That dollar amount includes $850,000 in civil penalties and $150,000 that will go toward fire prevention education and outreach in the South Bay, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. It was the DA’s Bureau of Investigations that examined reported failures in fire-suppression systems at the home-improvement giant’s Blossom Hill Road location, which was leveled by fast-moving flames on April 9, 2022.

“Fire code violations are potential tragedies in waiting. Ignoring them isn’t just risky; it’s reckless,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “It risks far more than property. It risks lives.”

An investigation, which was headed by the San Jose Fire Department and grew to include the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, determined that the fire was deliberately set in the store’s lumber section. Dyllin Jaycruz Gogue, 29, has been charged with arson and is being held without bail in the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas, though his case has remained in an early plea-entering stage in the two years since.

A police investigation contends that Gogue was attempting to steal items from the store and set the fire as a distraction. He has also been charged with theft-related crimes at other retailers in the area before the blaze occurred.

While authorities seemed to have the source of the fire nailed down swiftly, big questions lingered about how and why the fire was able to spread throughout the nearly 99,000-square-foot property — and seriously threaten the lives of hundreds inside the store — instead of being isolated to near its point of origin. Fleeing store occupants reported never seeing the sprinklers go off as the five-alarm blaze consumed the store and $17 million in inventory, and caused building losses estimated in the tens of millions of dollars.

In the fire’s aftermath, this news organization uncovered records of several fire code violations recorded at the store in the previous two years, including a December 2020 citation for failing to provide proof of recent inspections of its fire alarm and sprinkler systems.

In a Monday news release, the district attorney’s office stated that the violations uncovered by its investigators in a post-fire probe hampered firefighters’ efforts to save the building. Chief among them was a finding that the store was notified that its sprinkler system was not working, and did not take any actions to restore its functionality.

Additionally, the office said its investigation discovered various instances of fire code violations in 13 other Home Depot stores in Santa Clara County. The news release stated that Home Depot cooperated with investigators, and after being presented with their findings “took action in curing all outstanding fire code violations at its stores in the county and implemented new training and tracking methods to ensure future compliance.”

A Home Depot spokesperson sent a statement in response to a request for comment about the case Monday: “Our number one concern is the safety and wellbeing of our associates and customers, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to work with the district attorney to make sure all of our facilities are as safe as possible.”

The roughly $1.3 million payout by the company, on top of the civil fines and fire education contributions, will also compensate the San Jose Fire Department and other fire agencies that responded to and investigated the 2022 fire.

San Jose police announced Wednesday that investigators arrested 32-year-old Luis Carrillo-Moyeda last month after receiving a tip alleging “illegal narcotics manufacturing and sale operating out of a business” in the 400 block of Blossom Hill Road, near Snell Avenue.

A search of city business filings shows that Carrillo is listed as the owner of a Yum Yum Donuts franchise at the same location.

On Jan. 19, police said detectives and special-operations officers served search warrants at the donut shop and Carrillo’s home in South San Jose, and seized “various illegal narcotics, narcotics manufacturing parts, large amounts of cash, an unregistered firearm and ammunition.”

Police described the narcotics recovered as a relatively new synthetic drug made from mixing cocaine, ketamine, ecstasy, meth and opioids. Authorities said the drug is referred to by names including “Tusi,” “2C,” “pink cocaine,” “Pantera Rosa” and “Pink Panther.”

Carrillo was arraigned Jan. 24 and is scheduled to return to court March 4, according to court records. Jail records show that he is out of jail custody.

Anyone with information for investigators about the drug arrest can contact Officer Daniel Kaufman with the San Jose Police Department Metro special-operations unit at 408-277-4044 or by email at 4726@sanjoseca.gov.

Tips can be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at siliconvalleycrimestoppers.org.

Jaime Flores, 46, and Thomas Sapinoso, 37, are being held in the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas after being accused of a series of brazen shoplifting instances between last July and this past January, according to a San Jose police news release.

The news release included a surveillance image of the men walking out of a Nike store in San Jose with their arms full of shoeboxes and other merchandise. Police said in that incident, just like in the others linked to the pair, they quickly got into a waiting car and fled the scene.

The businesses where the thefts occurred included Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Nike, REI and Target, police said.

Flores was arrested Dec. 16 after officers responded to a report of a theft at Westgate Center, which houses several of the affected retailers identified by police. He is in jail, where he is being held without bail.

