Santa Clara Councilmember Anthony Becker was indicted in April for allegedly leaking the confidential grand jury report.
In the hours and days after Santa Clara Councilmember Anthony Becker allegedly leaked a confidential grand jury report to the San Francisco 49ers, the team and its consultants intently strategized about how to shape public opinion of its explosive details and undercut any political leverage the findings could give Mayor Lisa Gillmor, according to transcripts of the investigation obtained by this news organization.
Former 49ers spokesperson Rahul Chandhok — who recently left the team to take a job with the United States Soccer Federation — told the grand jury that Becker sent him a copy of the report on Oct. 6 via Signal, an encrypted messaging app. Chandhok then called his colleague, Ellie Caple, the 49ers’ director of communications and public affairs, asking her to contact Tim Hoekstra, one of the team’s researchers.
An internal memo — partly drafted by Caple and presented by Malinsky — said the 49ers believed Gillmor was going to release the report at a news conference on Oct. 10 — the day the report would officially become public and when ballots were scheduled to hit mailboxes. The 49ers, through spokesperson Brian Brokaw, declined to comment on the transcripts since it’s an ongoing legal matter.Maggie Carr, a partner at the public relations firm Milltown Partners, which did contract work for the 49ers last year, told the grand jury that on Oct. 6 she was part of an hours-long strategy phone call with Chandhok, Caple and several other members of the 49ers communications team.
On Oct. 7, Becker texted someone named “Bobby Bro Becker” that he was “in the middle of the greatest battle I’ve ever faced in my life,” according to Ben Holt, a criminal investigator with the district attorney’s office who pulled messages from Becker’s phone.
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