This story was first published in the Daily Post on July 18. If you want to read important local news stories first, pick up the Post in the mornings. Don’t settle for re-writes of our stories by our copycat competitors days later.
(Read Corpus’ latest lawsuit.)
BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus appears to be judge shopping, filing her fifth lawsuit against the county in an attempt to find a judge who will end the removal procedures she faces.
In the lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday, Corpus alleges the county’s attempt to remove her from office through the voter-approved Measure A is a sham “tainted by bias” and has given her no opportunity to be heard.
Corpus has tried to block Measure A twice in San Mateo County Superior Court, both times with the judges ruling that it is premature to determine if the process is insufficient. Corpus’ attorneys reiterated their complaints that Supervisors Ray Mueller and Noelia Corzo will vote on her removal even though they have shown bias by criticizing her publicly. The two supervisors are serving as spokesman and spokeswoman for the five-member Board of Supervisors.
County officials did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
Hostilities after report
Mueller and Corzo made previous comments at press conferences related to a 400-page report the county commissioned from retired Santa Clara County Judge LaDoris Cordell.
Corpus’ attorneys state that after the “one-sided” Cordell report was released, she was in a toxic environment and was receiving “hostility” from the media.
The report also caused an inmate at the county’s Maguire Jail, James Taylor, to send her death threats, the lawsuit states.
Corpus also said the Keker, Van Nest & Peters report, which was commissioned by the Board of Supervisors to advance the removal process, “abandoned” the allegation that she had a romantic relationship with her former chief of staff Victor Aenlle, the lawsuit said.
Just a platonic relationship
She says since the Keker report doesn’t mention a romantic relationship with Aenlle, it cancels out the allegations made in the Cordell report, which said they were having an affair. The Keker report describes their relationship as a “close personal relationship,” not romantic.
The Keker Report also abandoned the allegation that Corpus made “racial and homophobic slurs,” the lawsuit states.
The Post previously reported on Corpus using two more slurs, according to the Keker report: one an antisemitic slur about a former captain and another racial remark about former Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, attorney Jan Nielsen Little wrote in her report.
During the removal process, Corpus was able to respond to the allegations made in the Keker report in a pre-removal conference with Probation Officer John Keene who was serving as the hearing officer. Corpus said there were no specific questions asked of her during her meeting with Keene. She was told to just respond to allegations from the Keker report, which has vague allegations, the lawsuit said.
Corpus said in the lawsuit that as a result of the allegations, she was harassed, defamed, humiliated, and threatened. Members of the deputies’ union have threatened to protest at her home, she said.
Corpus is facing removal on two fronts. The Board of Supervisors has voted to fire Corpus, and now she is exercising her right of appeal by demanding a hearing to present her case.
Separately, the county civil grand jury has filed an “accusation” against her and it will lead to a trial. A conviction will result in her removal from office.
Corpus is expected to appear for her next hearing on Monday. The case is assigned to Judge Mark McCannon in San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City. McCannon will set a trial date and preside over the trial. She is entitled to a trial by jury on the accusations.
christina corpus really needs to learn the first rule of holes – quit digging
To Sheriff Corpus:
From: Another impacted VOTER within the San Mateo County, – anonymously so we don’t get retaliated against
Let’s not forget!!!!!!!
Last YEAR the Congress and Senate asked Corpus to step down, RESIGN!
MULTIPLE San Mateo County individual City Council VOTED mostly UNANIMOUSLY asking Corpus to step down & some with votes of NO confidence: San Carlos, San Mateo, Redwood City, Woodside, San Bruno, Belmont, Millbrae & South San Francisco. PLEAS to RESIGN!
The Sheriff Deputy Association, the Sheriff’s Captains (all who she promoted) have voted NO confidence and asked the Sheriff to RESIGN.
Labor unions have proven MULTIPLE PERB violations and have been ignored- REIGN Corpus
The Voters overwhelmingly voted 84% (90,000 people VOTED) on Measure A to give power to the Board of Supervisors to remove the Sheriff for MISCONDUCT. MORE people voted for Measure A than the number of people that voted her in. Of those no’s many of them want a recall – not necessarily supporting her. The Board of Supervisors have voted to remove Corpus.
Corpus ONLY takes interviews with Dan Noyes who defames respected personnel and defends the Sheriff and Aenlle. The public sees this biased immoral reporting!
