Star witness affirms pay-to-enjoy for gun permits at Santa Clara County sheriff corruption demo

SAN JOSE — A star prison witness, whose confessions to bribing his way into having concealed-gun permits laid the groundwork for felony indictments that scandalized the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Workplace, took the stand Monday in the civil corruption demo for Sheriff Laurie Smith.

Smith has not been straight implicated in the two prison indictments that ensnared her undersheriff and a captain who served as a close adviser, but people controversies resulted in a torrent of community scrutiny she reported knowledgeable her determination to retire in January immediately after six conditions. A responsible verdict in the present trial, spurred by a civil grand jury examining significantly of the similar proof, would pressure her departure even quicker.

Martin Nielsen testified publicly for the initial time about how he and the former head of the defunct government stability firm AS Remedy — whose substantial-profile customers bundled the likes of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — agreed to financially support Smith’s 2018 re-election bid to procure so-termed hid-have weapons permits for their stability agents. These agents were assigned to guard executives for the business then known as Fb.

As he advised a prison grand jury in 2020 and a independent civil grand jury very last year — in key testimony afterwards disclosed in community transcripts — Nielsen specific how in the wake of an infamous 2018 shooting at the YouTube campus in San Bruno, he was tasked with acquiring a way to get their higher-degree stability brokers the capacity to have concealed handguns.

Nielsen, testifying less than a grant of immunity from criminal prosecution, claimed that he and then-AS Alternative CEO Christian West sooner or later arranged to donate a significant sum to an unbiased expenditure committee backing Smith’s re-election. Nielsen included that Capt. James Jensen brokered the issuing of 4 CCW permits for Nielsen and three security staff.

At first, the discussion involved getting much more than a dozen permits, but Nielsen was clear in affirming that a hefty political donation would make it occur.

“Did you arrive absent with knowledge you would get 10-15 permits?” Prosecutors Gabriel Markoff requested.

“Yes,” Nielsen replied.

Smith’s connection has been drawn largely due to the fact of her position as her agency’s sole signatory for the gun licenses. Underneath questioning Monday from Smith lawyer Allen Ruby, Nielsen affirmed that his only conversation with Smith was a 30-next satisfy-and-greet at a fundraiser for the duration of the time period he was doing work Jensen to get the gun permits.

The precise donation amount of money was not stated in Nielsen’s testimony Monday thanks to a ruling by San Mateo County Top-quality Court docket Decide Nancy Fineman, who limited the sum of element that Nielsen was authorized to give. She said she did not want selected aspects from the criminal indictment to unduly affect the jury.

On the other hand, in past testimony, Nielsen said $90,000 was the agreed amount of money, even though only $45,000 was at any time donated the other 50 % was scuttled after Nielsen was served by investigators with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s business in 2019 as a bribery and corruption probe obtained underway.

Nielsen testified that Jensen instructed him to lie on the apps for his agents, which include entering household addresses in the county even if the brokers did not dwell in the South Bay.

“I was informed there ended up a number of means it could be completed,” Nielsen explained, referring to residency necessities. “People could rent rooms from each individual other … (or) much more than one particular man or woman could dwell at an handle.”

Nielsen also testified that he was unilaterally exempted by Jensen from getting to qualify below a legally expected firearms proficiency take a look at, and bought instruction to obscure their affiliation to the safety organization to prevent unfavorable optics.

“They could not all be AS Alternative,” he explained. “Something about the reality it was a safety firm and it did not glimpse great.”