52 Lock Up: Joanne Marian Segovia Drug Dealing Grandma

Welcome back to 52 Lock Up, I am your Appletini Cadma of Bitten Apple TV. 52 lock up is a series I started to talk about one of my biggest passions of true crime. A new episode on every Cadmaniac Monday for 52 Mondays, 52 crimes. Hope you guys enjoy, be sure to like, leave some feedback and subscribe; Viewer discretion is always advised.

So today we’re heading back, back to Cali, Cali. Let’s take a look at California’s latest Drug Dealing Grandma; or at least that’s the nickname she’s been given. Joanne Marian Segovia born on November 8th, 1958 in San Jose, California. I have no information on her parents or siblings or too much of her family but I can tell you that she was married to retired Domingo Segovia. Joanne seems to have always kept a tight lid on her private life and their married life. She would post up pictures on their social media handles and showed a couple very much still in love with each other. The couple did have Domingo Junior and daughter Jennifer Evans; and they had a wonderful upbringing and happy family life.

Joanne worked as a bookkeeper at Third Degree Communications, Inc which provides comprehensive certified training programs designed to enhance the investigative skills of law enforcement, corrections, security and executive protection personnel. They also provide consulting and customized training programs for Corporate America. I could not confirm if Joanne took any classes here while working.

Joanne also worked at Deluxe Corporation as a manager, which is a company that focuses on American payments and business technology. It has 4 business divisions that comprise payments, cloud, promotional products, personal and business checks, marketing, web development, web hosting and fraud protection services. As a side note by 2020, Deluxe Corporation has accumulated as many as 4.5 million small businesses and 4,000 financial institutions. Before I get sidetracked, Joanne would take her managerial skills of Deluxe Corporation to work for the San Jose Police Officers Association in 2003.

Let’s talk about San Jose Police Department a little bit. This police department was founded in 1849. Originally they carried jailhouse records on common offenses like public intoxication and vagrancy. In 1880 they held the arrest record average of 120 arrests each month; which created the position of Police Chief. The Police Chief acted as the superintendent of the city jail as well by the late 1880’s. Their police staff grew and grew. San Jose was one of the 1st places to use radio and phone technology to help their officers perform their duties. Their academy originally started out as a police college for aspiring cops to earn a 4 year bachelor’s degree with an emphasis on criminal justice. It was an all men police force until Ida Waalkes in 1945. The department has accomplished many, many achievements but they would be under minded by their own police union’s executive director.

Joanne worked hard to climb the ranks and became the San Jose Police Officers Association Union’s Executive Director. She made over $160K in 2019 according to records. She would be estimated with the net worth of $10 million dollars as of 2023. As an Executive Director she would oversee the front office and supervised two other workers.

Let’s move back in time to around 2015, Joanne found some extracurricular activities to participate in; which is possible she utilized skills she learned from Deluxe Corporation and Third Degree Communications Incorporation and as executive director. In 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed in on an international drug shipment; when they searched a network operative’s phone Homeland Security agents found messaged from someone named “J Segovia” to an address in San Jose; including words stating “180 pills SOMA 500 mg”. Whose this? Who could this new name to law enforcement is it?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection found that five shipments to Segovia’s address were intercepted between July 2019 and January 2023. The packages contained more than a kilogram of controlled substances such as Zolpidem is a short term sedative drug used to treat people with insomnia; and only meant to be used as short term. It basically slows the brain down enough to go to sleep. Tramadol which is a narcotic drug used to treat pain and much like other popular narcotics it is a central nervous system depressant.

It turns out that those were not the only drugs distributed like Tapentadol which is another narcotic that is used to treat moderate to severe acute pain; usually pain that is described to have begun suddenly and is expected to dissipate when the specific cause of the pain has healed. They can also treat neuropathic pain which is pain caused by nerve damage; generally patients with diabetes. Shipments included schedule 1 synthetic opioid called Valeryl Fentanyl.

I know what you’re thinking, that’s a lot well these illegal drug shipments came from Hong Kong, Hungary, India and even Singapore and were all delivered to her gated San Jose neighborhood; to her front door. How can you deliver that many drugs to your house? Well they were labeled as every day items like a clock, chocolates, wedding gifts, shirt tops, gift makeup, wedding party favors, sweets; whose going to question an older lady whose reputation and nickname is the loving grandma at San Jose Police Officers Association. Plus who would be so ballsy to use their own home address or the personal computer, or their work computer to order thousands of opioid pills. She’s very family oriented; how could this be? Her husband never questioned her packages; I presume cause it was chick shit.

