DA Investigator: Shirakawa Sent Fake Flier to Discredit Candidate

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office announced allegations today that former Supervisor George Shirakawa impersonated a political candidate for San Jose City Council in 2010 by sending a fake campaign flyer meant to discredit her.

According to district attorney's Investigator Michael Brown, there is sufficient evidence to charge Shirakawa with felony impersonation for mailing the flyers.

DNA samples taken from a postage stamp on one of the mailers matched Shirakawa's based on a test by the California Department of Justice, Brown said.

The mailer was intended to discredit Magdalena Carrasco, who ran to represent San Jose's District 5, by placing her photo next to an image of a North Vietnamese flag that was used after the Vietnam War and is considered offensive to many Vietnamese immigrants in the U.S., Brown said.

The mailer, sent out in May 2010, purported to be from Carrasco's campaign.

It reads, "Vote for Magdalena Carrasco City Council District 5," and has her photo on the left and the North Vietnamese flag on the right.

In a document filed by Brown in Santa Clara County Superior Court this morning seeking a warrant for Shirakawa's arrest, Brown stated, "Carrasco went on to tell investigators that she had no knowledge of the flier until a citizen telephoned her after receiving it in the mail."

"The caller, who was Vietnamese, politely explained how 'very, very bad' this flier was to the Vietnamese community," Brown said in the document.

Carrasco said she later learned that many other members of the local Vietnamese community had also been upset by the flier, according to Brown.

Xavier Campos, who was Shirakawa's policy aide while Shirakawa was a supervisor in 2010, was Carrasco's opponent in the primary and run-off elections for the council seat.

In the primary election a few weeks after the flyers were mailed, Carrasco fell short of the 50 percent majority she needed for an outright victory by just 20 votes.

In the subsequent runoff election, she lost to Campos by fewer than 400 votes, Brown said.

A similar fraudulent flyer attacking an opponent of Shirakawa's in the 2008 election for the Board of Supervisors was sent to voters prior to the election, which he won, Brown said.

Shirakawa resigned on March 1 after he was charged with a dozen felony and misdemeanor counts including perjury and misuse of public funds.


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