BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Daily Post has been seeking information on the cost of investigations into San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus, but the county won’t release the numbers.
The Post filed a request on May 12 for records of the bills related to Corpus’s attorneys that are being paid for by the county, bills related to attorneys the county has hired and a copy of the county’s contract with retired Judge LaDoris Cordell, who investigated the sheriff’s office after HR complaints.
Corpus has been represented by Brad Gage of Brad Gage Law and Thomas Mazzucco, Mariah Cooks, James Lassart, Philip Kearney, W. S. Wilson Leung, Christopher Ulrich and Matthew Frauenfeld of the San Francisco firm Murphy, Pearson, Bradley & Feeney. The county is responsible for providing Corpus with legal representation if she requests to have attorneys from outside the county attorney’s office represent her.
A minimum of three attorneys from the Murphy, Pearson, Bradley & Feeney firm have attended multiple board meetings on her behalf since December, when the board voted to put Measure A on the ballot. Voters approved Measure A, which enables the Board of Supervisors to fire the sheriff.
County Attorney John Nibbelin responded to the Post on May 23, saying the records cannot be released, due to attorney-client privilege.
Supervisors hired Cordell in July 2024 to look into the growing number of HR complaints against Corpus and her former Chief of Staff Victor Aenlle, with whom Corpus allegedly had an affair relationship. Corpus and Aenlle deny having an affair.
Cordell’s 400-page report became the basis for supervisors to place Measure A on the March 3 ballot. Supervisors then hired the law firm Hanson Bridgett, which formed the removal process and Keker, Van Nest & Peters, which conducted an investigation resulting in the recommendation to remove Corpus.
Exact costs withheld
The Cordell report cost approximately $200,000 to complete and the retired judge was paid $750 an hour, according to a statement the county released on Jan. 7. But the county has refused to release the exact cost or the contract between Cordell and the county.
County officials have also refused to disclose the cost of a 166-page report investigating Corpus’s complaints against Callagy after hiring Christina Ro-Connolly of the Oppenheimer Investigations Group.
County spokeswoman Effie Verducci said the cost of the report was “privileged” information and would not be released.
Corpus has sued supervisors and County Executive Mike Callagy for allegedly withholding records related to Cordell’s report, including the contract.
Corpus’ suit said the county is violating the California Public Records Act by asserting that Cordell’s contract and payments are confidential due to attorney-client privilege.
When legal cases are open, fee invoices and agreements with attorneys are covered by attorney-client privilege, according to David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition. Attorney-client privilege protects the confidentiality of information when cases are pending or active, but when they are closed, certain information can be released, Loy said.
The Post challenged the decision to keep the report by Keker, Van Nest & Peters secret. The county refused to release the report. But before the newspaper could litigate the denial, Corpus’s attorneys released the Keker report by posting it on the Superior Court website.
Funded by taxpayers
When the county was trying to keep the Keker report secret, county residents argued it and other documents in the case should be released because it was their tax dollars that were used to fund it.
“I paid for it with my taxpayer dollars,” Nancy Goodban of the police watchdog group Fixin’ SMC said during the June 5 Board of Supervisors meeting.
Vanessa Lemus-Tapia said Corpus shouldn’t have the right to make documents private since she’s a public figure.
Lemus-Tapia is the daughter of Carlos Tapia, the head of the deputies’ union, who was arrested and jailed by the sheriff’s office for timecard fraud. The district attorney’s office has since declined to file charges against him, saying no fraud occurred.
Lawsuits have been filed throughout Corpus’s 2½-year term against the county, alleging retaliation. Capt. Brian Philip, who quit rather than arrest Tapia, filed a claim.
Supervisor Ray Mueller held a news conference in November 2024, expressing concern about the lawsuits that would hit the sheriff’s office and the county.
“Under her leadership and the relationship she has with Mr. Aenlle undoubtedly is going to cost the taxpayers millions of dollars in lawsuits,” Mueller said at the time.
I believe the Sheriff also lives in this County. Will she fight her own taxes going up due to her personal multi-million dollar lawsuit against the County as Discriminatory retaliation because she’s Latina?????? I don’t think she realizes it’s a circle effect. We will all pay for it in the end. A Sheriff you can trust!
Her legal representation is being paid by County tax money! WTF! How does this make any sense? She will be booted out of office at the end and the County will be out millions. Her actions are intentional!
There also has to be jail time for her at the end.
Remember all this during the next election. A new County government is needed.
Victor’s wife’s family trust will pay for Corpus’ legal fees.
I hope The Daily Post will also cover US District Court for the Northern District of California case 3:25-CV-5962, filed yesterday, the fifth Corpus lawsuit.
This new case is an interesting read, wherein Corpus Counsel’s moving papers embody only some of the facts in the matter at hand, misstating pertinent and critical facts apparently to mislead the court. For example, the papers filed (p. 25) incorrectly assert an “ex post facto” violation committed by the Board against Corpus in the removal proceedings. Unless I am mistaken, ex post facto laws pertain to criminal, not civil, acts and punishments. Corpus has not yet been charged by a criminal grand jury, the DA, or federal authorities.
