A week after Ted Lehrer was stabbed in downtown Stockton, then-Vice Mayor Jason Lee said the political consultant contacted him with another alarming report: He had been kidnapped.
Two months later, Lehrer publicly denied that any Stockton city councilmember kidnapped him and said he wanted to put the matter behind him. Lee, meanwhile, defended his involvement as allegations surrounding the incident became another point of contention at City Hall.
The conflicting public accounts emerged after a contentious Audit Committee meeting Sept. 21, when Lee questioned police officials about investigative records involving fellow councilmembers.
In a video published Sept. 23 by former Mayor Anthony Silva, Lehrer described the incident as a misunderstanding involving someone outside the City Council.
“There was no kidnapping by a member of the City Council, any member of the City Council,” Lehrer said.
But how the incident became an allegation involving two councilmembers — and eventually the subject of a heated exchange at City Hall — remains unclear.
From a stabbing to a kidnapping allegation
On July 16, Lehrer was stabbed multiple times while waiting for a San Joaquin Regional Transit District bus in downtown Stockton.
In the days that followed, Lee and two City Council campaigns publicly discussed the attack without identifying the victim. Stockton police described him only as a 54-year-old man.
Lehrer confirmed his identity to Stocktonia July 21, saying he suffered a punctured lung and injuries to his hand, fingers and shoulder. He described the stabbing as a random attack unrelated to his political work. Police arrested a suspect shortly after the attack.
Eight days after the stabbing — and three days after he was released from the hospital, according to Lehrer — something else happened.
Lehrer said in Silva’s video that he was riding in a vehicle with another person when he asked the driver to pull over. The driver did not stop when Lehrer expected.
According to Lehrer, the driver believed it was not safe to stop where he had asked.
Still recovering from being stabbed, Lehrer said he became concerned and frightened. He later contacted police and gave a statement.
By the time he sat down with Silva two months later, however, Lehrer was describing the encounter as a misunderstanding.
“The police did take the statement, but it had nothing to do with those two members of the City Council,” Lehrer said in the video.
He did not name the driver or explain his relationship with that person.
Lee says the account he received from Lehrer at the time was more serious.
In a Facebook post, Lee said Lehrer contacted him about a week after the stabbing and told him he had been kidnapped. Lee said Lehrer asked for his help getting police to follow up on the allegation and continued reaching out because he was frustrated with the response.
Lehrer confirmed at least part of Lee’s account in the interview with Silva: Lee wanted to make sure he gave police a statement.
But when Silva asked Lehrer whether Lee wanted him to say councilmembers had detained or kidnapped him, Lehrer would not go that far.
“Honestly, I don’t know what’s in his head,” Lehrer said.
The political relationships surrounding Lehrer added another layer.
At the time of the stabbing, Lehrer was working as a consultant for Tamica Small and Desiree Lynch, who were challenging Councilmembers Michele Padilla and Brando Villapudua, respectively.
Lee endorsed both candidates. Lee, Small and Lynch also issued a joint statement calling for stronger public safety measures following Lehrer’s stabbing.
By Aug. 17, Lee had met privately with police officials about investigative records and the department’s rules governing what information could be released.
A month later, those private discussions spilled into public view.
From private conversations to City Hall
During the Sept. 21 Audit Committee meeting, Lee questioned police officials about access to investigative records and raised an allegation he said involved fellow councilmembers.
Deputy Chief Anabel Morris told Lee that police had already explained the department’s disclosure rules to him during their Aug. 17 meeting.
The exchange grew increasingly contentious as Morris began referencing other matters she said police had already discussed with Lee privately, including the stabbing of a political campaign consultant.
Morris said investigators arrested a suspect within about 20 minutes of that attack and determined it was unrelated to campaign-related concerns Lee had raised.
Neither Morris nor Lee identified Lehrer by name during the discussion, but the circumstances Morris described matched his July stabbing.
