This column originally appeared in the Monday, April 22, print edition of the Post. If you want important local news first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Victor Aenlle, who was terminated last November by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors from his nearly $250,000-a-year contract job as the sheriff’s executive director of administration, has found a way to return to the sheriff’s office — thanks to Sheriff Christina Corpus.
On Thursday, Corpus sent an email saying that starting “immediately” Aenlle will be assisting in the sheriff’s unit that approves concealed carry weapons (CCW) permits.
The email was sent to the sheriff’s office IT supervisor to tell him that Aenlle needed to have access to the sheriff’s computer system. “…Please ensure he is receiving all correspondence related to the (CCW) unit,” she wrote.
The email suggested that Aenlle will be working in the CCW unit as a reserve deputy, a position he has held for several years after attempting unsuccessfully to become a regular deputy. He told me in a previous interview that he didn’t get the job due to politics. When Corpus was elected in 2022, one of her first decisions was to put Aenlle, then a realtor, in her inner circle, even though he didn’t have any supervisorial experience in law enforcement.
Aenlle is returning just as the county supervisors prepare to vote on whether to fire Corpus for several reasons, including allegations of intimidation, retaliation, jailing a critic, racial and homophobic comments, dishonesty and conflicts of interest. She’s also accused of ignoring HR complaints filed by sheriff’s employees against Aenlle.
On Nov. 13, the Board of Supervisors canceled Aenlle’s employment contract — essentially firing him — and County Manager Mike Callagy barred Aenlle from returning to nonpublic parts of county office buildings. That move would have kept him out of the executive offices on the fifth floor of the sheriff’s office at 330 Bradford St. in Redwood City. However, he’s allowed to enter nonpublic parts of that building if he’s accompanied by Corpus.
I sent emails to Aenlle and the sheriff’s spokeswoman on Saturday seeking a comment, but neither got back to me (see below).
This raises a lot of questions.
• Will he be paid for his work, or is he working for free?
• What will he do for the CCW unit? Scrutinizing applications and recommending who gets a permit?
• Will he work from home or in the sheriff’s building? If he works from home, will the applications go home with him?
• Was the job of a CCW unit helper advertised to other reserve deputies?
• And why did the Board of Supervisors and Callagy allow him to return?
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
Follow up
On Monday, after the column above was printed, the sheriff’s office spokeswoman forwarded the following statement from Sheriff Corpus:
“We continue to see a significant increase in the number of applications for Concealed Carry Weapon (CCW) licenses, which has created a backlog we are actively addressing.
“Mr. Aenlle is a fully qualified reserve deputy for over 17 years and has been informed by the County Attorney that he is allowed to be in any County workspace where reserve deputies are allowed.
“As Sheriff, I have the authority to assign reserve deputies to work anywhere there is a need. It has historically been the case, and continues to be the case, that reserve deputies work in a variety of functions in the Sheriff’s Office.
“Reserve deputies are not compensated; they are volunteering their time.
“Mr. Aenlle will be reviewing and processing CCW applications.”
Because why? When you are the Sheriff you ignore your employees, you ignore state and legislature and county officials.
You ignore the voters.
[Portion deleted — Don’t make claims about law violations unless the person has been convicted.]
You make it sound bad that Sheriff’s office employees communicate with county officials – county manager, board of supervisors and so on.
The defense claims there is no evidence and everything has been amazing?
And Corpus doesn’t choose someone else for this CCW approval role? So, no-one else is qualified to do the conceal and carry licenses except a man banned from county buildings? Now corpus wants him to have access to files and emails? I wonder what happens when the CCW gets onto the wrong hands or maybe that is the master plan to give permits to people they select…DOJ/FBI anyone see an issue? AG? or is everyone focused on Trumps tarriffs?
Just stop Corpus do you even remotely see how insane you are?
