OAKLAND – In an indictment announced on Tuesday, federal prosecutors said that the former owner and vice -president of a house construction company Contra Costa estimated the amount it would be to buy a vote from a member of the Antioch municipal council – around $ 10,000.
But after having pretended to offer the money of discreetly hidden bills, prosecutors say that David Sanson and his son, Trent Sanson, underestimated the member of the council they expected to bribe. The politician had already gone to the FBI, according to the authorities.
Now, Denova Homes’ father-son duo has become the last to be accused of corruption in the bay region.
David Sanson, 60, and Trent Sanson, 33, were charged as a conspiracy and paying bribes to the member of the unidentified council, who reported the alleged request for favorable processing for a housing project at the FBI and apparently set up a bite. Prosecutors say that the without without paying $ 10,000 to the Council member and that David Sanson later gave $ 5,000 hidden in a Denova Homes blood thermos.
The Sansons made their first appearance before the court in Oakland on Tuesday morning, according to a press release from the American prosecutor’s office. The accusation act posted against them on April 3 alleges that the member of the Council who became FBI-informant recorded the two bribes “to the management of the FBI” and that the defendants expected aid for their development plans of 533 houses already approved in Antioch, known as the Aviano project.
The objective was to “have the Division of Antioch Engineering and Development Services asserted to assert the completion and release the obligations associated with the project,” said the press release. The meetings would have taken place in 2024, from the end of May.
On Tuesday, Mike Barbanica, who was part of the municipal council at the time, refused to say if he was or not the member of the council who went to the FBI after being united. “I would have no comments on a federal investigation,” said the former Pittsburg police officer on several occasions. “When this takes place in court, you will have all your answers.”
In a press release, a lawyer representing David Sanson described it as a “respected business manager and philanthropic with an experience of 30 years of construction of houses and support communities across North California”.
“We are closely examining the allegations of the government and we have practiced against any rush towards the judgment based on simple allegations which present a unilateral history. We are convinced that the facts show that Dave is innocent and that he was unfairly targeted without motivation to be withdrawing from the suspect outside of the person to do to “do his own people following” his family by “doing the person to do”. Motivations that we are impatient to exhibit, “wrote the lawyer Winston Y. Chan, who did not identify the” politico “.
The indictment follows the FBI raid of March 20 on an eminent political consultant against Contra Costa, Mary Jo Rossi, who did campaign work for a committee sponsored by Denova. Rossi was also a consultant for an independent expenditure committee sponsored by the association of the assistant Sheriff of Contra Costa which supported Barbanica in his unsuccessful candidacy last year for the supervisor of the County Costa County. Rossi was not arrested and was not accused of any crime. She did not respond to requests for comments.
According to the indictment, David Sanson informed the member of the council that he would have united that he had been in contact with the consultant who led the independent expenditure committee of the member of the Council.
Before putting the cup with the $ 5,000 in cash, according to the indictment, Sanson told the Council member: “We did it during the primary, and now for the general – we are back to support you and to all of this. So, I just want you to know you needed an additional little blow. “
This meeting took place on June 20, 2024, just a few weeks after the primary in which Barbanica won enough votes to go to the general elections of November.
He was not clear who represented Trent Sanson, from Walnut Creek, the former vice-president of the company. He could not be joined to comment.
Three other members of the Antioch municipal council at the time – Timisha Torres -Walker, Monica Wilson and the former mayor Lamar Thorpe -Hernandez – could not be joined to comment on Tuesday evening.
Lori Ogorchock, the fifth member of the Council at the time, categorically said that she was not the person that the Sansons would have tried to bring together.
“I didn’t even know it until you only told me,” Ogorchock told a journalist for this newspaper.
Ogorchock said she was also approached by Trent Sanson in a text on May 31, where he expressed the desire to talk about the concerns he had on the status of the Aviano project. The two met for a coffee on June 5, said Ogorchock, and even if she said that she did not remember what they discussed, she was categorical that Trent Sanson never tried to bribe it.
“It was not unknown to a developer – and it could be any developer – who would contact a member of the council to discuss a project they wanted to bring in the city,” or a problem with an in progress, said Ogorchock.
Among the allegations made public on Tuesday: “There is a process that must be resolved, and a regular procedure will be released in the end,” said Ogorchock.
Denova Homes is an eminent developer around Contra Costa, with projects that have sometimes attracted controversy. One of these projects in Martinez led to competing voting measures, and a lawsuit brought by a group against Denova and the city, seeking to stop a development project. It was settled in 2019.
The lawyer general of the company, Dana Tsubota, said on Tuesday in a statement that “although Mr. Sanson was an important figure in the history of the company, he semi-retired in 2020 when he moved to Montana and he is no longer involved in leadership or daily operations.”
“Above all, Denova Homes is not involved in the government’s investigation,” added Tsubota. “Denova remains financially solid and fully focused on the delivery of our customers, partners and communities without disruption.”
The current president of the company, according to the Tsubota declaration, is Ryan Partlett.
Denova Homes also has a charitable arm, the non -profit yellow roof, which has continued affordable housing developments in Antioch, Pittsburg, Clayton, Oakley, as well as in certain regions of Solano County.
This was a year for corruption proceedings in the Bay region, in particular East Bay.
In January, the father-son duo David and Andy Duong, owners of California Waste Solutions, were responsible for working with a political consultant to corrupt the recently recalled mayor of Oakland, Sheng Thao. The indictment accused Andy and David, Thao and the longtime romantic partner of Thao, Andre Jones.
Antioch is still in shock from an ongoing police scandal. Last March, a former antioch officer, Morteza Amiri, was found guilty of having deprived the civil rights of a citizen during a quarter of patrol. He and a dozen other Antioch and Pittsburg police officers pleaded guilty or without competition to a range of federal and state offenses, another former antioch officer planned for the distribution of steroids later this month.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
