SAN JOSE SPOTLIGHT IS SUING San Jose City Hall and the city’s police department after they repeatedly refused to release an inflammatory text thread involving several councilmembers.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday last week seeks the disclosure of “Tammany Hall” — a group chat that allegedly involved Councilmembers Peter Ortiz, Domingo Candelas and former Councilmember Omar Torres, who was arrested last year in connection with child sex crimes and lewd acts with a minor. Law enforcement sources told this news publication the thread included racial slurs and disparaging remarks about certain neighborhoods. The texts were allegedly discovered on Torres’ phone during his criminal investigation and shared with top officials at City Hall.
Ortiz and Candelas indirectly acknowledged the thread in June after meeting with social justice groups — who ultimately stood by the officials and questioned whether police were targeting the councilmembers for political gain.
City Hall and the San Jose Police Department denied five public records requests from San José Spotlight to release the communications — which appeared to mention city business. The city initially denied the texts’ existence, then released one message from a reporter about the texts. The police department claimed the texts would be exempt from disclosure because they’re part of a criminal investigation, and argued there’s no requirement to even confirm whether the records exist.
Authorities have closed their investigation into Torres over the molestation of a minor relative when he was an adult in the 1990s. The victim told authorities he was 4 years old when Torres first started abusing him, escalating in severity until the 1999 assault when Torres was a legal adult. Torres pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 18 years in prison in August.
“For the second time in three years, we’re heading to court to compel the city of San Jose to follow the law and uphold the public’s right to know,” Ramona Giwargis, co-founder and CEO of the news organization, said. “San Jose continues to flout transparency laws, and there is absolutely no legal justification for withholding these communications between elected officials. The police department and City Hall must be held accountable for keeping the public in the dark.”
San José Spotlight teamed up with the First Amendment Coalition in 2022 to sue the city and former Mayor Sam Liccardo, now a congressman, over an unlawful attempt to withhold records and a failure to search for them. The court ruled in its favor, unlocking hundreds of previously hidden records and declaring the city and Liccardo had violated the law. City Hall had to pay $500,000 in attorney fees after losing the case.
Prominent downtown lawyer Jim McManis is representing San José Spotlight in the new case. He went toe-to-toe with San Jose in a 2009 lawsuit over concealed communications about a development proposal from former Mayor Tom McEnery, who received millions from the city’s redevelopment agency for the project. The eight-year legal battle ended in 2017 when the California Supreme Court made a landmark ruling: Communications on personal accounts or devices are considered public records if they deal with the public’s business. The high court effectively rejected a practice by government officials of using personal accounts to hide communications. San Jose soon became a government transparency battleground.
“It’s really perplexing to me that the city continues to resist requests from news people and the general public when the law couldn’t be clearer. And now we have to file a petition to get what should have been received under the statutes of the Public Records Act,” McManis told San José Spotlight.
The texts allegedly contained the use of the n-word in some variation. Some defended the councilmembers, saying they privately addressed the texts and raised broader issues about communities’ casual use of racial slurs. They also noted that one city employee allegedly on the thread is Black.
“There were some serious allegations stemming from that text thread and I think the public has the right to know the truth,” Josh Barousse, San José Spotlight’s co-founder and executive director, said.
The San Jose Police Department declined comment on the lawsuit, as did City Attorney Nora Frimann.
Councilmembers Ortiz and Candelas did not respond to requests for comment.
Mayor Matt Mahan, who previously called for the texts to be released, also declined comment on the litigation. The mayor in June said he’s “especially concerned” by claims of a cover-up.
“If the texts fall under the city’s usual standards for public disclosure, they should be made public to maintain trust with our community,” Mahan said at the time.
San José Spotlight’s lawsuit seeks a full copy of the “Tammany Hall” group thread, allegedly named after a powerful political machine that dominated New York state politics in the 1800s. It also seeks attorney fees and findings that the city violated public records laws.
“Allowing (the City of San Jose) to escape public scrutiny through dishonest assertion of exemptions and hasty, fruitless searches directly defies the legislative intent of the CPRA and California Constitution, as well as the City’s own Sunshine Ordinance, producing exactly the unjust result these initiatives are intended to address,” the lawsuit reads.
McManis said the issue has evolved beyond the content of the texts themselves and into a statewide war against government secrecy. He pointed to his experience with the 2009 case, and how it drew clear battle lines where organizations like the League of California Cities sided with San Jose against the public’s right to know.
“This is not my first rodeo. I suspect it’s not going to be my last,” McManis said. “I don’t know if the city will ever get the message.”
Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X.