The executive director of San Jose’s Police Officers Association has been fired following her arrest for allegedly importing drugs from overseas and distributing them throughout the country.
Joanne Segovia, who is 64 years old, was charged with trying to bring a form of fentanyl into the United States from another country.
Investigators say she ordered the drugs on her home and office computers and agreed to send them to other parts of the U.S.
The San Jose Police Officers’ Association said that they didn’t know what their 20-year employee was doing. The POA has reportedly completed the first phase of its internal investigation into the federal drug charges against Segovia and has terminated her employment.
“Because of this,” said Sean Pritchard, the president of the POA. s”We have terminated her employment.”
The POA would not elaborate on what findings in that investigation led to the firing.
The tweet below confirms the news:
JUST IN: SJ police union executive fired after being charged in drug distribution schemehttps://t.co/7yPPvLUhKg
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) April 7, 2023
Former San Jose Independent Police Auditor LaDoris Cordell talks about claims that SJPOA Executive Director Joanne Segovia brought drugs into the country.
POA Don’t Know When They Will Hire a Private Investigator
The POA says that the next step in the investigation will be to bring in a third-party investigator from the outside.
“We want to find someone whose record can’t be questioned,” Pritchard said. “Someone that’s an expert to be able to come in and take a look at our overall protocols or procedures, things that we have in place, (to see) could there have been something that was in place that would have identified this type of behavior sooner.”
Police accountability groups and human rights advocates raised questions Wednesday about the years-long drug smuggling case.
“We can’t just have the POA say that an internal investigation will be done. That doesn’t work, “Wednesday in San Jose, Laurie Valdez spoke at a rally.
The POA says their search to bring in an external investigator was planned and is not in response to calls from the community groups.
Pritchard said, “We’ve been planning this from the start.” “We have taken it as seriously as we can from the first second we heard about it until right now, and we are still moving forward.”
The POA says they don’t have a set date for when they will hire a private investigator.
Pritchard said, “There’s one reason why we don’t.” “And that’s to make sure we’re doing everything right. We don’t want to do something quickly.”
The next time Segovia will be in court is on April 28.
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