Sapinoso was already in jail when San Jose police detectives obtained an arrest warrant for him on Jan. 31. He had been booked the day before after being arrested “for an unrelated incident,” police said.

Police Chief Anthony Mata credited the arrests in part to a recent infusion of $8.4 million state funds allocated specifically to help San Jose combat organized retail theft. More than half of that money will pay for additional officer patrols and investigations, with another $3 million budgeted for installing more automated license-plate reader cameras in the city.

“From the beginning, the Organized Retail Theft Detail has been proactive, persistent, and dedicated to combating organized retail theft in San Jose,” Mata said in a statement.

Anyone with information about the theft investigation involving Flores and Sapinoso can call 408-277-4521 or email Detective Marc Beretta at 3677@sanjoseca.gov or forensic analyst David Moody at david.moody@sanjoseca.gov. Tips can be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at siliconvalleycrimestoppers.org.

Investigators with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office led a multi-agency operation that probed a scheme run out of Southern California: Between 2015 and 2020, the group sold pain creams, neck braces and similar products through phone solicitations to residents across the state, according to a DA’s news release.

Without offering additional explanation, the release stated that the wide-ranging criminal investigation was dubbed “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me),” a title most closely associated with the iconic hip-hop song of the same name featured on the Wu-Tang Clan’s landmark 1993 debut album “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).”

The scam was predicated on confusion and obfuscation, with callers claiming affiliations with the nonexistent “Physician’s Network” and “Doctor’s Network,” prosecutors said. A person agreeing to buy one of the items mentioned in the solicitation was then issued a prescription by a doctor on the payroll of the illicit network.

That prescription would be filled exclusively by one of six pharmacies set up by the scammers. The stores only carried the products the group was pushing — selected specifically for having high insurance reimbursement rates — and the scam operators would then overbill insurance carriers.

“For instance, the defendants would bill insurance companies upwards of $4,000 for medication that could be purchased for a few hundred dollars,” the DA release states. “The prescribing doctors rarely met with or spoke to the patients.”

The 15 defendants in the case, primarily from Los Angeles, collectively called themselves The Care Group, prosecutors said. They operated their call center under the name Global Marketing, and ran their medical device company as California General DME.

“This group used people’s pain and illnesses to criminally enrich themselves,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “They tried to hide behind a maze of dozens of shell corporations and straw owners. We found them anyway — and now they will pay back their victims and be held accountable.”

By the end of the investigation — which included the California State Board of Pharmacy, and district attorney offices in San Mateo, Monterey and Los Angeles counties — seven participants were convicted of felonies and eight were convicted of misdemeanors after negotiating plea agreements.

Some received county jail sentences, which typically last a year at the longest. The group was also ordered to pay $8.3 million in victim restitution.

Santa Clara County residents accounted for $2.3 million of the approximately $40 million in overstuffed charges linked to the scam. The DA’s office called it the largest medical fraud case prosecuted in the county, and added that the $8.3 million figure was the largest insurance-fraud restitution amount secured by South Bay prosecutors.

As in the number of teens who support each other in the Washington-Guadalupe neighborhood just south of downtown San Jose, where just walking the streets is a tenuous proposition because of a block-by-block patchwork of territorial gang claims.

As in the number of adult counselors, social workers and staff who work tirelessly to ensure young people in the neighborhood have a safe space to do homework, talk to someone about their lives, pick up a pool cue or take to the handball courts after school.

The youth center is a respite from the unrest that surrounds them. The conflicts and tensions that exist outside are checked at the door, led by a ban on wearing anything that could be considered promoting gang colors or culture. Teens who cluster in the halls are broken up and directed to the game room, or the gym: If you want to stay, you’ve got to be active.

“This is a neutral ground where everyone can coexist. Red, blue, whatever your neighborhood is, that stops at the door of the building,” said James McCaskill, senior director for community advocacy and family supports at Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, which operates the center. “We provide emotional safety, being accepted for who they are as individuals. We’re taking away all the all the labels.”

That mission is echoed throughout the center’s halls, from both those who work there to the scores of teens who call the site a home away from home. Many of them are served through the organization’s Youth Empowerment for Success (YES) program that has worked with gang-impacted youth and young adults for two decades.

It’s not always easy to take the leap. Diana Espino, 16, remembers venturing to the center for the first time and not knowing anyone. The same went for 15-year-old Amy Ibarra, who attended a different school. But soon enough, they became fast friends.

