When former CapRadio General Manager Jun Reina was criminally charged last month, prosecutors accused the former executive of a “multi-year scheme” to siphon off funds from the public radio station for personal benefit.
Hired in 2007 as CapRadio’s chief financial officer, Reina rose through the ranks. He added chief operating officer to his title in 2013, and was promoted in 2020 to executive vice president and general manager before resigning in 2023.
The Sacramento County District Attorney’s office filed three felony charges against Reina in January 2026, alleging that the scheme extended from Dec. 6, 2016 to June 12, 2022. Reina is accused of misappropriating approximately $1.33 million through unauthorized credit card charges, payments to his personal credit card accounts and more than 140 electronic fund transfers from CapRadio’s bank account to his personal one.
Two felony charges, embezzlement and grand theft, are alleged to have taken place between December 2016 and March 2022. But the third charge, forgery, focuses on one specific date — Sept. 15, 2022.
On that day, the DA’s office says, Reina allegedly passed off what is called the Magnum Towers Proposal, “knowing the same to be false, altered, forged and counterfeited.”
Magnum Towers is a company located along Elder Creek Road which specializes in the fabrication and installation of broadcast towers.
The Magnum Towers project
A proposal document, obtained via a Public Records Act request, called for the company to provide CapRadio with a 285-foot tower located in Sacramento. The document is dated Feb. 17, 2022, and was signed and dated by Reina on May 6, 2022.
The KXPR broadcasting tower located along Eagles Nest Road in Sacramento Feb. 23, 2026.Evan Matsler/CapRadio
Interim General Manager Frank Maranzino was CapRadio’s Director of Technology at the time. He said the Magnum Towers project was legitimate. The tower itself is located along Eagles Nest Road and was built to serve as CapRadio’s KXPR 88.9 music signal, which was previously located on a tower in Walnut Grove.
Maranzino said the concept of the project had been around for years, “long before I was even an employee. I came in… as director of technology for me to finish the project.” He said the new tower was tuned toward “building penetration,” saying most music listeners tune in indoors.
“This new signal reaches a lot more listeners in the foothills, all the way up to north Auburn, Colfax, up the I-80 corridor, as well as all the way up to El Dorado Hills,” Maranzino explained.
He said CapRadio established a ground lease at the Eagles Nest Road location in 2020 and began speaking with different vendors for parts of the project. Magnum Towers ultimately was picked to construct and install the 285-foot tower and other components.
The new tower had an FCC construction permit to move the signal, but the permit had a deadline in mid-2023. Maranzino said the station met all FCC expectations and regulations, and the Eagles Nest tower began broadcasting in July 2023.
Routine annual audit flags payment
On Sept. 14, 2022, Carlos Castrillo, then-CapRadio Senior Accountant, emailed Reina saying that auditors from the CSU system were requesting “a copy of the invoice that corresponds to the Amex [American Express] payment of $28,678.33 from 01/14/2022?”
Castrillo said auditors needed the documentation as part of the audit validation process. His email attached a request for “invoices for these expenditures on KXPR tower” from CapRadio’s systems.
The $28,678.33 expenditure in question is dated 1/13/2022 and simply lists “Payment” in its description, while others around it include more detailed information. A statement showing an American Express e-payment on Jan. 14 is also included.
Reina wrote Castrillo back minutes later, “I should. I’ll look for it.”
The next day Castrillo reminded the former GM about the documentation, saying “the auditors need the information today.” Reina said he would look for the files in his office, and later sent Castrillo a document which was ultimately provided to CSU auditors.
Document discrepancies
Through the public records request, reporters received two copies of the Magnum Towers Proposal. One appears to be the original proposal submitted by the tower fabricator to the radio station. The other is the invoice sent by Reina, which initially appears identical to the original. Both documents include the same details about the tower and deliverables, the same Request for Proposal number and identical base tower costs.
But the copy supplied by Reina contains several subtle discrepancies:
The two proposals have different dates and identification numbers. CapRadio’s copy of the proposal is dated Feb. 17, 2022, and numbered 22-019A. The document Reina provided is dated Nov. 17, 2021, and numbered 21-035. Emails between CapRadio employees, real estate brokers and Magnum Towers, as well as invoice paperwork, only reference 22-019A.
The top sections of two versions of the Magnum Towers proposal obtained from CapRadio. The version on the left appears to be the legitimate invoice, dated Feb. 17, 2022 and numbered 22-019A. The version on the right was submitted by Reina and is dated Nov. 17, 2021, and numbered 21-035, both of which are highlighted.CapRadio
Despite being dated November 2021, the copy provided by Reina references a preliminary design dated “2/09/22.” That would be almost three months after the invoice was supposedly created and nearly a month after the American Express charge was made.
The top portion of the Magnum Towers invoice submitted by Reina showing the reported submission date of Nov. 17, 2021, and the preliminary design it references dated Feb. 9, 2022, both of which are highlighted.CapRadio
The original proposal lists a Sacramento County sales tax rate of 7.75% while the invoice submitted by Reina omits the percentage altogether. Reina’s copy only lists “Sacramento County Sales Tax,” and is calculated at a lower rate.
