SLO mayor leaked Grand Jury report to Cal Poly. Can she be prosecuted?
San Luis Obispo Mayor Erica Stewart leaked a confidential document to a Cal Poly official — a misdemeanor crime under California law.
But whether Stewart can be prosecuted appears to be up in the air.
On June 13, 2025, Stewart received an advance copy of a grand jury report on the city’s management of noisy parties and fraternity activity in the neighborhoods near campus — 10 days before it was made public, an email thread obtained by The Tribune showed.
A letter sent along with the report noted the draft copy was “confidential” and cited a California law requiring the Grand Jury to provide a copy of a part of a report connected to an individual with the report ahead of time.
“Please keep in mind that this report must be kept confidential until its public release by the Grand Jury,” the letter, issued by Grand Jury foreperson Bonnie McKrill, concluded.
Within three hours after receiving it, however, Stewart had forwarded the report to Cal Poly economic development official Courtney Kienow, who has previously spoken as a university representative on the fraternity issues, the email chain showed.
According to SLO County District Attorney Dan Dow, Stewart’s actions did violate California law.
“It states that no officer, agency, department or governing body of a public agency shall disclose any contents of a grand jury report prior to its public release,” he told The Tribune via email on Thursday, referring to the related law. “That prohibition applies the moment a public official receives the confidential draft. It is not discretionary, and it is not a matter of opinion — it is the law.”
Meanwhile, a separate piece of legislation allows the “willful failure to perform a duty imposed by law on a public officer” to be charged as a misdemeanor, which Dow said would theoretically be the vehicle through which the crime of leaking a grand jury report would be charged.
A councilmember out of Santa Clara County was previously charged and convicted under that law for leaking a grand jury report in a “factually similar case,” Dow said.
Misdemeanors in California typically carry a one-year statute of limitations — putting Stewart just past the deadline for prosecution.
In some cases, the statute of limitations can be suspended, allowing more time for prosecution — but Dow did not confirm whether that applied or was under consideration for Stewart’s case, and he said his office “does not typically confirm or deny if we have ongoing public integrity investigations.”
“What I can tell you is that my office takes the integrity of the grand jury process seriously,” he wrote. “The civil Grand Jury serves a vital function in holding local government accountable to the public, and when public officials undermine that process, it strikes at the foundation of transparent and ethical governance.”
“The people of San Luis Obispo County deserve public officials who follow the law,” he continued, “including the laws that apply specifically to them.”
Stewart told the Tribune via text on Tuesday that she believed at the time she sent the report that Cal Poly was a rightful recipient of the advanced copy.
“In order to provide a thorough and factual response to the Grand Jury report, I believed it was necessary to receive data from one of the stakeholders of this report, Cal Poly, in order to serve the interests of both parties in a fair-minded and evenhanded fashion,” she wrote.
The Tribune also reached out to the city about possible legal ramifications, to which City Attorney Christine Dietrick responded through a spokesperson on Thursday: “The city is unaware of a specific legal penalty for the premature release by persons other than grand jurors of the draft report.”
.JPG)