Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva Arrested After Alleged Strip Poker Video With Underage Person Emerges

STOCKTON (CBS13) — Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva is facing charges related to an alleged recording involving a strip poker game, investigators said on Thursday.

Silva was arrested in Amador County on Thursday at the camp he runs for disadvantaged kids. He was released hours later.

Charges against Silva include a felony eavesdropping charge of recording confidential communications and misdemeanors of contributing to the delinquency of a manor, furnishing alcohol to a person under the age of 21 and child endangerment.

The charges against Silva likely date back to a search of the mayor at San Francisco International Airport in 2015 after his return from China. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents seized Silva's electronics in a move his attorney Mark Reichel called illegal.

Reichel doubts the charges will hold up.

"Well if its the cellphone, that's where they got the cellphone; at the airport. And I don't know if anyone is aware of anyone who has been charged with a felony, for audio recording on a cell phone at a party," he said. "They've had this information for a year, so they've had it for a year; they have spent unlimited resources investigating this, looking for something to justify the investigation."

He calls the charges politically motivated. Silva faces re-election in November after emerging from the primary trailing his opponent Michael Tubbs.

A Stockton city councilman and the Stockton Police Officers Association have called on Silva to resign after his arrest.

"For the past three and a half years, Mayor Anthony Silva has had misstep after misstep, and they have been shrugged off. This time, it is different," the police officers association said in a prepared statement.

Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe says his office was just made aware of the allegation on July 26. His office released details of an FBI search of Silva's cellphone that included 23 photographs and four video clips taken in August of 2015 at around the time of Silva's camp.

One of the videos "contains audio of a conversation between the participants involved in a strip poker game that occurred in Silva's bedroom" and "The conversation indicated that they were naked" as well as "one of the participants was a 16-year-old boy.