“Everyone here, the longer you’re here, the closer you get to them,” Ibarra said.

A year from that chance encounter, Espino calls Ibarra her best friend. She also nods to the staff, who diligently keep up with their school and home lives.

“They’re really supportive of what you want to do. They show up to your school and check up on you,” she said. “They want to make sure you’re doing good.”

The communication goes both ways, which Ibarra says she appreciates.

“We’re able to talk to the staff here about anything,” Ibarra said. “They give me advice, and are always there.”

On the center’s indoor gyms one October evening, a group of teen boys were breaking a sweat playing handball. During a break in the action, they talked about the literal safety they say the center gives them.

“I feel safe here,” said Isaiah Rivera, 17. “It keeps me out of negative things, helps me stay out of trouble.”

His handball partner Tre Collins, 15, was more pointed about what might overtake them on the streets: “Troublemakers, gangs, bad decisions, cops.”

The activities at the center — even just the space to do homework — aren’t readily available, especially in a distraction-free setting, Rivera added. Collins agreed: “If you want this, usually you have to pay for stuff like this.”

As a next phase, the center is looking to add a computer lab, a service it once had that would give the youth it serves ready access to technology — a vital resource in a place that exists under the footprint of Silicon Valley but where actual signs of that geography are hard to find.

All of the teens interviewed for this Wish Book story said having access to computers – which most of them lack at home – would be a huge boost. So Catholic Charities is seeking donations from Wish Book readers to help provide them.

“It would help us with school work, even applying for jobs,” Rivera said.

McCaskill said he hopes a computer lab will allow staff to teach the teens skills like résumé writing.

“We live in Silicon Valley. This could be make it or break it for the students,” case manager Lonise Iese said. “We need to teach them these skills.”

A computer lab could also be a selling point for center staff and Catholic Charities as they look to boost youth participation in areas they have identified as gang hotspots, where teens are most vulnerable to gang recruitment and influence.

That’s how Carlos Castaneda, 15, got involved. He’s since attained a job helping keep the youth center in shape and helping encourage his peers to come through.

He has a series of pitches.

“It’s a safe spot where you can just be yourself. No one is here to judge you. If you don’t know what to do at home, you come here.”

They gradually rise in emotional gravity: “It keeps you safe from the streets, gangs and all that. Growing up, you see gangs here, and this is a place you can come and none of that will follow you.”

One of the center’s key services is offering support for teens who have been involved in the juvenile justice system. Iese and Monica Bravo, another case manager, are among the staff who help these clients navigate their return to the community.

“Everyone is welcome here. We’re that consistent role model, to show that everybody cares about them. They can all do great things.”

THE WISH BOOK SERIESWish Book is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by The Mercury News. Since 1983, Wish Book has been producing series of stories during the holiday season that highlight the wishes of those in need and invite readers to help fulfill them.

WISHDonations to Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County would help them equip a new computer lab, and aid up to 300 at risk or gang-impacted youth and young adults. Goal: $45,000 

HOW TO GIVEDonate at wishbook.mercurynews.com/donate or mail in this form.

ONLINE EXTRA

Read other Wish Book stories, view photos and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com

Michael Adrian Nichols, 48, a Milpitas-based gunmaker, admitted in court Thursday to one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to solicit a bribe in connection with a 2020 indictment alleging that he — along with a political fundraiser for Smith, a sheriff’s captain and an attorney friend — brokered a deal for a large donation supporting Smith’s 2018 re-election to obtain concealed-gun permits for a security firm’s employees.

The charge was reduced from a felony as part of a negotiated plea with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, which also entails a one-year sentence in county jail. How that sentence will be served, whether in custody or through an alternative method such as electronic monitoring, remains to be seen.

“Today’s conviction marks another milestone in this office’s steady commitment to holding accountable all of the participants in this pay-for-play government corruption scheme,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “The community must be assured that government services — especially those involving public safety — are provided according to need, not bribes.”

Nichols’ attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. His plea comes as the original blockbuster criminal grand jury indictment — which spawned two additional indictments alleging pay-to-play issuing of the coveted concealed-carry weapons permits — has lingered in pretrial stages more than three years after it was issued. But trial proceedings are scheduled to begin Jan. 29.

Nichols was accused by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office of helping arrange a foundational 2018 meeting involving Martin Nielsen, then a manager for the firm AS Solution, that provided executive protection for high-profile tech companies such as Facebook.

