SAN JOSE (BCN) — A judge in Santa Clara County Superior Court who is scheduled

Friday to sentence former county Supervisor George Shirakawa for sending

false campaign mailers has asked Shirakawa to confess to more details on how

he prepared and sent the phony mailers.

Judge Ron Del Pozzo said he would sentence Shirakawa to probation

with community service instead of jail time after Shirakawa agreed to plead

no contest Feb. 23 to preparing and sending fake campaign cards in 2010 meant

to damage a candidate for San Jose City Council among Vietnamese-American

voters.

The judge offered to impose the no-jail sentence on the felony

charge as long as Shirakawa provided a statement to a probation officer

accepting responsibility for creating and disseminating the mailer, according

to prosecutors.

Shirakawa, 53, faced up to three years in prison on the charge of

impersonating Magdalena Carrasco’s campaign committee to harm Carrasco’s run

for council District 5 against Shirakawa’s former aide Xavier Campos during

the June 2010 primary election.

Based on an offer by Del Pozzo to resolve the case, discussed in

chambers Feb. 23 with Shirakawa’s lawyer Jay Rorty and Deputy District

Attorney John Chase, Shirakawa changed his not guilty plea to no contest in

exchange for community service and probation, according to prosecutors.

Last Friday at a hearing before Del Pozzo, Chase and Rorty

discussed briefs they filed regarding the sentencing of Shirakawa, which Del

Pozzo is set to formally impose this Friday.

Prosecutors disagree with the judge’s indicated sentence and

insist that discussions on Shirakawa’s plea should be in open court at a

sentencing hearing.

They argue that the defendant had not adequately demonstrated his

remorse for what he did and should be sentenced instead to a year in county

jail for his crime.

Chase said that to get a no-jail deal, Shirakawa needed to

describe why and how he produced the mailers, while Rorty claimed his client

had already admitted to preparing and sending them.

Chase said that Shirakawa had merely provided a short “blurb” in a

letter written by Rorty to a probation officer in which the former supervisor

acknowledged responsibility but did not give details on his involvement.

Del Pozzo then asked Rorty, in order to “squash the theories about

the mailer,” to have Shirakawa write down a list of specifics of what went

into the making of the fake mailer, such as how he produced it, how he mailed

it, whether people in other political campaigns had knowledge of it, if he

solicited any contributions having to do with the mailer, where he got the

idea for it, what his intent was and anything else he would like to

volunteer.

The false mailer, printed on postcards purporting to be from

“Neighbors for Magdalena Carrasco for Council 2010,” which prosecutors said

Shirakawa impersonated, featured a photo of Carrasco with a separate graphic

of a Communist Vietnamese flag that is offensive to many immigrants from the

former South Vietnam in the U.S., all to benefit Campos’ campaign.

The District 5 council seat in East San Jose includes a community

of former residents of South Vietnam, which fought against the Communist

regime of North Vietnam until the Vietnam War ended in 1975 with the

Communists victorious.

Rorty, in his brief on Shirakawa’s sentencing, stated that his

client had admitted to creating the mailer and that Shirakawa’s “full and

unequivocal acceptance of responsibility for the crime weighs strongly in

favor of a noncustodial sentence.”

The lawyer said that among the mitigating factors favoring

community service is that there is no risk Shirakawa would create another

false mailer because “his life as a politician is over.”

“The crime was also nonviolent and involved no physical harm or

threat of such harm to Ms. Carrasco,” Rorty stated. “Mr. Shirakawa admits he

broke the law and deeply regrets offending the Vietnamese community.”

Prosecutors, in a brief co-written by District Attorney Jeff Rosen

and Chase, said Shirakawa deserved a year in jail and claimed he not only

damaged Carrasco but “also the democratic election process.”

Shirakawa, based on grand jury testimony, met with Carrasco before

the 2010 primary, tried to persuade her not to run and threatened her by

saying she would lose and “as a result of you not winning your future in San

Jose will be over,” the prosecutors stated.

Carrasco ran anyway and on May 15, 2010, was informed by her

campaign manager about complaints from Vietnamese-American voters about

receiving mailers with the Communist flag beside a photo that appeared to be

from her campaign, they said.

During the June 8, 2010, primary for District 5, Carrasco trailed

Campos by 20 votes out of 5,562 cast. In their November runoff, she lost to

him by 371 votes out of 10,065 cast, or 3.7 percent, according to the

district attorney’s office.

Of the 5,562 primary voters, 75 percent mailed in their ballots

and the election ballots were sent out by the Registrar of Voters between

that May 8 and May 17, the prosecutors said.

The defendant’s mailers were postmarked on May 14 and hundreds of

ballots may have been returned before voters learned the postcards were

fraudulent, they said.

“Undoubtedly, this was the defendant’s plan, and there is every

reason to believe he was successful in influencing at least 10 voters to

change their votes,” the prosecutors said.

Shirakawa still has not revealed how he paid for the cards and if

he notified the Campos campaign about it, they said.

The fact that Shirakawa refuses “to come clean about the crime

only makes it more serious,” the prosecutors stated.

“In such a serious case, the question is not whether, but how

much, jail is appropriate,” they said.

The statement in his lawyer’s letter about the “flier” attributed

to Shirakawa reads:

“I accept responsibility for the creation of the flier juxtaposing

a picture of Ms. Carrasco with a flag of the republic of Vietnam. This flier

was represented as being published by an organization dedicated to Ms.

Carrasco’s election and identified by a unique FPPC number. My DNA appears on

that flier because I created that flier. At the time I created the flier, I

was aware that the flier contained a false Fair Political Practices

Commission number, and the FPPC number would be used to falsely impersonate

the Carrasco campaign.

“I regret my conduct and apologize to the voters and the Santa

Clara (County) community for my actions,” the statement read.

Shirakawa, a former school board member and San Jose city

councilman, resigned from his District 2 seat on the Board of Supervisors in

2013 after pleading guilty to four felony counts of perjury, one count of

felony misuse of public funds and seven misdemeanors for campaign finance

filing and other violations.

He used more than $130,000 in public and campaign funds for

personal use and to gamble at casinos in California and Nevada, prosecutors

said.

A judge on Nov. 8, 2013, sentenced him to a year in jail with one

day of credit for time served and three years’ probation.

Shirakawa issued a public apology citing an addiction to gambling,

paid $50,000 restitution and was released from jail in 2014 after serving six

months.

In the Carrasco mailer case, Shirakawa, about two weeks before his

2013 sentencing, was indicted on the false impersonation charge by a grand

jury on Oct. 24, 2013.

Prosecutors used evidence from the district attorney’s crime lab

alleging that Shirakawa’s DNA was on a stamp on one of the original mailers.

Rorty and Shirakawa fought last year to get the false

impersonation charge dismissed, claiming that it should have been included in

his 2013 indictment, but a judge sided with prosecutors that it was a

separate matter that developed independently from that case.

In his call for a community service sentence, Rorty said

Shirakawa’s mailer, while offensive, resembled “hit pieces” that are commonly

circulated in campaigns and was similar to protected speech under the First

Amendment except that Shirakawa used Carrasco’s campaign name and FPPC

number.

Last June, when Campos ran for re-election, Carrasco bested him in

the primary and then won the District 5 seat on the City Council in November.