Newly obtained email exchanges show an allegedly forged invoice that Capital Public Radio’s then-general manager Jun Reina sent after accountants asked him to provide a receipt for a nearly $29,000 expense.
The allegedly fake document surfaced as CapRadio, a nonprofit broadcaster that is licensed to Sacramento State, underwent its standard annual audit in fall 2022. The examination is required as part of the California State University’s requirements to remain in good standing with the university.
CapRadio earlier that year worked with a local company called Magnum Towers, Inc. to replace the KXPR tower in Walnut Grove that transmits classical music. Magnum Towers specializes in building, installing and servicing broadcast equipment.
A local accounting firm conducting the annual audit sought an invoice for expenditures related to the KXPR tower. The accountants sought a receipt to explain a $28,678.33 charge billed on Jan. 13, 2022. In CapRadio’s system, records show the itemized transaction labeled only as: “Payment.”
In response to the accountants’ inquiry, Reina provided an invoice dated Nov. 17, 2021, that explained the $28,678.33 charge as a 40% down payment to Magnum Towers for a 285-foot radio tower. Though Reina signed the document, he did not write a date, according to emails provided to The Sacramento Bee by CapRadio in response to a public records request.
But the actual down payment to Magnum Towers appears to have been made in the spring or summer of 2022, records show. The apparently legitimate invoice is dated Feb. 17, 2022, and was signed by Reina on May 6, 2022, according to the email exchanges.
Reina was arrested last month in connection to stealing $1.3 million from CapRadio across what prosecutors described as a multiyear scheme to fund a lavish lifestyle, including upgrades to his home and international vacations. He has not entered a plea in Sacramento Superior Court to charges of embezzlement, grand theft and forgery.
Sacramento County prosecutors in the criminal complaint said Reina, 60, forged a document referred to as the “Magnum Towers Proposal” on or about Sept. 15, 2022. A CapRadio employee contacted Reina by email on Sept. 14, 2022, and Reina responded with the allegedly fake invoice Sept. 15, the records provided to The Bee show.
Reina’s attorney, Stockton-based lawyer Mary Ann Bird, did not respond to a request for comment. A Magnum Towers representative also did not respond to a request for comment.
There were additional discrepancies between the February 2022 invoice and the November 2021 invoice.
The February 2022 invoice charges $5,169.25 as part of Sacramento County’s sales tax on top of the $66,700 base cost. The apparently forged invoice dated November 2021 has the same $66,700 base cost but charges $4,995.83 for Sacramento County’s sales tax.
The difference is less than $200, with the lower amount corresponding to an unusual sales tax rate of 7.49%. A 40% down payment on the lower grand total is exactly equal to the amount sought by auditors: $28,678.33, which is also handwritten in blue ink on that version of the document.
Emails show the bottom portions of two versions of an invoice sent by Magnum Towers, Inc. to Capital Public Radio, with then-CapRadio general manager Jun Reina’s handwriting in blue. Reina emailed the version on the left, dated Nov. 17, 2021 in the header of the full document, to accountants on Sept. 15, 2022, the same day Sacramento County prosecutors say Reina produced a forged Magnum Towers proposal. The apparently legitimate invoice, on the right, is dated Feb. 17, 2022 in the full document’s header. Capital Public Radio
Emails, bank statements and divergent copies of the same invoice provide a glimpse into just a small fraction of the more than $1.3 million total Reina is accused of embezzling. And it involves just one of the hundreds of transactions that auditors, authorities and CapRadio in a lawsuit have said Reina used for personal expenses but charge to his company American Express card.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said its property crimes detectives were first notified of possible embezzlement at CapRadio in January 2024, a few months after Reina left the nonprofit. A joint investigation by sheriff’s detectives and the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office continued for more than two years before Reina turned himself in at the Sacramento County Main Jail late last month. He is out of custody after posting bail.
Reina joined CapRadio in 2007 as its chief financial officer. He was promoted to the general manager position in 2020 and left the nonprofit in June 2023.
Former Capital Public Radio general manager Jun Reina arrives at the Sacramento County Main Jail before his arraignment on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, on felony counts of embezzlement, grand theft and forgery. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com CapRadio’s tower plan
CapRadio tried for more than a decade to repair the tower beaming KXPR, which transmits classical music.
The work to fix KXPR tower was a longtime promise for the broadcaster’s classical music aficionados after its frequency was moved to a tower farther away from Sacramento. Its signal once flowed from 90.9 FM tower in Elverta.
But in 2006, CapRadio’s then-general manager Mike Lazar supported a plan to swap frequencies between towers in Elverta and Walnut Grove.
KXJZ at 90.9 FM distributes journalism and entertainment. But its tower, located in Walnut Grove at the time, had a spottier signal and was farther away, according to previous Bee reporting.
Today, the KXJZ tower is located in Elverta and broadcasts at 90.9. The KXPR tower signal instead transmits from a tower in Walnut Grove.
CapRadio sought to replace KXPR’s tower, described in internal emails as nearing its end stage of use, with a higher power transmitter, according to an email sent by Shirlee Tully, then CapRadio’s chief brand and development officer to Sacramento State. The new tower was intended to be built in Sloughhouse, on Kiefer Boulevard north of Highway 16.
“Having a stronger signal and larger coverage area will lead to future audience growth and donor support,” Tully wrote.
What was nearly $30,000 charge for?
Neither the records obtained by The Bee nor the criminal complaint indicate what expense Reina allegedly sought to cover with $28,673.33.
But credit card records released separately to The Bee last year and social media posts by a family member indicate Reina took a vacation to the Caribbean nation of St. Maarten in the first two weeks of 2022.
The credit card statements were released as part of a 2024 forensic examination conducted into CapRadio. The Bee reviewed an itemized, unredacted list of more than $400,000 charges linked to Reina’s CapRadio-issued American Express card for which auditors could not find supporting, business-related receipts.
Those charges included: A $10,250 booking to the now-closed Westin hotel in St. Maarten purchased in July 2021; a nearly $1,300 charge posted Jan. 2, 2022 to a company called “Eagle Tours” that, on its website, offers chartered boat tours of St. Maarten; and nearly $800 to a rental car company in St. Maarten’s capital city, Philipsburg.
Reina’s adult daughter on her public Instagram page shared a series of photos and videos of the family’s St. Maarten vacation.
One of the pictures reviewed by The Bee, from Jan. 8, 2022, showed Reina, his wife and seven other family members posing on an Eagle Tours charter boat.
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Ishani Desai is a government watchdog reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She previously covered crime and courts for The Bakersfield Californian.