OAKLAND — Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and her former top lieutenant took a “strange” personal interest in the criminal case of a notorious East Bay political operative, who claims to have been the target of a $25,000 extortion attempt by Price earlier this year, according to newly-filed court documents.
Price asked to be personally notified about developments in the check fraud case of Mario Juarez, a two-time Oakland City Council candidate who was charged with a felony in January, barely two weeks after the alleged shakedown attempt. The request — detailed in a March 2024 email and investigative notes made public in a court filing late Thursday — played into concerns about the actions of the district attorney and her second-in-command.
“The bottom line is that this case was handled differently from other cases,” said the investigative note, which was included in a public court filing by Juarez’s attorney, Ernie Castillo. It was not immediately clear who in the district attorney’s office wrote the note, which summarized an accounting of the case by Angelina Clay, the prosecutor who handled the case in early 2024 before being taken off of it.
Those concerns stemmed, in part, from a directive by then-Chief Assistant District Attorney Otis Bruce Jr. to Clay’s supervisor, instructing her “not to do anything — like dismiss the case — because DA Pamela Price would not be happy with that,” the note said.
Bruce also told the supervisor to notify him first before taking any action in the case, which “seemed strange, as he had never done this before on one of Ms. Clay’s cases,” the notes said.
A March 7 email from Bruce to Clay’s superiors that was included in the court file this week appeared to bolster that assertion, with Bruce telling them to “please keep us notified about the status of this case – any plea negotiation or discussions – before any offer is extended” by the district attorney’s office.
“DA Price wants to be notified about the status of the case,” the email continued.
Messages sent by this newspaper to Bruce, to Price’s office and to Price’s her campaign were not immediately returned Friday morning. She has largely refrained from commenting on the allegations, except during a press conference on Oct. 16 where she said she planned to oppose the motion, and would ask the court to “consider the source of the information” while doing so. She also stressed that “I certainly am not in the history or the practice of extorting money from anyone, much less a criminal defendant.”
The notes and email offer new insights into Juarez’s claim — also made in a court filing earlier this month by his attorney — that Price’s office filed the felony case against him only after he rebuffed the district attorney’s request for “love and support” in the form of a $25,000 cash donation. He claimed Price sought the contribution to help her oppose a recall question that is now on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Price and Juarez have been political rivals, with Juarez having previously created an anti-Price website, which called Price a “loser with a shady history of fraud, violence and racism.”
The alleged extortion attempt happened on Jan. 10 at the Oakland waterfront offices of Evolutionary Homes, a housing company that Juarez started alongside the father-and-son duo of David and Andy Duong. Those offices were later raided by the FBI on June 20 in a sweeping public corruption investigation, which also included raids of the Duong family’s homes, their recycling company and the house of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao.
Juarez’s name has also appeared in subpoenas for records as part of the FBI investigation. No charges or indictments have been announced.
Juarez also claimed Bruce sought to become business partners with him, adding that doing so would help ensure “he would not have any problems with the District Attorney’s office.” Bruce, who resigned over the summer from Price’s office, has since called the allegation a “total fabrication.”