This is a transparent attempt to provide Aenlle an opportunity to accumulate Reserve hours without actually serving in core Reserve functions, such as public events, patrol, custody, courts and transportation. The fact is, it would be extremely difficult for Aenlle’s huge ego to allow him to serve in normal Reserve functions, because – as a Reserve – he would be outranked by even the newest full-time rookie Deputy. He has alienated virtually the entire staff at the Sheriff’s Office, and NO ONE wants to work with him. I am sure that the records will show that he worked zero hours as a Reserve in 2023 or 2024, and as such, he should be decertified by POST for failure to serve the mandatory 192 hours per year. Corpus’s announcement that he is being “reactivated” is a tacit admission of this fact. He should only be allowed to return to Reserve duty after completing a POST-certified requalification course. But once again, he and Corpus are ignoring the rules. Even if he completes a requalification course, he and the Sheriff are out of compliance with Sheriff’s Office rules prohibiting a Supervisor (Corpus) from having a romantic relationship with a subordinate (Aenlle). I spoke with one Reserve Deputy (who I will obviously not name here due that Deputy’s fear of retaliation) who said that the first time he heard about the position being made available to any Reserve Deputy was when he read about Victor getting the Jon here in the Daily Post, so no, the job was not advertised to the Reserve Unit.
In Santa Clara County, former sheriff Laurie Smith turned CCWs into a profitable business. If you wanted a permit, make a contribution to her “nonprofit”. Smith was convicted over that shakedown scam. It was a way for Smith and her cronies to make money on the side.
People in law enforcement do this kind of thing all the time. It’s currently fashionable for police and sheriffs to set up nonprofits that would collect donations and use the money to buy homes for cops. The donations come from people who want more help from law enforcement, like PIs and corporate security.
If this isn’t any clearer that these two are in a relationship with each other, I don’t know what is.
Point on!
Christina, resign now. Negotiate a deal on the criminal charges. Your kids need a mom. You can’t help them if you’re in jail.
this all misses the point, since the Breuer decision in NY, EVERY County in CA is now a “must issue”, according to Bonta. There is nothing to be done except a records check, minimal paper work, simple 1 course training, etc, so WTHeck is Vicky gonna be doing anyway, as there is nothing to do.. except paper pushing via Permitium (which does all the paper work online anyway) . Or carrying his silenced M4.
Make me really mad, she keeps enabling this parasite/co-dependent creep. She needs to go. Him first though. Oh, and leave your gun at the SO desk on the first floor please with the rent-a-cop, Mini-me. Dr Evil is waiting upstairs for you though. She needs more sharks with laser beams ! “Gimme a break here People !”
Very interesting about New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) which held that New York’s “proper-cause” requirement violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Thanks for that. AG Bonta’s “Legal Alert No. OAG-2022-02 dated June 22, 2022 to “All California District Attorneys, Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, County Counsels, and City Attorneys” can be found online by those interested. (The Post disallows links.) Its gist is, as the other commenter suggested, California counties can no longer require a showing of “good cause” for CCW. However, all other California requirements can remain intact such as the requirement of showing of “good moral character”.
Why is Victor’s chief of staff bio still on the County website? He was fired months ago!
Why does the Sheriff insist on bending over backwards to create department jobs for Victor?
Why is being a real estate agent and alleged slumlord to farmworkers an insufficient profession for Victor?
Why does Victor insist on working for a County that fired him?
Multiple employees have alleged that the Sheriff ignored their HR complaints against Victor. Her rehiring him after the Cordell report and the filing of multiple lawsuits, substantiates the allegation of wilful indifference.
Yet another brow-furrowing, nearly beyond comprehension interesting move by Corpus. She takes the same Reserve Deputy who falsified his own personal time donation records in service as a Reserve Deputy Sheriff, double crediting himself (double-dipping) for time compensated as a Full Time Employee (FTE) in the capacity of Administration Director, then instead of investigating his improper behaviors in that regard, instead of progressively disciplining him or terminating him, or prosecuting him for time card record fraud and falsification, she assigns him to new duties. Will the District Attorney put Reserve Deputy Aenlle on the Brady List for his deceptions and deceitful conduct?
Of course that position in CCWs was essentially the same one Aenlle applied for under the previous administrations, seeking to replace a Mr. M., an attorney employed as a Management Analyst (MA). Aenlle wasn’t hired then as a MA then because he was not among the most qualified for that position.
That foregoing context reveals the accurate, full history for Aenlle’s interest in the CCW program. He has no prior experience that prepared him for that CCW role, no more than his lack of qualifications for most positions he has forcefully inserted himself into in the various positions in the SO.
