FBI Agent Siddhartha Patel: The Man Who Signed CA’s Wiretap Letters

India-West News Desk

SACRAMENTO, CA — California’s political establishment is grappling with the fallout from an unusual and unsettling notification: official letters from the FBI confirming that recipients’ electronic communications were intercepted during a federal corruption investigation.

The source of the letters is Siddhartha Patel, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Sacramento Field Office, whose signature appears on the dozens of notices sent to political insiders.

The letters are tied to a federal corruption case involving longtime Democratic operative Dana Williamson and two associates. Williamson, a former chief of staff to Governor Gavin Newsom, has been charged with siphoning $225,000 from a state campaign account and misrepresenting $1 million in personal luxury expenses as business write-offs. She has pleaded not guilty.

The correspondence, which has reached current and former members of the Newsom administration, is a legal obligation under the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act. These notifications are sent routinely once surveillance concludes, informing any person whose private communications were captured during the wiretap.

In the letters, Agent Patel is careful to clarify the limited scope of the notice, writing that the letter “does not necessarily mean you were the target of the investigation or that any criminal action will be taken against you.” Rather, its purpose is simply to notify the recipient that some of their communications “may have been intercepted” as part of the probe. Governor Newsom’s office confirmed the governor himself did not receive a letter.

Siddhartha Patel has a distinguished career rooted in counterterrorism and handling high-stakes federal investigations. Patel’s law enforcement journey began in 2003 as a special agent in the San Francisco Field Office, where he investigated matters ranging from domestic terrorism and human trafficking to civil rights.

Patel’s focus shifted to international terrorism when he transferred to the Los Angeles Field Office in 2007. His work in this area included a deployment to assist in the investigation of the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai. His expertise led to a promotion in 2012 and an assignment to FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he managed several overseas counterterrorism operations in dangerous regions like Iraq and Syria.

Returning to the Los Angeles Field Office in 2014, Patel was soon promoted to supervisory special agent. In this role, he took the lead on some of the most critical domestic investigations of the past decade. Patel was the lead supervisory agent for the investigation of the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist shooting and was immediately deployed to assist the Las Vegas Field Office following the 2017 mass shooting.

Holding a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University, Patel brings a foundation of rigorous academic training to his extensive field experience, which now sees him leading the federal law enforcement efforts in California’s capital as the Special Agent in Charge.