3 independent investigations (a retired judge and two law firms firms )have uncovered an inappropriate relationship and MISCONDUCT-. RESIGN CORPUS
A Grand Jury has indicted the Sheriff on FOUR counts of misconduct. RESIGN CORPUS
The public watched her ARREST a union president over $950 alleged time card fraud- people have more in parking ticket fees. The DA did not find misconduct and dismissed charges- RESIGN Corpus!
People KNOW and RESPECT Monaghan and Phillips! What she continues to do publicly to defame them is unacceptable ! RESIGN Corpus!
Noone respects Aenlle- not the Sheriff employees, not the public! Quit Corpus!
The Sheriff is here for herself ALONE! The voters DO NOT want Corpus. Resign!
This is utter nonsense and the public has had enough! There is NO race card to play or county political narrative crap. No gangs or County God Father. Enough! Resign!
It’s not the just the Unions outraged! The ENTIRE PUBLIC COMMUNITY is outraged too! I mean myself, the families of the Sheriff employees, my friends, my neighbors, people I work with, their families, their friends their neighbors! The ENTIRE SAN MATEO COUNTY and beyond- we ALL WANT YOU GONE CORPUS! RESIGN, QUIT WE the PEOPLE DO NOT care what story you concoct now we DO NOT want you to be sheriff. You do NOT deserve that title, that parking spot, that badge, that uniform, that 5th floor office. There is NO community supporting Corpus. There is no Sheriff – there has not been a community Sheriff for over a year now. There is NOONE doing a Sheriff job- she doesn’t work for the community- she hides, is a bully and immoral. MANY California newspapers and other states news&newspapers are reporting on this misconduct! RESIGN! Leave the position- WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT WANT sheriff CORPUS- RESIGN! Quit, the gig is up!
This situation may possibly be the start of changing how much power a Sheriff has – when there is misconduct and noone can fire the Sheriff without millions of legal fees, millions to do a recall, millions to get a charter amendment, millions in employee damages. Employees with careers damaged and in emotional distress. This is all unnecessary Corpus.
The Governor and Attorney General are NOT doing their job to protect San Mateo County workers and tax payer dollars.
ALL OF THESE PEOPLES VOICES MATTER! It’s time to take accountability and acknowledge the mess you continue to defend ! Corpus RESIGN!
PLEASE Put this message everywhere- EVERYDAY!
RESIGN Corpus!
Amazing that in the article above, Counsel for Corpus would assert to a Federal Magistrate, “Corpus said there were no specific questions asked of her during her meeting with Keene.” My read of the pre-removal conference transcript with Chief Keene, contains at least the following questions posed by Keene directly to Corpus:
• “…is it, is it safe to say that it is your statement that you do not agree with the facts of the Notice of Intent?“ (p. 51 of 60)
• “…do you intend to offer an alternative to the facts of Notice of Intent?” (p. 51 of 60)
• “ls there anything else you would like us to consider? Any other materials you would like for us to have today?” (p. 52 of 60)
• “Sheriff, did, did the track flyer ever go out?” (P. 54 of 60)
At least five specific questions, not no specific questions, were asked by Keene directly to Corpus. Could it be that Counsel for Corpus is simply uninterested in presenting truthful statements in any of their court proceedings or moving papers? They certainly seem repeated dedicated to asserting that counsel for the county are misleading and less than truthful. They do appear Judge shopping indeed! Not to mention doing an incredible amount of cutting and pasting from one motion to the next. Presumably their billable time to the county isn’t inflated, or might it be?
Former Resident, lawyer Mazzucco & Co. did indeed, as you say, complain in Federal suit 3:25-CV-5962 that “no questions were asked of her” by Chief Keene. But it wasn’t Keene’s role to pose questions.
He was there to “consider the information presented at the Pre-Removal Conference” by Corpus, who was to “respond to the allegations against the Sheriff in support of the Sheriff’s removal”, exactly as in a Skelly Hearing, the model for it.
Those “allegations” were very clearly stated in the Notice of Intent, here summarized for reference:
1. Grounds for Removal Relating to Aenlle.
Violation of conflict-of-interest law, failure to ensure Aenlle met professional standards, and failure to meet her own obligations by relying on him.
2. Grounds for Removal Relating to the Investigation and Arrest of Tapia.
Illegal arrest without probable cause, retaliation against protected union activity, neglect of her duties by ensuring an incomplete, limited investigation of Tapia, and obstruction of the Supervisors’ investigation of his arrest.
3. Grounds for Removal Relating to Unlawful Punitive Action Taken Against Sgt. Javier Acosta.
Violation of his POBR rights, and retribution for protected union activity.