According to the allegations, Nichols knew Nielsen was looking to get concealed-gun permits, so he tapped friend and attorney Harpaul Nahal, who in turn contacted Smith’s sometimes personal attorney and fundraiser Christopher Schumb. That led to a connection to sheriff’s Capt. James Jensen, a trusted Smith adviser. Eventually, prosecutors contend, that led to a promise of a $90,000 donation from Nielsen and his firm to an independent expenditure committee supporting Smith’s re-election.

A $45,000 contribution was initially made, but the second half was never paid after the district attorney’s office caught wind of the deal in 2019 and started investigating Nielsen and others, authorities say. Nielsen, former AS Solution CEO Christian West, and former company manager Jack Stromgren all later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors.

That contrasts to Nichols’ plea Thursday that has no conditions of continued cooperation or testimony, said John Chase, deputy district attorney in charge of his office’s public integrity unit.

To this point, Nahal and Jensen remain charged in the original indictment. Schumb successfully argued to an appellate court that the district attorney’s office had a conflict of interest in prosecuting him owing to his past friendship with and fundraising for Rosen, and the charges against him were later dismissed.

In a separate but related indictment, Jensen and former undersheriff Rick Sung were charged along with Apple security executive Thomas Moyer with arranging a large iPad donation to the sheriff’s office to speed up the CCW permitting for a group of his security employees. Moyer was initially dropped from the case after convincing a judge that the proposed donation did not meet the legal bar for bribery, but the district attorney’s office appealed, and the charges against him were reinstated earlier this year.

Sung and CCW permit recipient and Smith supporter Harpreet Chadha were also indicted on bribery charges on the accusation that, in 2019, Sung held up Chadha’s permit renewal until he donated use of his San Jose Sharks luxury suite to the sheriff’s office so that it could host a private party celebrating Smith’s re-election to a sixth term. Chadha has insisted that the donation was a routine giveaway to ensure the suite didn’t go unused.

Smith, in the scandal because she was her office’s sole signatory for the concealed-gun permits, was never criminally charged in the wide-ranging corruption probe; she never testified to the original criminal grand jury after invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. She retired last year after a civil grand jury filed corruption accusations against her, which was followed by a civil trial jury finding her guilty of many of the same allegations in the criminal case. The civil outcome formally removed her from office, which was entirely symbolic because she already had signaled her retirement and even resigned mid-trial in an attempt to head off a verdict.

Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, and Nina Fathizadeh, 41, self-surrendered on Friday at the Santa Clara County Main Jail where they were booked then released after posting bail, records show. They have been charged with three counts of felony child endangerment and are expected to be arraigned Dec. 6 in a San Jose courtroom.

The arrests are the culmination of an investigation closely watched both locally and across the country after the deaths garnered national headlines and looming questions about how two toddler girls — identified as 18-month-old Payton Cobb, of Hollister, and 16-month-old Lillian Hanan, of San Jose — ended up in a pool at the Happy Happy Home Daycare on Fleetwood Drive the morning of Oct. 2.

Both children died after being rushed to a hospital. A third child, a boy, was found in the water with them but survived and is expected to recover.

An ensuing investigation by San Jose police and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office determined that the three children were unsupervised in a rear patio play area while Fathizadeh was making breakfast at the home. The site was supposed to have at least two people watching the children, but a worker had called in sick that morning, according to a police investigative summary accompanying the criminal charges.

Investigators also found that the gate for a five-foot-tall fence that surrounded the pool had been propped open so that the homeowners could water plants in the backyard. The children were let into the yard, but “neither owner had checked the gate,” according to prosecutors.

“There is a responsibility to watch over little children in your care like a hawk,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “Now it is our responsibility to make sure that these defendants are held accountable for this avoidable and heart-breaking tragedy.”

According to the investigation, Fathizadeh reportedly voiced concern to her mother about being able to watch over the children given the sick call and the fact that Gheblehshenas would not be on hand due to a medical appointment. But the parents of the children being watched the day of the drownings were not notified that they were shorthanded, police wrote.

Prosecutors are bolstering the child-endangerment allegations by citing detectives’ finding that when Gheblehshenas realized that her medical appointment was not until the following week, she did not return to the Fleetwood Drive home to provide relief to her daughter but instead headed to a second unlicensed day care site that they ran.

