Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva, who Joe.My.God. notes has held town hall meetings in an anti-gay megachurch and gave God a ceremonial key to the city, was arrested Thursday at a city-run camp for disadvantaged youth on charges including eavesdropping or recording confidential communications, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, providing alcohol to a minor, and cruelty to a child by endangering health.
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“That clip contains audio of a conversation between participants involved in a strip poker game that occurred in Silva’s bedroom”, a news release from the district attorney explains, noting that the phone appeared to have been set down, and only audio was captured.
An 18-year-old woman told the investigator that all the participants in the game were naked at some point, although the mayor is heard saying he has clothes.
Witnesses also told officers that Silva provided alcohol to the camp counselors, five of whom were underage. In light of the past three criminal probes and Silva’s arrest on charges stemming from his involvement in the alleged strip poker game at his summer camp cabin, the Stockton Police Officers Association has called for his immediate resignation as mayor.
“I also find the timing of the release of the DA’s report calculated and politically motivated, because it was well known that I would be out of town and unable to respond to any questions properly”, Silva added.
The Stockton mayor also provided alcohol for a number of camp participants and counselors. In 2012, a 19-year-old accused Silva of sexual battery, but no formal charges were filed. After the suspect, Anthony Binder, spit in the face of a woman at a home on Treetop Lane, he allegedly grabbed a gun and put it in his belt. She said that if either of those two scenarios happened, it is now too late to have Silva’s name removed from the ballots.
“Indecent exposure would mean deliberate showing of underwear”, Silva said to reporters.
In 2013, then-City Manager Bob Deis asked the San Joaquin County District Attorney to investigate Silva, accusing him of secretly recording their conversations.
Mayor Anthony Silva was arrested yesterday at the camp. Passengers claimed a drunken Silva made an inappropriate advance on a woman in the vehicle. The limousine driver filed a civil lawsuit against Silva and the other passengers the following May.
Stockton, a city of 300,000 in the state’s Central Valley, has been battered in recent years. The investigation began a year ago with a search of his electronic devices. Investigators would later reveal that the weapon used in that shooting was Silva’s missing Beretta handgun.
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. However, Silva did not report the guns stolen until a month after Harris’ death.
The gun would finally be recovered on June 9, 2016, at the scene of a domestic disturbance in Stockton.
In September 2015, agents from the Department of Homeland Security detained Silva at the San Francisco International Airport as he returned from China with a delegation of Northern California mayors.
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According to a Patheos report, the anti-LGBT Republican mayor’s legal troubles got their start during an FBI investigation that took place towards the end of 2015.
