San José Council Limits Omar Torres’ Power Amid Sexual Misconduct Investigation

Updated 4:15 p.m. Tuesday

San José’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to remove Councilmember Omar Torres from all of his committee assignments amid a police investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor.

“Councilmember Torres has recently been absent from all committee, commission and board meetings that I am aware of over the last two weeks,” said Mayor Matt Mahan, who recommended the move. “I think that the public deserves to have other council colleagues fill in in those roles.”

Those positions — three committee assignments and nearly a dozen positions on other boards or commissions, including the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board and the San José Youth Empowerment Alliance — will now be distributed among most of the remaining council members and will remain in effect until early next year, when the mayor makes his annual recommendations for committee assignments.

Mahan and the rest of the council are also calling for Torres’ resignation after a recently publicized police affidavit revealed Torres is being investigated on suspicion of “oral copulation of a minor.”

Torres began retreating from public view after police served him with a search warrant earlier this month. Details of the criminal investigation into him and his reported sexual interest in minors quickly followed. No criminal charges have been filed, and Torres has denied any wrongdoing.

Torres has missed several public meetings in recent weeks, including a City Council meeting on Oct. 8, which he said was due to illness.

The council on Tuesday approved Torres’ request to be excused for that absence, though nobody seemed eager to be the one to initiate that action. After a prolonged moment of silence, Mahan eventually spoke up.

“I believe Councilmember Torres is holding his seat hostage and denying representation to the 100,000 residents of District 3. We’ve all called on him to resign. He should resign,” Mahan said.

“At the same time, after getting some insight from the city attorney, I personally am not interested in litigating whether or not he was sick two weeks ago. So, I will be supporting the motion. And moving forward, should he continue to request excused absences, I personally will want to hear a better explanation for what the illness is.”

Only District 7 Councilmember Bien Doan voted against excusing the absence.

San José’s city charter states that a council member can be removed after five consecutive unexcused absences.

Torres was not present for Tuesday’s meeting. His attorney, Nelson McElmurry, said in a text to KQED that Torres would not comment publicly until the investigation into him is complete.

The investigation began when Torres reported to police that he was being blackmailed by a Chicago man with whom he’d had a sexual relationship and shared illicit pictures. Torres reportedly told police that he had already sent the man $22,000.

The recently released affidavit included texts from 2022 between Torres and the man in which Torres sent a picture of a boy he identified as his autistic 11-year-old son and shared inappropriate details about the boy’s genitalia, though the council member is not known to have any children.

In the texts, Torres also reportedly talked about having oral sex with a 17-year-old while working at a college and, while talking about a future sexual encounter, asked if the man had “any homies under 18.”

In previous statements to the media, McElmurry has called the text messages “outrageous fantasy and roleplay.”