San José Mayor and Council Call on Councilmember Omar Torres to Resign Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations

San José Mayor Matt Mahan and the rest of the City Council are calling on fellow Councilmember Omar Torres to resign in light of details from an ongoing police investigation into allegations that he committed sex acts with a minor.

Mahan and the nine other council members issued their call in a joint statement Wednesday afternoon, about a week after a police affidavit was made public that showed Torres was being investigated on suspicion of “oral copulation of a minor” and “having an abnormal interest in children.”

“We all live in a nation in which we are innocent until proven guilty — that applies to every single person in our city, including those in elected office. We are in the midst of an active and ongoing investigation, and as our police department uncovers the truth, that truth will be shared with the community,” the Council statement said.

“Given the appalling nature of Omar Torres’ own words and the allegations against him, we believe that he has lost the trust of the community and is no longer able to effectively serve the residents of District 3,” the statement continued. “As his own words call into question his ability to lead and make decisions on the behalf of the community, we are calling on him to resign.”

Torres, a first-term councilmember who previously served as a council staffer and a community college district board member, has largely withdrawn from public view since the allegations against him were first revealed earlier this month, and further details were made public in the affidavit supporting a search warrant.

The investigation is ongoing, police officials said, and no criminal charges have been filed.

Torres has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

“He has no intention of resigning, he intends to continue fully serving his constituency,” his attorney, Nelson McElmurry, said Wednesday.

“He absolutely wants to address the public concern surrounding the bits and pieces of information that have been released throughout the course of the investigation,” he added, emphasizing that much of what has been reported thus far has been “speculation” and doesn’t include full context.

“He would rather wait until the investigation is completed and then address the issue, as well as responding to everyone’s questions regarding the details,” McElmurry said.

Later Wednesday, Mahan told KQED there is a higher bar for elected officials.

“I don’t believe he is fit to lead and represent our community. I was sick to my stomach as I read some of the text messages in the affidavit,” Mahan said.

Mahan said the case is a big distraction for Torres and for a city trying to address major civic issues of homelessness, housing and crime.

“He’s distracted by this. I’ve gone to community meetings over the last week in his district where he’s been unable to attend. There’s no way to get around the fact that this is going to take a lot of his time and attention and he needs to focus on the rest of that process,” Mahan said. “But in the meantime, the residents of District Three deserve strong representation, a leader who they trust and progress on the issues that affect their daily lives.”

The investigation apparently started when Torres contacted San José police on Aug. 29 to report that he was being extorted by a 21-year-old man in Chicago named Terry Beeks, with whom, investigators later said, Torres had an “online sexual relationship.”

Torres told police that during their relationship over the course of the past two years, he sent Beeks “nude photos and videos of himself, some of which include his face,” investigators said, after which Beeks demanded money, threatening to release nude photos or videos if he didn’t pay.

“Torres admitted that this extortion had been going on for a long time,” the affidavit said, stating that he had paid Beeks a total of roughly $22,000.

Torres showed police investigators his messages with Beeks, as well as screenshots of receipts with payments he made to him. He also told investigators that Beeks had a history of harassing his partner and his Council staff members when his demands were ignored.

Investigators then interviewed Beeks and seized his electronics, determining from messages on those devices that it appeared “Torres was paying Beeks for masturbation videos and nude photos” and “paying to Facetime with Beeks while he masturbated.”

During their ongoing text correspondence, Torres, in February 2022, sent Beeks a photo of a boy who he referred to as his “autistic son,” saying he was 11 years old and that he was “like daddy lol he already has a big penis haha,” according to text exchanges listed in the affidavit. He also talked about the boy’s pubic hair.

Torres, however, does not have any children.

In a text exchange with Beeks the following month, Torres described performing oral sex on a 17-year-old while working at a college.

In another 2022 text exchange with Beeks about having a sexual encounter, Torres asked, “U got any homies under 18.”

In previous statements to the media, McElmurry, Torres’ attorney, did not refute the authenticity of the text messages but downplayed their significance, calling them “outrageous fantasy and role play.”

“These communications do not reflect any real-world actions or intentions and were entirely fictitious,” McElmurry said. He described Beeks as a “friend-turned-stalker” of Torres’,” who steered conversations into topics that would be damaging to Torres, as part of his extortion plot.

McElmurry said that Torres “felt trapped in a cycle of manipulation” and chose to take “the difficult yet honorable path, reporting the situation to law enforcement despite the significant personal risks involved.”

But he made it clear that Torres “maintains his innocence.” “He has no interest in minors. He’s never had a relationship with minors in terms of that manner,” McElmurry said.

With his election to the District 3 seat in 2022, Torres became the first openly gay Latino to hold a council seat in the county, according to his council website profile. Torres, 42, said he has dedicated much of his life to advocating for youth and families in San José and in the Guadalupe-Washington community where he was raised.

The San Jose Police Officers’ Association, who supported Torres’ opponent in his council race, has publicly called on him to resign and had previously expressed disappointment that Torres’ colleagues on the Council were not asking for the same.

“The Councilmember Omar Torres criminal investigation into alleged sexual misconduct with a minor will run its course, but through his criminal defense attorney, he has admitted he sent multiple text messages about an 11-year-old autistic boy’s genitals and asked for help in procuring underage minors for sex,” Sgt. Steve Slack, the president of the police union, said in a statement to KQED.

“That’s repugnant, and his own words meet the SJPOA’s threshold for resignation,” Slack said.

On Wednesday, after the Council released its joint statement, the police union questioned why it took so long for city leaders to call on Torres to resign.

“Although we commend this action, we are left wondering: what took them so long?” the union statement said. “After reading Torres’s self-admitted text messages seeking sex with underage minors and participating in an extortion scheme to keep his “fantasies” and “role-playing” about minors quiet, when are other leaders and organizations going to demand Torres resign?”

KQED’s Guy Marzorati contributed to this report.