She was a “good buyer” of her provider, spending between as a lot as $27,000 on the drugs in 2022 alone, prosecutors mentioned.
She usually coordinated the shipments and funds along with her Indian provider through WhatsApp and “pumped tens of hundreds of {dollars} over time into the coffers of those unscrupulous networks,” Tartakovsky wrote.
In courtroom Tuesday, Tartakovsky famous that there are a lot of folks in America illicitly ordering medication off the web due to their addictions, and that the federal authorities doesn’t usually cost “pure customers” with crimes. However Segovia went a step additional, he mentioned.
“She grew to become a kind of auxiliary of this Indian community. She carried water for them,” Tartakovsky mentioned. “She did issues for his or her profit, like transferring drugs for them. And this isn’t some peripheral factor. That is the core of how these schemes work. They depend on Individuals to re-ship for them.”
Segovia was not profiting off these actions, he mentioned, however was as an alternative “spending this large fraction of her revenue” and “basically virtually bankrupting herself” to feed her habit.
Segovia was arrested in March 2023, initially on one rely of illegally importing a type of fentanyl. Prosecutors, nevertheless, later eliminated the fentanyl cost after admitting {that a} lab take a look at of the contents of one of many packages despatched to her had produced a false optimistic outcome. The cost was subsequently modified to the unlawful importation of tapentadol.
Expressing regret
In August 2024, Segovia, who had maintained her innocence till that time, indicated to the courtroom she’d be keen to simply accept duty for her crime.
In a Dec. 18 private written assertion asking the choose for leniency, Segovia expressed regret for her actions, saying she “would do something to take all of it again,” and famous that she is closely concerned within the lives of her grandchildren and is a caretaker for her 81-year-old husband, who’s in poor health.
“I by no means realized the magnitude of what I had carried out till a gun was pointed at me. I’ve by no means been in hassle with the legislation. This was one thing I had solely seen in films. It was probably the most traumatic factor that has ever occurred to me,” she wrote.
She mentioned she has additionally stopped taking drugs since her arrest and has handed 45 random drug assessments whereas present process counseling and therapy.
“I’ve this good little life and it was all blown up in entrance of me,” Segovia mentioned in courtroom on Tuesday. “And being sober made me understand how horrendous my conduct was. And I’ve by no means carried out something however be for the legislation, and I’m actually sorry.”
A number of different folks, together with her daughter, associates, neighbor and present and former San José cops, wrote to the choose on her behalf, testifying that Segovia is an efficient particular person, loving member of the family and a dependable colleague who cares deeply for others.
Segovia was fired from her position as government director of the police union shortly after her arrest in 2003. The union denied any involvement or information of her actions.
Nonetheless, the arrest sparked outrage amongst native elected officers, police critics and activists, prompting protests exterior San José Metropolis Corridor, with demonstrators calling for additional investigations and demanding metropolis leaders to cease taking donations from the highly effective police union.
The police union employed a personal investigator to look into whether or not Segovia’s actions have been related to her work, releasing the outcomes after her conviction.
The investigator concluded there was “no proof in any respect that any POA consultant had any involvement, information, or suspicions relating to Segovia’s alleged prison actions” and that each one the details point out she acted alone.
Prosecutors agreed with that evaluation but in addition criticized the union for interfering within the federal investigation following Segovia’s arrest.
“The SJPOA introduced publicly after the search of Segovia’s workplace that it wished to cooperate with this investigation. But counsel for the SJPOA engaged in stonewalling, even threatening to ‘search judicial intervention’ to cease the prosecution from reviewing Segovia’s SJPOA electronic mail contents, although the SJPOA by no means adopted by way of on its menace,” Tartakovsky wrote within the courtroom memo.
In the identical week, the union walled off public entry to main parts of its web site, together with pages that checklist its board members and employees — a change that its management mentioned was geared toward defending them.
‘Life upended’
Whereas Segovia was a civilian worker for her whole 20-year profession with the police union, Tartakovsky wrote that “she held a place that ought to have instilled her with firmer respect for the legislation and for her obligation to be truthful with legislation enforcement.”
And although she has since admitted her conduct was fallacious and accepted duty for it, Tartakovsky famous that she initially lied to federal investigators, making an attempt to pin every thing on her housekeeper, a transfer he known as “reprehensible.”
“This was not simply the conventional blundering dissimulation blurted out when a goal is first stunned and confronted by legislation enforcement,” Tartakovsky wrote. After being questioned by investigators, he mentioned “Segovia took six weeks to ponder her predicament, concocted a narrative” in an unsuccessful try to dupe investigators.
Gasner, Segovia’s legal professional, mentioned in his memo to the courtroom that Segovia initially denied her
crime “in a determined try to protect the key of her habit because the barrier between her regular and illicit life broke down.”
Prosecutors finally concluded that Segovia’s actions have been “not the conduct of a ‘mastermind,’ however a scared, confused, and addicted girl who noticed the partitions collapsing round her,” Tartakovsky wrote.
Actions of an ‘addict,’ not a ‘seller’
Choose Lee mentioned Tuesday she had weighed all of the details of the case, and agreed Segovia’s actions seemed to be “these of an addict and never a seller,” and he or she additionally counseled Segovia on her sobriety.
“A conviction right here is warranted. There was deception at first of the investigation. There was an abuse of energy in a legislation enforcement-adjacent place,” Lee mentioned. “Ms Segovia held a place that ought to have instilled in her a firmer respect for legislation enforcement and a firmer respect for being truthful at first of the investigation.”
In his memo, Tartakovsky mentioned Segovia, in shedding her job and having her life upended by the prison proceedings, has paid a steep value for her actions, and he credited her for overcoming her habit.
