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San Diego district attorney is subpoenaed to testify at the trial of a Mexican tycoon

San Diego Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis, left, has been subpoenaed to testify at the trial of a Mexican tycoon
San Diego Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis, left, has been subpoenaed to testify at the trial of a Mexican tycoon
(Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)
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Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis has been subpoenaed to testify at the trial of a Mexican tycoon charged with illegally contributing $600,000 in cash and services to San Diego mayoral campaigns in 2012 — including her own unsuccessful bid.

Michael Wynne, the attorney for Jose Susumo Azano Matsura, said he wanted to call Dumanis to counter the contention from federal prosecutors that Azano was secretly scheming to funnel funds into her campaign.

“The truth is Mr. Azano had nothing to do with her campaign,” Wynne said.

Since the first indictments in the case were handed down in 2014, Dumanis has said she was unaware that Azano funded an independent expenditure committee that had been set up to help her. A spokesman for Dumanis declined to comment on the subpoena Wednesday, citing the ongoing trial.

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For the last 2½ weeks prosecutors have laid out their case — trying to show that Azano worked to funnel money into the campaigns of former Mayor Bob Filner and Dumanis via straw donors, independent committees and campaign services.

The motive, they argue, was to gain support in the mayor’s office for a glitzy waterfront development Azano wanted to build.

Dumanis has said that although she had lunch with Azano at his Coronado waterfront home, she had little recollection of the meeting. In an interview after Azano’s arrest, she said:

“Nobody asked me for any promises, nobody talked about getting anything in exchange for anything from me, and if they had I would have kicked them to the curb.”

A key aspect of the trial is whether Dumanis, Filner or any political operatives knew that Azano was a foreign citizen and therefore unable to contribute legally to domestic campaigns.

Wynne said Filner, who won the mayoral race but later resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, would testify that he had little contact with Azano.

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At the start of the trial, Wynne told jurors that Azano was being targeted by federal prosecutors for another reason — a long dispute he had in Mexico with San Diego’s Sempra Energy over land. He contended that Sempra pressured the government to go after Azano as payback for his interference.

The defense attorney said that Jeff Light, publisher and editor in chief of the San Diego Union-Tribune, also would be subpoenaed to testify about Sempra’s activities in Baja — where for years the company has been accused of engaging in corruption. The Union-Tribune published a series of stories centered on a company whistle-blower in 2010.

Light said he has not been served with a subpoena.

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com

Moran writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune

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