The next court appearance in former CapRadio General Manager Jun Reina’s criminal case has been scheduled for June.
At a mandatory settlement conference Wednesday morning at a courtroom inside the Sacramento County Main Jail, Reina’s attorney Mary Ann Bird requested the matter be continued until June 17.
Bird also submitted a request for Reina to travel for family vacation from June 6-12. She said her client is out on bail, surrendered both of his passports and did not pose a flight risk.
Reina surrendered himself at the Sacramento County Main Jail the same day the charges were announced, and was released shortly afterwards after posting $200,000 bail.
Bird also requested that both Reina and she be allowed to attend the June 17 session via Zoom. Unlike his previous court date, the former CapRadio executive did not attend Wednesday’s hearing.
Bird said she had also served as Reina’s legal counsel during an investigation by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. She said her client had traveled during that time and kept detectives apprised of his whereabouts.
David Bass from the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office objected, saying prosecutors believed Reina was a flight risk. Judge David Bonilla granted Bird’s requests, saying Reina needed to show proof he was in the state of California.
Both Bird and Bass declined to provide further comment to CapRadio. The next court appearance will be at 8:30 a.m. on June 17 at Department 61 in the Main Jail.
Reina made his first brief court appearance Feb. 2, accompanied by his family. He did not enter a plea, and only spoke to identify himself to the judge as he acknowledged the charges against him.
Reina was hired as CapRadio’s chief financial officer in 2007, adding chief operating officer to his title in 2013. He was then promoted to become the station’s general manager and executive vice president in 2020 before resigning in 2023.
CapRadio went through layoffs and canceled four music programs in August of that year. The California State University Chancellor’s Office released a damning audit a month later detailing significant financial mismanagement at the radio station, which is licensed to Sacramento State.
A 2024 forensic examination commissioned by Sac State found more than $760,000 in unsupported payments. More than half of those payments were made to a single station executive which CapRadio reporters identified as Reina.
Legal expert weighs in
McGeorge School of Law professor Mike Vitiello said trial judges have “enormous amounts of discretion” on whether to allow a defendant to travel.
“As frustrating as it is, I’m sure, for the prosecution and for other people who want to see the case move quickly, I doubt there’s much you can do now other than to gnash your teeth,” he explained.
“If the defendant has, in point of fact, while under investigation not tried to flee the jurisdiction, but has complied with reasonable requests from the government — from the prosecutor — that weighs in the person’s favor when the court is making discretionary decisions.”
Vitiello said he does not believe prosecutors will try to overturn the judge’s decision, especially given the time and energy needed to go through the appeals process.
“Unless the judge is really making an irrational decision, demonstrably so, it’s very hard to get anybody to overturn the exercise of discretion,” he said.
Regarding the appearance’s listing as a “mandatory settlement conference,” Vitiello said these hearings are required to provide a “good faith effort” to try and settle the case without having it go to trial.
“There’s no requirement that anybody agree to a settlement, to a guilty plea or otherwise,” he said, adding that those negotiations do not take place in open court.
Reina’s charges
Reina, identified in court documents as Fidias “Jun” Reina Jr., was under investigation by the sheriff’s office for more than a year, dating back to January 2024. Detectives turned over their findings to the district attorney’s office in August 2025.
The DA’s office then announced criminal charges against the former station executive on Jan. 29, 2026. Prosecutors accused Reina of orchestrating a “multi-year scheme" to divert CapRadio funds for personal use between Dec. 6, 2016, and June 12, 2022.
The DA’s office says he misappropriated approximately $1.33 million through unauthorized credit card charges, payments to his personal credit card accounts, and electronic fund transfers from CapRadio’s bank account to his own.
Reina faces three felony counts. Two of the charges, embezzlement and grand theft, are for actions allegedly taken between December 2016 and March 2022.
Reina also faces a third count of forgery, which focuses on an allegedly counterfeit document Reina is accused of producing on Sept. 15, 2022.
Documents reviewed by CapRadio reporters appear to show Reina turning over a forged version of a radio tower proposal document in response to a request from CSU auditors as part of an annual audit validation process. The document supplied by Reina has several subtle discrepancies from the apparently legitimate document, including altered dates, county sales tax rates and down payment costs.
Sacramento County Detective Monica Bustamante, who led the investigation, said Reina had spent that money on “personal expenses for travel.”
Prosecutors accused the former GM of using the stolen money on lavish personal spending including international travel, home renovations, tuitions for his children and other expenses. CapRadio had also accused Reina of racking up expenses on the station’s dime in a December 2024 civil lawsuit filed in Yolo County.
Disclosure: This story was reported and written by Senior Producer Sarit Laschinsky. It was edited by Editor Sally Longenecker.
Following NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no CapRadio corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted or broadcast.
You can read our independent ongoing coverage of financial issues at Capital Public Radio here.
Editor’s note: CapRadio is licensed to Sacramento State, which is also an underwriter.
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