As the exchange intensified, Padilla raised a point of order and asked committee members to treat city staff respectfully. The committee recessed before eventually returning to the discussion.
Two days later, Silva posted his interview with Lehrer.
Silva, who described Lehrer to Stocktonia as a friend and professional colleague, said he wanted the consultant to address the kidnapping allegations himself.
“If you’re saying a big word like kidnapping, that’s a big word,” Silva said. “I just wanted to make sure that that is just not something anybody really believed because I obviously don’t believe it happened, and the person himself says it didn’t happen.”
Silva also criticized Lee’s conduct at the Audit Committee meeting and called on the City Council to censure him, remove his vice mayor title and strip him of his committee assignments.
Lee responded to the video with his own account — and what he presented as receipts.
Lee’s screenshots add another version
Alongside his Facebook statement, Lee posted a lengthy series of screenshots that appear to show text messages exchanged between him and Lehrer.
The messages mention Padilla and Villapudua. But Stocktonia’s review of the screenshots did not find a message in which Lehrer directly accused either councilmember of kidnapping him.
Instead, the exchange introduces another name.
In one portion of the screenshots, messages attributed to Lehrer appear to identify a man named Jesse in connection with the alleged kidnapping and threats. Another part of the exchange identifies Jesse as Jesse Mejia, who is associated with the nonprofit Stockton Street Dogs.
That detail was absent from Lehrer’s later interview with Silva, in which he referred only to “another individual” and characterized the encounter as a misunderstanding.
Stocktonia contacted Mejia to ask about the incident, his relationship with Lehrer and the messages Lee posted publicly. He did not respond by publication time.
The complete context of the text exchange could not be independently verified.
The screenshots also raise another question about Lehrer’s account.
Toward the end of the messages Lee posted, Lehrer appears to tell Lee that he was recanting something he had told Silva. The screenshots do not make clear which statement Lehrer meant or exactly when that message was sent in relation to Silva’s published interview.
That leaves an unusual sequence in the public record: Lee says Lehrer initially told him he had been kidnapped; Lehrer later told Silva the encounter was a misunderstanding and emphatically denied that any councilmember kidnapped him; and messages subsequently posted by Lee appear to show Lehrer walking back at least something he had told Silva.
Lehrer has not publicly clarified that sequence.
“I cannot speak to why his accounts of these events appear to change depending on whom he is speaking with,” Lee wrote in his Facebook post.
Lee also said he had contacted multiple agencies before the incident about concerns involving a potential conspiracy and later forwarded relevant communications for review. He did not identify the alleged conspiracy, explain how it related to Lehrer’s allegations or specify which agencies received the information.
The Stockton Police Department has provided little clarity.
The department declined to release information about the alleged kidnapping, citing victim confidentiality and the possibility of an ongoing investigation as general reasons details may be withheld. Police did not confirm whether Lehrer filed a kidnapping report, how the reported incident was classified, whether an investigation remains active or whether any councilmember was investigated.
Allegation follows council into October
The allegations did not disappear after Lehrer’s public denial.
They surfaced again Oct. 13 as the City Council debated Lee’s leadership and ultimately voted to remove him as vice mayor.
The council’s decision came amid a broader series of disputes involving Lee’s conduct, committee leadership and relationships with other city officials; the kidnapping allegation was not presented as the basis for his removal.
During the discussion, however, Padilla directly addressed it.
“I didn’t kidnap anybody,” she said.
It was Padilla’s first public response to the allegation. She had not responded to Stocktonia’s earlier requests for comment about Lehrer’s account. Villapudua also did not respond to requests for comment.
For Lehrer, the public discussion has continued even as he has sought to end his involvement in it.
In a statement to Stocktonia, he declined to further explain the encounter, saying he considers the matter closed and does not intend to continue the public back-and-forth surrounding it.
“I was the victim of a violent and unprovoked stabbing that occurred on San Joaquin Regional Transit District property,” Lehrer said. “My focus continues to be on recovery and moving forward, and not political theater.”