This unwise and imprudent personnel assignment, inserting the same individual that PERB concurred acted improperly and contrary to labor laws, does no good for the Sheriff’s Office, nor its personnel, nor the citizenry of the county. It does well to demonstrate Aenlle’s continued undue influence over Corpus. How many previous Reserve Deputy Sheriffs were personally assigned to any role by a sitting sheriff? The answer is closer to zero than just about any other number (another “first” for this sheriff!).
This clearly deceptive assignment is merely to permit Aenlle’s presence within the non public SO space on county property does well to clearly illustrate Corpus’ inability to make reasonable, impartial and well informed decisions. May god help those exposed to that vile and vindictive man in their workplace.
Aenlle stated that he developed and made the CCW program and has the most experience and knowledge of it. How was that possible?
How does Aenlle claim to do all of these things for the Sheriff yet noone else has confirmed that- like his reviewing the safety and purchasing items to make the department safe and now the CCW program he developed? Along with ice cream machines, massage chairs and $75000 tables and now unoccupied rental office buildings for $35000 a month – what kind of experience does Aenlle have again?
Why does this bozo come back to working anywhere near employees that have filed complaints yet alone PERB said there were state labor law violations and an investigation noted this relationship is in the very least inappropriate between the Sheriff and Aenlle.
What other employee would get free reign to assignments and confidential information, county emails and being able to snoop through personal files and order people in IT to do tasks?
What part of Victor is banned inside the non-public area confuses Sheriff Corpus? I understood CEO Callagy’s directions are clear. Victor is not allowed behind the offices of the Sheriff’s Office without escort.
The CCW Unit does their work from home.
This is appalling. The supervisors need to step it up and fire Corpus ASAP.
The level of contempt and disrespect Corpus so clearly has for those working in the Sheriff’s Office is mind-boggling. The fact that she is allowing the good little doc to return in any capacity is absolute proof that Victor has total control over Christy, which points to a Sheriff who is mentally unstable and ill-equipped to continue running the office.
As for the little doc and his qualifications, the reality is he has never worked in a core function as a reserve deputy. More concerning, however, is the very strong likelihood that he is not up to date with his mandated training according to POST-standards. Perhaps someone should send a public records request to the county for Victor’s training records. Rumor has it, those records would definitively show that he has not met the required training or hours to be classified as a reserve deputy. Furthermore, the fact remains, no other reserve deputy has ever been allowed to work in any capacity other than the core functions of the office (patrol, transportation, and corrections). Once again, Corpus is treating Victor different than any other employee.
In their statement, the Sheriff’s spokesperson said that reserve deputies are volunteers and as such, are not compensated for their time. Which begs the question, why is the little doctor so eager to return in THAT particular division (CCWs), where he will have access to confidential information and databases? Given his current status (fired from the county and under investigation by the DAs Office), he absolutely should not have access to any information or databases, particularly one that would allow him to make changes to his own record.
In summary, this entire decision reeks of yet another Corpus-Aenlle made-for-tv scandal. The reality is, Victor is the master of deception (“I have a PhD! I have years and years of experience in law enforcement! I am smarter than everyone!”) so this new turn of events was undoubtedly planned by the little doc with a very clear self-serving goal in mind.
I believe Jackie Speier is finally seeing the light that her buddy Christina is in fact out of her mind. Good for her speaking up and questioning the ridiculous massage chairs. We all know who put in the order . And what an embarrassment that Aenlle will be back at the SO and our deputies have to be subjected to this horrific s**t show.
What would one expect. Corpus does whatever she wants with absolute disregard for what is “the right thing to do.” Also, not even a mention of the Measure A ordinance moving forward at yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting? A lot of political grandstanding over the past several months, combined with a fearful and feckless district attorney. Corpus, keep doing whatever you want. These cowards can’t stop you and the voters in support of Measure A don’t matter.
Christina, please resign. You’ve made it embarrassing to wear the Sheriff’s Office uniform.
That’s alright—sooner or later, little Victor will slip up. Maybe it’ll be something reminiscent of the CCW scandal that happened at the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
Might be a good idea to check his pockets before he heads home each day—just to be safe. (or any questionable Zelle or Venmo transactions he receives)
What is she thinking bring this guy back into the folds of the Sheriff’s Office. Oh right, she isn’t thinking. She’s out of her mind!