April 8 (UPI) — The executive director for the San Jose Police Officers Association has been fired after allegedly helping to import fentanyl and distribute it, the organization said.
Joanne Segovia, 64, was charged with allegedly using her work computer to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. She had been the association’s former manager and its executive director since 2003.
“[t]he abhorrent criminal conduct alleged against Ms. Segovia must be the impetus to ensuring our internal controls at the POA are strong and that we enact any changes that could have identified the alleged conduct sooner,” association president Sean Pritchard said in a statement to The (San Jose) Mercury News.
Last month U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California alleged Segovia was apprehended as part of an almost decade-long ongoing Homeland Security investigation into a criminal network trafficking drugs into the San Francisco Bay Area from Asia and Europe.
Between October 2015 and January 2023, Segovia is alleged to have had at least 61 shipments delivered to her home from countries including Hong Kong, Hungary, India and Singapore where the contents were variously described as wedding gifts, makeup and sweets.
Five shipments intercepted by agents between 2019 and this year contained thousands of pills of controlled substances, including the synthetic opioids Tramadol and Tapentadol, with street values of thousands of dollars.
Segovia told federal investigators in February she was not involved in the smuggling, which she blamed on “a family friend and housekeeper,” the complaint stated. However, authorities produced photos allegedly sent by Segovia to an accomplice in the scheme, including a computer with police union work materials nearby and her signature on a packing slip sent from the union’s address.
Investigators allege she ran her operation via WhatsApp and in a three-year period between January 2020 and March 2023 exchanged hundreds of messages with someone with an India country code.
On Friday, association spokesperson Tom Saggau said no other police officer was being investigated.
“We’ve been assured as late as today in talks with the U.S. Attorney’s Office that no one affiliated, no police officer is being looked at or suspected of being involved or having any pre-knowledge,” he said.
