SAN JOSE — A former Santa Clara County sheriff’s captain has been sentenced to 10 months in jail after he was convicted of bribery earlier this year in connection with a far-reaching corruption scandal over the agency’s issuing of concealed-gun licenses that ultimately took down the previous sheriff administration.
FILE PHOTO — Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Captain James Jensen is photographed outside of the Hall of Justice on Monday, Aug. 31, 2020, in San Jose, Calif. Jensen was found guilty on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, of felony bribery and conspiracy charges in a scandal that forced the departure of former sheriff Laurie Smith. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
James Jensen is the highest-profile defendant convicted in what prosecutors characterized as a years-long pay-to-play scheme in which the sheriff’s office, under former leader Laurie Smith, traded concealed-carry weapon permits for political donations, favors and other in-kind support.
At a sentencing hearing Monday, Judge Nahal Iravani-Sani also ordered Jensen to serve two years of probation and perform 150 hours of community service with a gun-safety organization.
The judge’s sentence in many ways split the difference between the requests from Jensen’s attorneys, who sought probation only, and the district attorney’s office, which asked that Jensen be given a 16-month prison term in part to deter other public officials from engaging in similar crimes.
Iravani-Sani considered how Jensen was a high-ranking commander, saying Monday that the “position in which the breach of trust (occurred) is especially egregious.”
The judge added that “it is my hope the sentence will serve as a reminder of the high standards” of law enforcement officers and other public officials.”
But the judge said she also weighed Jensen’s absence of a criminal record, how his crimes did not yield personal financial gain, and his losses to date — of his job, police career and part of his pension — in reaching her sentencing decision. The courtroom gallery was occupied by more than two-dozen family members and supporters of Jensen, including his wife, who asked the judge for leniency on behalf of their two young daughters.
Iravani-Sani did not require Jensen to be immediately remanded to county jail, but gave him a holiday reprieve with an order to return to court Jan. 6, when he will be expected to surrender to jail custody. She also denied a motion by Jensen’s attorneys to grant him bail while he appeals his convictions.
Jensen’s lead attorney, Harry Stern, declined comment after the sentencing hearing, as did lead prosecutor John Chase, who heads his office’s Public Integrity Unit.
In July, a jury found Jensen guilty of bribery and conspiracy crimes, nearly four years after he was indicted along with three other men in relation to the corruption probe by the district attorney’s office. Only one of those co-defendants was convicted, after pleading to a lesser charge; one was able to get his charges dismissed, and another who was tried alongside Jensen was acquitted.
Monday’s sentencing came after Jensen’s attorney filed a motion for a new trial in September, arguing that his legal defense was hamstrung by not being allowed to tell jurors about the other outcomes in the corruption case, including that of Smith, his former boss. They contended Smith, not Jensen, was the beneficiary of his actions, and that the absence of criminal charges against her undercut the substance of Jensen’s conviction.
Smith invoked her Fifth Amendment rights in refusing to testify to a criminal grand jury, but the indictments served as a blueprint for a 2022 civil grand jury trial in which she was found guilty of much of the same corruption alleged in the criminal case. The civil outcome formally removed her from office, though she had already announced her retirement and resigned mid-trial in an attempt to nullify a verdict.
Iravani-Sani denied Jensen’s new-trial motion last month after rejecting his arguments of prosecutorial misconduct, erroneous exclusion of evidence, and errant instructions given to jurors.
“The court finds there is sufficient evidence to sustain the verdict,” Iravani-Sani stated in her written ruling.
Jensen remains a defendant in another indictment that sprang from the DA corruption investigation. He and former undersheriff Rick Sung are accused of arranging a large donation of iPads to the sheriff’s office with Apple security executive Thomas Moyer to expedite CCW permits for a group of the company’s security employees. That case and a separate but related bribery indictment are both scheduled for trial in February.
In the trial that concluded this year, Jensen was portrayed by prosecutors as a close adviser to Smith and a linchpin in a ploy that brokered the coveted CCW permits in backroom deals while largely ignoring applications from ordinary citizens. The practice was buoyed by the wide discretion state law once gave to sheriffs and police chiefs, and which has since been curtailed by U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling that outlawed “good cause” tests for the gun licenses.
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According to the criminal indictment, executive security firm AS Solution, which boasted of protecting high-profile tech icons including Mark Zuckerberg, agreed to donate $90,000 to support Smith and her 2018 bid for a sixth term in exchange for falsified CCW permits for its security agents.
Half that amount was paid to an independent expenditure committee co-managed by an attorney who was indicted, but was ultimately dismissed from the case after an appellate court ruled his prosecution was a conflict of interest, owing to his past fundraising work for District Attorney Jeff Rosen.
Martin Nielsen, a manager for the security firm, was intercepted in 2019 by DA investigators and later secretly recorded Jensen instructing him where to send the outstanding $45,000 and mentioning the term “quid pro quo” when describing the contribution.
Nielsen pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor conspiracy counts and was sentenced to probation in August. Two other AS Solution figures, former CEO Christian West and manager Jack Stromgren, also pleaded guilty to misdemeanors.