The criminal allegations also accuse the owners of knowing that Gheblehshenas’ husband was known to prop open the pool gate to water plants in the yard and that on occasion he would forget to close it.

On the morning of the drownings, detectives wrote, Fathizadeh let the two girls and a 2-year-old boy into the backyard and reportedly could see the unsecured pool gate but did not make any effort to close it. She then apparently proceeded to the kitchen and out of view of the children for at least five minutes.

When Fathizadeh went out to check on the children, she found the boy floating in the shallow end of the pool, pulled him out, called 911 and started CPR, according the investigation. But the girls were not tended to until she woke her brother, who was asleep elsewhere in the home, and found the two girls floating in the deep end of the pool.

The girls were pulled out, and the adults tried CPR on them before they were taken to a hospital, the investigative document states.

In the wake of the drownings, the state Department of Social Services suspended the license for the home-based facility and warned that the owners risked being barred from operating a day care again. They were also fined $11,000.

State regulators have issued multiple citations to the facility over the past year for a variety of infractions. The most recent was for not properly documenting their checks on sleeping children under their care. They also were cited in January for having one more infant than is allowed under their license.

Staff writers Rick Hurd, Jakob Rodgers and Austin Turner contributed to this report.

Emergency dispatchers got multiple 911 calls around 4:30 a.m. reporting a disturbance at the luxury goods shop in the 1200 block of Broadway Plaza, according to Walnut Creek police.

A responding police officer arrived there and reported seeing about 15 people split between four vehicles “attempting to burglarize the store,” police said.

But the sight of the patrol car apparently sent the group scattering, police said. Other officers began chasing one of the fleeing vehicles onto westbound Highway 24 before ending the pursuit as it approached Orinda and the Caldecott Tunnel, citing safety concerns.

But the group apparently left behind one of their vehicles, a black 2017 Land Rover that police said was reported stolen in Sacramento. That vehicle, which police surmised was used to break through the glass storefront, was impounded and expected to be examined for evidence.

No suspects had been identified as of Tuesday, and the damage estimate to the store was not immediately available. Police said detectives are “in the process of gathering surveillance footage” as part of an investigation into the burglary.

That means for the time being, Thomas Moyer — who runs global security operations for the tech titan — will head back toward trial in the South Bay. The charge he faces were part of a massive scandal involving former Sheriff Laurie Smith that saw her administration accused of leveraging the coveted weapons permits for political donations and other in-kind favors.

In June 2021, county Superior Court Judge Eric Geffon ruled that the criminal grand jury that indicted Moyer the previous year “could not have reasonably concluded that Moyer had a corrupt intent with respect to the donation of iPads to affect the issuance of CCW permits because he did not act … wrongfully to gain an advantage.”

Geffon sided with the contention by Moyer’s attorneys that no bribery motive existed because the permits eventually issued to four Apple security employees in early 2019 had already been approved by the sheriff’s office by the time he proposed donating 200 iPads to the agency’s training division. In a criminal indictment, former Undersheriff Rick Sung and sheriff’s Capt. James Jensen are accused of holding up those permits to procure what would eventually become the proposed donation.

But Friday’s ruling by the Sixth District Court of Appeal, which came two years after the District Attorney’s Office challenged Geffon’s dismissal of Moyer’s bribery charge, came to the opposite conclusion.

“Consistent with the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of California law, federal law and the law in many states, we conclude that such a promise may constitute a bribe,” the ruling reads. “We also conclude that the evidence presented to the grand jury was sufficient to raise a reasonable suspicion of such bribery. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s order dismissing the bribery count against Moyer, reinstate that count, and remand for further proceedings.”

Later in the ruling, the appellate court added that “The evidence presented to the grand jury … created a reasonable suspicion (and therefore permitted the grand jury to find) that Moyer proposed the iPad donation principally for another purpose: to secure release of Apple’s CCW licenses.”

Britt Evangelist, a partner with the firm Swanson & McNamara LLP, which represents Moyer, said in a statement that they “strongly believe the Court of Appeal reached the wrong conclusion. Tom Moyer did not commit a crime, and we will continue fighting this case until he is exonerated.”

District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who said at the time of Geffon’s dismissal that he stood by the criminal grand jury’s indictment, also weighed in.

“Moyer is right back where he should be,” Rosen said in a statement. “On the trial calendar and charged with bribery.”

