. "The other people in an organization are not the ones licking the stamps."

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