OAKLAND — Outgoing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price has again been accused of using her office for political purposes.
This time, Price’s office is alleged to have added a charge to a case after a public defender representing a high-profile murder defendant refused to support her against the ultimately successful recall effort.
In a sworn declaration, Deputy Public Defender Kathleen Guneratne says Price made a rare decision to impose a sentencing enhancement on Jamal Thomas, one day after a fellow public defender rebuffed Price, complained about her handling of the DA’s office and specifically mentioned the Thomas case.
Guneratne’s motion comes in the wake of allegations by a private attorney named Ernie Castillo, who claims his client — an Oakland political operative who opposed Price’s election in 2022 — was charged with a felony after Price attempted to shake him down for a $20,000 donation.
It’s not just the lawyers’ words against Price — both motions include sworn declarations by witnesses backing up the allegations.
“Ms. Price punished Mr. Thomas for asserting his constitutional right to a trial. She retaliated against him because his attorney criticized her,” the motion says. “The District Attorney departed from her policy to personally authorize an eleventh-hour enhancement for an improper purpose.”
Price’s office has not responded to the motion in court, nor did it respond to a request for comment.
Guneratne’s motion was filed about two weeks after voters on Nov. 5 overwhelmingly removed Price from office by a two-to-one-margin. Price is expected to leave her post as early as this week.
One of Price’s first measures during her two-year tenure was to restrict the use of so-called sentencing enhancements, legal charges that can be attached to an underlying count to impose a harsher – or longer – sentence.
Price’s new policy required administrative approval for sentencing enhancements, and widely scaled back the practice across the county. There were few exceptions, but Thomas’ case apparently made the cut, and his attorney was informed of that shortly before trial, the motion says.
Jennnie Otis, a public defender who handled Thomas’ trial, says that she was informed of the decision to impose the sentencing enhancement hours after she and Price talked on the phone.
Price had called her, mentioned that she knew Otis had donated to her 2022 campaign and hoped Otis would oppose the recall, Otis wrote in the motion. Otis responded that she had serious concerns with Price’s handling of the office, and then specifically brought up Thomas’ case, the sworn declaration says.
“I explained that no charging decisions about enhancements had yet been made, even though we were on the eve of trial,” Otis wrote. “I complained that I had been asking the deputy district attorney for months whether he was going to seek the enhancements listed in the original charging instrument in light of the fact they violated the prosecution’s new directive on enhancements.”
Price became “defensive” as Otis voiced more complaints, including that Price’s office was continuing to prosecute cases that were investigated by an allegedly corrupt Oakland police detective who is facing bribery charges. Otis also said she’d heard that Price’s boyfriend — who Price hired over concerns of nepotism — had referred to Asian Americans in a racist way in public. Price objected to Otis using the term “boyfriend” and blanketly denied she would associate with any racist person, Otis wrote.
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The next day, Otis was informed by the deputy district attorney prosecuting the Thomas case, Nathan Feldman, that enhancements had been approved. Otis’ declaration says Feldman had been telling her for months he had been seeking his boss’s approval.
Thomas was convicted in July of murdering a former neighbor, Miles Armstead. The case received extra publicity because Armstead and his family had attempted numerous times to alert police to an ongoing harassment and vandalism campaign against them by Thomas, which culminated with the murder. Thomas is set to be sentenced in December.
Also in December, Mario Juarez is due in court, for a judge to determine what action to take over the motion accusing Price of a $20,000 shakedown. Castillo, his attorney, is expected to ask for an evidentiary hearing to prove the charges should be dismissed.
Juarez, a twice failed Oakland City Council candidate and political rival of Price, is also at the center of an ongoing investigation into alleged public and private corruption in Oakland. Widely believed to be cooperating with the FBI, Juarez was charged in January with bouncing a check to buy mailers against Mayor Sheng Thao’s lead opponents in the 2022 election. Juarez also says he was assaulted by alleged targets of the investigation — members of the Duong family, who operate the city’s contracted recycling business.
Juarez’s home was shot up in an attempted murder just days before the June 20 FBI raids at the homes of Mayor Thao, David Duong and his son, Andy Duong.