Two sets of criminal grand jury indictments filed in 2020 are still making their way through the court system, with Smith’s former undersheriff and a top commander and advisor still facing criminal charges along with several alleged co-conspirators.

Smith was never criminally charged. She retired last year after a civil grand jury filed corruption accusations against her, which was followed by a civil trial jury finding her guilty of many of the same allegations in the criminal case. The civil outcome formally removed her from office, which was entirely symbolic since she had already signaled her retirement and even resigned mid-trial in an attempt to head off a verdict.

To date, no one indicted criminally in the CCW scandal has gone to trial, though several people who received or brokered the illicit permit trades agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for lenient charging and sentencing consideration. That includes a former Bay Area security executive whose $45,000 donation to a political committee supporting Smith’s 2018 re-election touched off the investigations that would end in the indictments.

One defendant in the initial indictment, an adviser and attorney for Smith, was able to get his charges dismissed after the Sixth District court agreed that his past friendship with and fundraising for Rosen presented a significant conflict of interest.

At issue was a law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 1976 that became Section 3205 and relaxed rules on state employees turning to each other for political support, fundraising and otherwise, but preserved restrictions for public workers at county and municipal levels. Wednesday’s written decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared Section 3205 unconstitutional, recalled how even Brown’s own staff questioned the law’s soundness before he enacted it.

Judge Martha Berzon, writing for the three-judge panel that reviewed the legal challenge, rejected arguments from state Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office that the two-tiered rules were necessary to prevent coercion and corruption, and that uniform, statewide oversight over state workers justified the additional level of scrutiny for county and local employees.

“We do not doubt the State’s interests in combatting corruption and worker coercion. But we cannot, applying First Amendment precepts, countenance California’s ‘second-class treatment’ of local employees, absent any plausible reason for the distinction,” Berzon wrote.

Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote a concurring opinion that also criticized the rationale presented by Bonta’s attorneys, stating: “California presents no evidence that state employees’ solicitation of political donations from their co-workers has resulted in corruption, cronyism, or workplace coercion. Thus, California’s fear, absent any factual support, is the type of ‘mere conjecture’ that the (U.S.) Supreme Court has held is not ‘adequate to carry a First Amendment burden.’ ”

Judge Ronald Gould was the final member of the judicial panel behind Wednesday’s ruling.

Bonta’s office has not signaled whether it will file an appeal, which would have to be submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. In response to an inquiry from this news organization, the office said in a statement, “We received and are reviewing the opinion. We will allow our briefs to speak for themselves.”

Presuming the circuit court’s decision stands, local government workers would likely be governed by the same rules as state employees, which include prohibitions against political solicitation during work hours and citing one’s work title or rank in those communications.

More than 1 million local government employees would be affected by the court’s ruling, according to Berzon’s decision. The ruling reverses U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr.’s decision to uphold the political solicitation ban in 2021, when the initial lawsuit was filed by Santa Clara County line-level public defenders Krista Henneman and Carlie Ware Horne, and the group Progressive Democrats for Social Justice.

The litigation grew out of Henneman’s and Ware Horne’s support of colleague Sajid Khan, a deputy alternate public defender who ran to unseat District Attorney Jeff Rosen in the 2022 primary election; Rosen won that election outright. Khan placed third, considered by many to be a surprise because he mounted the most publicized and politically supported challenge to Rosen’s bid for a fourth term.

During Khan’s campaign, the plaintiffs questioned why they and Khan were legally prohibited from directly soliciting political donations and campaign support from their work colleagues, when their state government counterparts were not. Khan said the Ninth Circuit’s decision vindicated their criticisms that Section 3205 unfairly hamstrung them since they were kept from utilizing a resource that most novice candidates would turn to first: the people they work with.

“I was a first-time, non-establishment, non-incumbent candidate running against an incumbent, with the need to raise every dollar I could to overcome that advantage,” Khan said in an interview. “It restricted my ability to express my First Amendment rights and communicate with people who happened to be coworkers.”

“This was a landmark groundbreaking decision that will reverberate across the state,” Khan said of the ruling. “It will allow upstart campaigns like mine to access people they work with and ask for political contributions, and could meaningfully result in new non-establishment candidates being more competitive across the state.”

Charlie Gerstein, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who represented the plaintiffs, called the overturned law “something close to indefensible,” and that he was “gratified that we saw justice done, though sadly it took too long.”