4. Grounds for Removal Relating to the Termination of Former Assistant Sheriff Ryan Monaghan.
Retaliation against testimony in an official investigation, and obstruction of the Supervisors’ investigation of his attempted firing.
5. Grounds for Removal Relating to Unlawful Retaliatory Transfers and Terminations.
Retaliatory transfers of Capt. Brian Philip, Lt. Jonathan Sebring, and Sgt. Jimmy Chan. Retaliatory treatment of Capt. Rebecca Albin. POBR violation concerning all four.
7. Grounds for Removal Relating to the Professional Standards Bureau.
Examples omitted here say she “has failed to properly initiate, support, oversee, and conclude investigations into civilian, use-of-force incidents, and Internal Affairs investigations”, leading to backlog of uninvestigated and unsolved cases.
As many have noted, she failed to address these.
In their latest Federal Court lawsuit filings and elsewhere throughout this long process, they again make mention that the Measure A Election only had approximately 20% of the registered voters in San Mateo County participate in the election as opposed to the 33% that came out during the 2022 General Elections in which she ran for Sheriff (to be more accurate, 24% of the registered voters came out for the Measure A Election, but I guess they chose to round down). What point are they exactly trying to make with this repeated assertion? Are they saying that if the same amount of voters during the 2022 General Elections came out to vote for the Measure A Election that Measure A would certainly have been defeated?
Let’s take a deeper look into that….
Gathering data and information from the San Mateo County Elections website, this is the results:
Total Registered Voters in San Mateo County = 443,596
Total Voters in the 2022 General Election for Sheriff = 145,310 = 33% of Total Registered Voters.
Total Voters in the Measure A Election = 108,185 = 24% of Total Registered Voters
Of the 145,310 people that voted in the 2022 General Election for Sheriff, 82,622 people voted for Corpus = 57% Voted for Corpus.
Of the 108,185 people that voted in the Measure A Election, 90,872 people voted YES for Measure A = 84% Voted to Pass Measure A.
Is their assertion that if the additional 37,125 people that voted in the 2022 General Election for Sheriff that did not vote in the Measure A Election voted, that Measure A would not have passed?
Let’s see if their assertion holds up… We will even give them the benefit of a doubt and say the additional 37,125 people all voted No to Measure A.
Actual Total Measure A Voters = 108,185
Actual Measure A Yes Votes = 90,872 (84%)
Actual Measure A No Votes = 17,313 (16%)
Hypothetical Total Measure A Voters = 108,185 + 37,125 = 145,310
Hypothetical Measure A Yes Votes = 90,872 (63%)
Hypothetical Measure A No Votes = 17,313 + 37,125 = 54,438 (37%)
Even given the additional hypothetical No votes, Measure A would have still passed by 36,434 votes with 63% of the voters voting for the passing Measure A in their hypothetical scenario that they keep bringing up.
WOW!!!!
Terrific comment/post and thank you 20% for the thorough analysis and information. I believe you are completely correct.
Frankly, Corpus, Aenlle and their counsel, individually as well as collectively, must be hoping no one does what you have done; they must hope everyone simply takes them at their word. Most of their moving papers appear largely cut and pasted, with nearly everything inaccurate, misleading, incorrect, incomplete or fully flawed legal arguments. Thanks again for the research and clear information.
As the others have already stated…Leave Now! No one wants you here…period…end of story. You don’t want the job! If you did, you wouldn’t have destroyed everyone’s trust, the entire agency, and what little positive reputation you had coming into the role. You just want the paycheck, but you’ve lost everything in the process. Soon you’ll be gone and likely headed to prison for your crimes. You deserve everything headed your way and none of it is good. You’re a lowly tramp. Your family must be so proud!
She still has Victor’s bio & picture up on the Sheriff’s Office website and still shows him as chief of staff. Corpus is not fit for duty. She is mentally ill.
At a time so dire as this, where is Victor? His brilliant mind could rescue her. But he’s nowhere to be seen. Christina’s going to lose her job and will be headed off to prison. Where is Victor to help her? Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
The supes have taken too long to fire her. Sure they owe her a hearing where she could cry her eyes out. Then they should have taken her key card, gun and badge. It shouldn’t take 4-5 months. But the supes are clueless idiots. None of them have ever run a business or have been required to hire and fire employees, so i guess this drawn-out process shouldn’t surprise anyone. But what’s the benefit of stretching it out over 4-5 months when you could have done this in a week?
This gives them all the appearance of working. “It’s the County way.”
What have they done for the County lately? They gave themselves a raise in December 2024. Bringing their pay to $195,782 plus benefits.