Due to the difference in tax rates, the document submitted by Reina lists slightly lower sales tax charges ($4,995.83) and total project costs ($71,695.83) compared to the original — a difference of $173.42.
The terms of the proposal require 40% of the contract as down payment. The invoice copy Reina submitted has the total project cost circled, marked with his initials and a handwritten note at the bottom reading “40%. $28,678.33.”
The bottom sections of two versions of the Magnum Towers proposal obtained from CapRadio. The version on the left appears to be the legitimate invoice and shows a Sacramento County sales tax rate of 7.75%. The version on the right was submitted by Reina and shows no tax rate listed, as well as slightly lower sales tax charges and total project costs, all of which are highlighted. It also includes a note listing a supposed 40% down payment in the amount of $28,678.33 in Reina’s handwriting.CapRadio
This is the exact amount shown in the American Express charge flagged by auditors. But it is not accurate for the total cost listed in the original proposal from Magnum Towers, which should be slightly higher.
Another email showed Reina was informed about the real down payment amount. On May 6, 2022, a real estate broker emailed Reina with the original Magnum Towers Proposal, saying it “needs your signature and a check for a 40% deposit of the $71,869.25 tower fabrication price=$28,747.70.”
Detective Monica Bustamante, who led the Sacramento County Sheriff Office’s nearly two-year investigation into Reina, confirmed the forgery charge was related to the tower project. She said Reina had “adjusted that invoice to reflect the payment amount to the American Express, and provided to the auditors that that was what that American Express payment was for.”
Reina’s attorney Mary Ann Bird, from the Stockton-based firm Bird & Van Dyke, did not return a request for comment.
Skepticism over documentation
Additional emails provided by CapRadio showed Castrillo shared the invoice Reina sent with former Director of Finance Rocio de Valk in February 2023. And in April 2023, de Valk emailed Reina the same document writing, “here is the invoice. So we paid $28k towards Magnum.”
De Valk served as the finance director from 2021-2023, coinciding with Reina’s tenure as general manager. She told CapRadio in August 2024 about witnessing several troubling financial practices while at the public media station.
De Valk did not use Reina’s name while speaking with reporters but said as she was preparing for an annual audit she asked the former GM for documentation related to the station’s budget, but never received it.
She also noted, “there were some credit card transactions coming through and I just didn’t know where the backups were for those transactions.”
“I kept asking that individual to provide the backups, but it just fell on deaf ears,” she explained. De Valk was also concerned about unsupported payments for months, eventually flagging the issue for Sac State officials in spring 2023.
An August 2024 forensic examination commissioned by Sac State found over $760,000 in unsupported payments, with more than half of those made to one station executive which CapRadio reporters identified as Reina.
The former GM resigned from CapRadio months after de Valk sent him the invoice copy. CapRadio laid off staff and canceled four longtime music programs in August 2023, and in September the CSU Chancellor’s Office would release its audit outlining significant financial mismanagement at the station as its years-long crisis began.
Where did the money go?
Instead of a project down payment, Bustamante said Reina had spent the $28,678.33 on “personal expenses for travel.”
No charges in that amount appear in the January 2022 records of a CapRadio American Express card associated with Reina. But credit card charges for that month do appear to show payments of nearly $1,300 for a tour company in St. Maarten, more than $750 for rental cars on the island and two charges at the El Macero Country Club near Davis, each over $1,000.
The January 2022 credit card statement for a CapRadio American Express card associated with former general manager Jun Reina.CapRadio
The district attorney’s office accuses the former executive of using stolen station funds to “finance luxury international travel, high-end home renovations, tuition for his children, and other personal expenses.”
For over a year, CapRadio has also accused its former GM of lavish personal spending on the station’s dime. A December 2024 civil lawsuit filed in Yolo County Superior Court accuses Reina of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars “to secretly enrich himself.”
CapRadio sought at least $900,000 in damages and for Reina’s West Sacramento home — where he was accused of making more than $100,000 in improvements using station credit cards — to be placed in a trust.
CapRadio received a nearly $1.3 million insurance settlement last August related to the alleged misconduct, with the insurance company taking the station’s place in the lawsuit. Reina’s attorneys last March said their client denies wrongdoing but said if an error was made, it was “made in good faith and unintentional.”
A future in court
Reina surrendered himself at the Sacramento County Main Jail Jan. 29, the same day the criminal charges were leveled against him, and was released shortly afterwards after posting $200,000 bail. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that as part of the surrender terms, the former GM gave up his passport.
Reina made his first brief court appearance Feb. 2 accompanied by his family. He did not enter a plea and his attorney Bird successfully requested the arraignment be postponed until April 1.
District Attorney Thien Ho told CapRadio last month he does not anticipate filing any other charges. But he acknowledged that if other information surfaces, “we’ll take a look at anything that comes to light.”
Disclosure: This story was reported and written by Senior Producer Sarit Laschinsky. Statehouse Politics Reporter Gerardo Zavala contributed reporting. It was edited by Editors Jen Picard and Sally Longenecker.
Following NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no CapRadio corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted or broadcast.
You can read our independent ongoing coverage of financial issues at Capital Public Radio here.
Editor’s note: CapRadio is licensed to Sacramento State, which is also an underwriter.
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