"The lawsuit filed Wednesday 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."
"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."
San José Spotlight filed a lawsuit seeking disclosure of a group chat labeled "Tammany Hall" that allegedly involved Councilmembers Peter Ortiz, Domingo Candelas and former Councilmember Omar Torres. Law enforcement sources reported the thread included racial slurs and disparaging remarks about neighborhoods and was found on Torres' phone during his criminal investigation. Ortiz and Candelas indirectly acknowledged the thread after meetings with social justice groups. City Hall and the police denied multiple public records requests, citing a criminal investigation exemption and at times refusing to confirm the records' existence. Torres pleaded no contest to historical sexual abuse and received an 18-year sentence.
Read at San Jose Spotlight
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]