Do you think what they have done is worth $195,782 plus benefits?
Transparent California will show you what all County employees are paid. Currently data up to 2023 is available.
Glenn Quagmire: I don’t know if things could reasonably run faster, but I do know the complicating factors.
In short, Measure A wasn’t written to be instantly self-implementing. March, we voted. April, tallying and making the results official happened, but, by law, new county charter §412.5 became law only on April 18th. Ten days before that, the Board met to plan implementation as required of them by §412.5(c), hearing a proposed set of steps (“Removal Procedures”) designed by HansonBridgett LLP attorney Alfonso Estrada, a subject-matter expert. First, the Board would need to pass by at least 4/5 vote a Notice of Intent (accusation), then a “pre-removal conference” deliberately modeled closely on a “Skelly hearing” where a public employee confronts proposed disciplinary steps would happen. Then, another 4/5 vote to approve the hearing officer’s recommendation or not, then if the Sheriff insists a “removal conference” to appeal formally with discovery, testimony under oath, etc., then another 4/5 approval (or not) of that. The End.
But don’t forget the Board, as a deliberative assembly, can act only while meeting and voting, had to meet to act several times, and couldn’t even start until April 18th. Estrada estimated that the whole process would take 3.5 months _after adoption_ Their next Board meeting was April 18th. For some reason the Removal Procedures weren’t adopted then, but that happened at the next one, May 6th. Now, having a procedure, they could go ahead to adopt a Notice fo Intent, which they did at the _next_ meeting, June 5th. The conference before Chief Keene soon followed, and the Board met again to accept his recommendation and vote their “final decision” to remove Corpus June 24th. Corpus invoking her right to a Removal Hearing took us to the beginning of July, and now I expect the parties are busy with discovery steps leading up to the August Removal Hearing.
It’s irksome that all of this takes time, but probably inevitable: Measure A did _not_ empower the Board to just summarily throw Corpus out at 12:01AM April 18th. They needed a careful process, and moreover one that withstands court challenge, which is why they paid for Estrada’s expert advice and then followed it.
Horsley was out to make Horsley look good. Old school. Munks was out to make the SO as a whole look good. Good man. Carlos was a hatchet man who wanted to make Carlos look good. He had his Undersheriff as his hatchet man. But this is a whole different level, straight out retribution, corruption and lying. She and that utter moron Perea, the loser from SF Sheriff’s (a joke agency to start with, ask any LE agency in the Bay Area as to which is the “Muppet’s Agency ” as it is known around here, ie ask Alameda or CoCo SO – gales of laughter when they are mentioned). I doubt any of them have ever made a felony arrest. But as to Starbucks runs, they got it covered 6 ways from Sunday. Brioche or mango smoothie anyone ? But still, why are these total losers still around ? How many $M in legal fees will this cost us SM County tax payers. Dont answer that, it’s going to be a LOT. Supvs, please move this along asap ! I demand an honest and upright Sheriff, not a creep !
Think it is well known Perea came from SFPD. But, outstanding job on the research. We’ll give you an A for effort. Do some homework.
No, SFPD is a fine an honorable agency, doing a really tough job in a really tough environment. SF Sheriff does _nothing_ except run the jail… and poorly at that. What a joke. Ask any LE person in the Bay Area of their opinion of SF Sheriff, stand by for hilarity and many rude comments. You ever hear of SF Sheriffs closing a major felony case ? Any ? Ever ? Where ?Nope. They do NOTHING. So getting their Chief of Nothing to come to SMCS, what a coup of losers.
Please resign and get therapy.
Oh Wow! I am extremely excited to see Corpus brought up the Meloria Report… I wonder what she is going to do when the original draft is brought up in Federal Court… that will be very interesting to see yet another lie spew from her mouth in front of a Federal judge . Oh what a tangles web she has spun for herself.
The Meloria report recommended to put Aenlle in another position, confirmed he was causing issues already in the department. Aenlle was overstepping his qualifications. Corpus needed to rely on her SWORN Executive team. That was the face of modern reform.
After that- Corpus herself created a complete and total MESS! Even the published version of Meloria states several things that Corpus NEVER did. Never. Oh yes, the truth will most definitely prevail.
What is Corpus’s end game? (A substantial pay out?) Other than filing lawsuits, what steps has she taken to regain the trust, confidence and support of the hard working members of the Sheriff’s Office? Over the years, the Sheriff’s Office has had their ups and downs. What we are experiencing under the Corpus regime is unprecedented.