Stockton mayor arrested over strip poker game at city youth camp

Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva was arrested Thursday on charges that he supplied alcohol to underage counselors at a city-run youth camp in El Dorado National Forest and surreptitiously recorded a group of young people — including a 16-year-old boy — playing strip poker in Silva’s bedroom at the camp in August 2015.

Silva, who was voted into office in 2012 and is running for re-election, was taken into custody Thursday morning at the Silver Lake Stockton Family Camp in Amador County, south of Lake Tahoe, where he hosts an annual getaway for inner-city youth on land leased from the U.S. Forest Service.

The charges, filed by the Amador County district attorney’s office, prompted calls for Silva’s resignation and represented the latest trouble for a mayor and former Stockton school board trustee who has been investigated in the past for alleged sexual misconduct.

The investigation into Silva’s actions at the youth camp stemmed from an incident last September when federal agents, as part of a larger investigation, seized Silva’s cell phone and two of his laptops at San Francisco International Airport as he returned from a mayors’ conference in China.

Prosecutors said witnesses at the camp informed FBI agents that Silva had given alcohol to the participants in the strip poker game, who were all under the age of 21, including a 16-year-old boy.

Silva was charged with one felony count of recording confidential communications and three misdemeanor counts: contributing to the delinquency of a minor, furnishing alcohol to people under 21 and child endangerment.

Silva has been linked in the past to allegations of sexual abuse and of allowing underage drinking, but the accusations were brought anonymously and have never prompted charges, according to the Stockton Record.