OAKLAND — The man described in turns as a pimp or the maligned boyfriend of a relative of two Bay Area law enforcement officials claims Oakland police were biased against him when they sought a warrant for his arrest because his alleged victim is related to Richmond police chief Bisa French and her husband, an Oakland police sergeant.
In a sprawling case that involves three Bay Area departments, 34-year-old Napa resident Joe Goldman, also known as Oho McNair, has been charged with felony pimping and pandering of the French family member. Bisa French and her husband, Sgt. Lee French, have been placed on leave after the 18-year-old family member accused them of attacking her and Goldman, who she contends is her partner. And Goldman’s mother has separately accused the couple of threatening her when they came to her home in Vallejo last month, according to the Frenches’ lawyer.
The case has led to simultaneous investigations across three public agencies, including a Vallejo police probe into the Frenches’ alleged threats against Goldman’s mother and an internal Oakland police investigation regarding the same incident. The family member has filed requests for restraining orders against both Frenchs.
In a motion filed this week arguing that Goldman be released on his own recognizance, his defense attorney argued that the personal relationship between Goldman’s alleged victim and Bay Area police influenced the probable cause document that accompanied his arrest this month by Oakland police. Goldman was released Tuesday on a $100,000 bail.
“I am informed and believe that the representations in the probable cause declaration in this case are biased by the personal involvement and influence of an Oakland Police Department police officer (as well as the Richmond Chief of Police),” the lawyer, Loren Williams, wrote.
But in an interview this week, the Frenches’ attorney, Michael Rains, brushed off the allegation that Oakland police were influenced by the Frenches’ relationship with the victim, adding that “the mere fact both (Frenches) happen to be police officers doesn’t mean a probable cause declaration is biased.”
The events at the heart of the case date back to June, when the French family member left home shortly after her 18th birthday with “no job or means to support herself,” according to the probable cause document submitted by Oakland police in Goldman’s arrest. On Aug. 18, officers saw her “wearing tight and revealing clothing in a high prostitution area” and arrested her for “loitering with the intent to commit prostitution.” She was cited and released, but charges were not filed.
About a month later, the document says, the Frenches arranged for an Oakland police officer and an FBI agent to speak with the family member. During a ride to a friend’s house, Oakland police say she admitted that Goldman was her pimp but denied that she was being trafficked or had been abused. The pair had met the previous fall while working at Safeway.
The family member’s requests for restraining orders against the Frenches paint a different picture of that day. During an altercation at the Frenches’ home, she wrote, the Frenches used “police holds” to pin her down and made death threats against her and Goldman. She agreed to go to a “treatment program” but later fled; the request appears to have been written from the facility.
The Contra Costa Superior Court temporarily denied the restraining order requests, writing in court documents that “the allegations, while serious, appear to involve complex issues that require a hearing.”
On Oct. 7 — the same day the restraining order requests were filed — Oakland police secured a warrant for Goldman. When he was arrested four days later in Richmond, the family member was with him, according to the statement. Goldman previously was convicted of human trafficking in 2014, according to Alameda County Superior Court records, and sentenced to 288 days in jail.
It is not clear why Goldman was arrested almost four months after the alleged criminal activity began.
Through a spokesperson, the Oakland Police Department declined to comment on the public defender’s claim of bias or answer any further questions about the case. The spokesperson previously confirmed the department launched an internal investigation into “criminal allegations being investigated by Vallejo police.”
Rains, the Frenches’ lawyer, also revealed new details about the Sept. 22 interaction that Vallejo police are investigating. That day, he said, the couple drove to Goldman’s mother’s house and knocked on her door, introducing themselves as close relatives who wanted her help pushing Goldman to release the family member “from his grip.”
When asked how the Frenches obtained the address of Goldman’s mother, Rains said they had hired a private investigator over the summer to track down their family member and that the investigator provided the address. He said they “did nothing in their capacities as law enforcement officers to check any databases or anything like that.”
In Rains’ version of events, the encounter lasted less than an hour inside Goldman’s mother’s home as the couple tried to convince her to put pressure on Goldman. The exchange became “a little tense,” he said, and the Frenches expressed that “they were not going to hold back if they found” Goldman — but stopped short of physically threatening Goldman or his mother.
“I think they said something like, you know, ‘You’d better hope the police find him before we do, or something like that,’ ” he said. “The inference being that, we’re going to have strong words for him, things to say to him, we aren’t going to be nice to him — but there were no threats like, ‘We’re going to kick his ass, we’re going to kill him.’ That was never said.”
At no point, he claimed, did the couple ever identify themselves as law enforcement officers.
The Vallejo Police Department did not respond to several requests for comment about the incident or the nature of Goldman’s mother’s complaint.
A spokesperson for the California Attorney General’s Office said it “is not involved at this time” in investigating the incidents.