It’s been reported by family that her and her family were not financially struggling but rather thriving; or maybe they were thriving because of her extracurricular activities.

Joanne never gave any indications of being suspicious. She actively worked with officers who came to the union who were trying to “fight” to get fentanyl and other drugs off of the street and one of the big wigs to look for was handling their union paperwork. She wasn’t a police officer breaking the law; she was the person they turned to. It is apparent that she used the police union’s supplies to help run her drug business like their own UPS business account to ship things. It seems Joanne sent a photo to a supplier in North Carolina of a shipment made using the UPS account.

Now Joanne’s been doing this for some time and perhaps learned a trick or two to stay off of the radar like using encrypted WhatsApp messages to plan shipments, exchange messages that span over 3 years with her phone number that had an India country code. She would deny these things and even tell authorities the true mastermind was her housekeeper who was a family friend she was helping because they suffered from a substance abuse disorder. Some articles even compare her to tv show Breaking Bad.

She was interviewed by Homeland Security Agents on February 1st, 2023 she told them she ordered supplements like she normally does. She did also refuse to show agents her CashApp transaction history. March 13th, 2023 in Kentucky a package labeled Clock was captured which originated from China but was addressed to Joanne’s gated home. The clock was beautiful with white adhesive stickers/patches that had the valeryl fentanyl; what kind of grandma clock is that? You think they Rite Aid sells it? Anyway, she was interviewed again on March 14th, 2023 and that’s when she blamed her housekeeper. She’s a very smart woman and she knew they were closing in on her. March 23rd, 2023 Joanne completed a payment for a suspected drug transaction would be found later. A day later officers would seize Tapentadol at her house and office; which looks like she was being interviewed and felt cocky enough to still continue ordering the drugs.

When her WhatsApp account was finally apprehended they also found messages referring to “soma” or “orange pills”, Soma is the brand name of Carisoprodol which is a prescription for skeletal muscle relaxation. It relieves pain caused by muscle injuries like strains and sprains. They would also find photo of her another computer screen showing PayPal payment to an Indian name and Segovia’s police union business cards underneath. Was she trying to get caught? Was she tired? Was she trying to get out? Or was she that supercilious about her never going to jail for this.

She is facing a maximum statutory sentence of 20 years. In addition, as part of any sentence, the court may order the defendant to serve at least 3 years of supervised release and to pay a fine of up to $250,000. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tartakovsky is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Margoth Turcios.

It seems her drug network extended to as many as 48 states. It was discovered that at least one shipment made by Joanne would lead to an overdose. These synthetic opioid fentanyl can be smoked, snorted and even taken orally. This drug is considered to be roughly 100 times stronger than morphine, at least according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. This drug can be distributed to every street with a record of killing 75,000 Americans in 2021; this adds up to 1,500 American lives lost weekly.

Remember those zombie videos? Yeah that’s the fentanyl mixed with other drugs. America life expectancy has taken a drop from 78.8 in 2019 and then 76.4 in 2021 and continues to drop. Apparently officials in Washington state reported they are running out of space in morgues and crematoriums as the drugs rip through the local communities.

How did it become a problem? Well it started in 2016, a year after Joanne started with her wedding gifts; is she the sole problem to the fentanyl crisis? Absolutely not, but she is one of many many pieces contributing. Annually deaths caused by synthetic opioids reached as many as 28,466. How was this drug successfully getting into the country? Well in the form of lady interests and which is not surprising; it makes sense to me that it would be ignored.

Fentanyl is beyond just the basic drug cartels or drug dealers; it’s in everything mixed with cocaine, molly, street benzodiazepines like Xanax.

I would love your feedback in the comment section about this case. Are you an officer from San Jose and how do you feel about this? Are you an officer in general with experiences of dealing with these cases and were you surprised with her being taken into custody? Do you yourself know someone who is suffering with substance abuse?

If you do know someone suffering from substance abuse please look into SAMHSA.gov or call 800-662-HELP or 1-800-662-4357 you can also reach out by email at [email protected] Hope you and your loved ones are safe

As always stay safe & stay vigilant

References

https://glamourbiz.com/trending/joanne-marian-segovia-wiki-accused

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