Another example is the assertion (pp. 25-26) of a prohibited bill of attainder violation by the Board, of which Corpus has fallen victim. Once again the argument stated is fatally flawed. They claim, “Because Article 412.5 targets Sheriff Corpus specifically and no one else, and because it punishes her without the safeguards of a judicial trial, the pending Removal Proceeding under Article 412.5 violates the prohibition against bills of attainder in the Constitution.” However the truth is that no individual is targeted by Measure A, only the person(s) in the Office of Sheriff during the specified time. Measure A applies to Corpus and equally to any successor to the Office of San Mateo County Sheriff during the specified time, subsequent to Corpus. These are only two significant flaws.
Her lawyers are sick too- they say the Kekker report does not accuse romantic relation but says personal so therefore it refutes the cordell report . Where in fact they both say close personal relationship and either which way the relationship is inappropriate. And the grand jury accusation was not spelled out? They accused her of 8 separate things and filed an injunction on 4 of them. Interesting one of them was not listed and curious what that is and where that is- could that be a criminal charge?
The only bias here is that Corpus refuses to take ANY responsibility and is not doing her job as a county sheriff- she is pathetic and disgusting.
I hope a federal judge tells her to wake up and quit!
SHE caused all of this!!! SHE should pay for her own legal representation! Between this and the many many many lawsuits that have been filed because of her unethical corrupt vindictive actions, the tax payers of San Mateo County are on the hook for this nightmare of a so called sheriff.
Ask the law firm how much they EACH charge per hour and do the estimated math. It is costing MILLIONS- 3-5 lawyers charging $800-1200 per HOUR multiplied by travel and 7 months of representation…
Enough already! Time to move to a general recall election for Corpus. While there are costs associated with such an effort, it would be considerably less than the cost of her attorney fees and all the ensuing lawsuits due to her unlawful and abusive actions towards others. To our elected officials… you should be ashamed of yourselves. Your empty grandstanding, press releases, endless public meetings, grand jury actions, etc. are but useless. Corpus ain’t leaving and you are all too afraid to take any real action to mitigate this reprehensible situation. Get a court order and suspend her. She can follow whatever appeals processes which may exist and eventually get her job back if she’s ultimately cleared of any wrong doing, but in the interim, you’ll have prevented further carnage, costs and abuse for those who work under her failed leadership and whom she’s been entrusted to serve. Come the next election cycle, don’t be surprised if the voters toss you all out on your feckless arses as well. Do your job!!
How does the, county pays the sheriff’s lawyers, thing happen? Part of the answer to that question rests in a California Attorney General Opinion (No. 96-901), issued on May 28, 1997, that reads in pertinent part, “1. When a county counsel takes a position in favor of the interests of the county board of supervisors and adverse to the interests of the sheriff, a conflict of interest may, depending upon the individual circumstances, thereafter exist without the county counsel’s declaration of such conflict so as to entitle the sheriff to legal representation in that matter by independent counsel. 2. Assuming a conflict of interest thereafter exists and independent counsel is to be retained in such circumstances, the sheriff may select the counsel and the county board of supervisors would be responsible for the payment of attorneys’ fees.”
In addition, Government Code §31000.6 reinforces that upon request from the assessor, auditor-controller, sheriff, or elected treasurer-tax collector, the Board of Supervisors shall contract with and employ legal counsel to assist in their duties where a conflict of interest exists for the county counsel or district attorney.
Therefore, while the county counsel is the first line of legal defense for the sheriff, California law ensures the sheriff receives legal representation even when conflicts arise, with the county bearing the financial responsibility for such representation.
As to how much has been expended in the defense of Corpus, does it really matter? Perhaps only in measuring damage done, then abstractly making an apples-to-oranges comparison to Corpus’ right to due process. I suspect the figures will ultimately be revealed, once the matters at hand have been settled.
The supes are trying to cover up how much money they’ve wasted. They’re just as corrupt as she is, but they haven’t been caught yet.
The Board of Supervisors do not seem ready to oust Corpus.
What is the status of former Caltrain CEO Jim Hartnett’s proposed ballot measure to recall Corpus in November 2025?
“Reader”: I read that Hartnett filed paperwork in November 2024 to qualify a recall campaign. If he’d proceeded, he’d have been given the go-ahead to collect at least 44,317 (10% of county registered voters) valid in-person signatures of county voters on petitions within a 160-day window, something essentially impossible to do (at that scale) without hiring a signature-gathering firm.
Before doing that, he asked when, if he succeeded in the signature effort, the resulting special election would be, and was told November 2025. So, Hartnett decided he preferred to wait, and see if the charter-amendment removal route proceeded. (He didn’t mention the parallel possibility of grand jury action, which we’ve also now seen.)
(The Daily Post said 43,646 signatures. Maybe. All I can say is I looked up the number of registered voters at smcacre.gov, divided by 10, and rounded up.)
It should be stressed that anyone willing to spend the (not inconsiderable) money and do the paperwork can (try to) make a recall election happen, not just Hartnett.
The next time a recall can happen os April 2026 not November 2025… unless there is some magic that happened
Thank you for your response, Rick. Much appreciated.