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‘She’s been the grandma of the POA,’ union President Sean Pritchard said.
The executive director of a California police union has been arrested on charges of importing illicit drugs, having them mailed to her home under such innocuous labels as “Wedding Party Favors,” “Gift Makeup,” and “Chocolate and Sweets.”
Federal officials said they intercepted five shipments to Joanne Marian Segovia between July 2019 and January 2023 containing thousands of pills, including the synthetic opioids Tramadol and Tapentadol as well as fentanyl, according to KNTV. Some of the parcels were valued in the thousands of dollars.
And some of the parcels contained fentanyl derivatives, the officials said.
Segovia, 64, is suspected of using both her home and office computers — and the union’s UPS account — to order and distribute 61 shipments between October 2015 and January 2023. The shipments came from Hong Kong, Hungary, Singapore, and India and were distributed to several states in the United States, federal officials said.
“She’s been the grandma of the POA,” San Jose Police Officers Association President Sean Pritchard said of Segovia, who has worked for the union since 2003. “This is not the person we’ve known, the person who has worked with fallen officers’ families, organized fundraisers for officers’ kids – just not who we’ve known over a decade.”
Pritchard said there was “no indication” anyone else was involved in the scheme.
The federal complaint says that Segovia used encrypted WhatsApp communications to coordinate the shipments.
San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata said in a statement on Thursday that the news of Segovia’s arrest “is dishearening and comes as a shock to me and the leaders and membership of the SJPOA.”
“I want our stakeholders to know that the civilian employee was never employed in any capacity by the San Jose Police Department,” he said.
[Featured image: Joanne Marian Segovia/LinkedIn]
