A lawyer says Silva has been charged with providing alcohol to minors last summer at a youth camp he runs.
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Mayor Anthony Ray Silva, in a booking photo released on Thursday.
Stockton Mayor, Anthony Silva, is shown in a booking photo provided to KTLA on August 4, 2016.
Silva was charged in Amador County on Thursday with misdemeanor counts of furnishing alcohol to minors and child endangerment, and with a felony count of secretly recording confidential communications without consent. The audio was recorded on the mayor’s cellphone, which was confiscated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Last year, Homeland Security agents detained the mayor at San Francisco global airport, and confiscated his laptop upon his return from his China trip.
According to the Amador County District Attorney’s Office, Silva held a strip poker game at his camp and provided alcohol during the game to players, who were all under 21 years old. Reportedly, others in attendance at the illicit poker game admitted to investigators that everyone who played ended up naked at one time or another, reports The Sacramento Bee.
The charges revolve around Silva’s involvement in a strip poker game, the Stockton Record reported (http://bit.ly/2aDFiA0 ), citing information from the Amador County district attorney’s office.
The complaint alleges that Silva also gave the participants, two or three females and three males, alcohol before the game. Sawyer believes that the arrest is a political maneuver since Silva is set to face Democratic City Councilman Michael Tubbs in a heated election in November.
The city of Stockton dispatched their parks and recreation department to take over the camp following Silva’s arrest Thursday. The camp is owned by the United States Forest Service, which has leased the camp to the city for almost a century for $1 per year. The anti-LGBT Republican mayor was released from his camp supervision duties and replaced by another adult.
Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva participates in a mayoral candidate forum hosted by the NAACP on April 21, 2016. They’re coming from the police union and at least one city councilmember.
Silva, who is now running for re-election, has faced controversies in the past, including an official admonishment in December 2013 after he discussed contract details with a new city manager on Facebook, despite a promise of confidentiality, according to ABC affiliate KGTV. “We haven’t even had a chance to digest what they’ve said”.
“They have had all of this evidence for over a year”. “And have spent unlimited resources looking everywhere they could to find something to justify the investigation”. “He will clear his good name, and then we will seek whatever redress we can to restore his reputation”.
Silva said he called law enforcement “for advice” about the gun thefts and was told to check and make sure that the guns had not been misplaced by movers. On July 29, it was reported by local media that a gun stolen from the mayor’s home has been linked to multiple crimes in the local area.
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Silva is also accused of previously not reporting that a gun was stolen from his home until a month after it was used in the killing of a 13-year-old Stockton boy early last year.
