BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
It’s decision time for San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus.
The main question is whether she will resign voluntarily. So far she’s rejected calls to resign that have come from the county Board of Supervisors, her own officers and a long list of elected officials.
They all agree that her two years as sheriff has been a disaster and she needs to go.
“Lies, secrecy, intimidation, retaliation, conflicts of interest, and abuses of authority are the hallmarks of the Corpus administration,” retired Judge LaDoris Cordell wrote in a report commissioned by the Board of Supervisors. “This investigator takes no pleasure in recommending that Sheriff Corpus step down and that Victor Aenlle’s employment with the Sheriff’s Office be terminated immediately. Nothing short of new leadership can save this organization.”
Now there’s talk that the Board of Supervisors has directed its lawyers to see if they can pay Corpus to leave without a fight.
What a mistake!
If the Board of Supervisors offered Corpus any money, even money for her Uber fare home, they will have to spend the rest of their term explaining why they were willing to waste taxpayer money on her. They might also have to explain why they continued to defend Corpus even after getting whistleblower letters that they ignored.
Any buyout negotiations will end tomorrow (Dec. 10). That’s the day the Board of Supervisors has to give final approval to holding a special election in March to change the county charter to give the board authority to fire the sheriff.
So here’s how the campaign will go. Corpus will claim, as she has previously, that she wasn’t given a chance to give her side of the allegations. That’s not true. Cordell invited Corpus to sit down for an interview, but she refused. And Corpus has had a number of opportunities to go to the Board of Supervisors’ meeting to give her side of the story. In fact, she’ll get another opportunity tomorrow.
Corpus has hired a couple of lawyers, and they may be telling her that any public statements she gives can and will be used against her in a future criminal prosecution. Charges might include improperly owning rifles with silencers (why would a sheriff need silencers?) and giving unauthorized people badges.
Corpus will likely say during the campaign that the Board of Supervisors are engaged in a “power grab” and that they’re taking voters’ rights away.
The voters put themselves in this situation by electing her even though she didn’t have much of a platform or relevant experience.
I remember interviewing her and it seemed that her answer to every question was that she wasn’t going to take a stand but would have an “open door.”
After the election, the “open door” promise turned out to be a lie. She didn’t take phone calls or return them.
Corpus didn’t have enough experience to know that she was being used by Victor Aenlle, a real estate agent that she promoted from reserve deputy to chief of staff without the necessary experience.
He gave her $11,000 diamond Tiffany earrings and $1,200 red-bottomed Christian Louboutin boots, according to the report. Corpus was telling people that Aenlle was going to marry her, Cordell’s report said. For the record, both Aenlle and Corpus deny any affair.
She now is trying to say she was a reformer who wanted to clean up law enforcement. But she has never explained what she was trying to reform or how she would change things. All we knew was that under her watch 106 officers fled the sheriff’s office from captains on down.
Change needs to happen fast. In the past two years, five prisoners have died in the county jail, an unusually high number. Drugs and suicide are the official causes, but you’ve got to wonder what an experienced sheriff would have done to stop this from happening after the first death.
Then we had the trainee deputy who left her gun behind at Crepevine in Burlingame.
And only a week ago, a female inmate was sexually assaulted by a male inmate in an elevator while a deputy was taking them to court. Why is the sheriff transporting male and female inmates together? Again, this speaks to a lack of experience on the part of a sheriff.
Hopefully, the Board of Supervisors resist the temptation to throw away county money on a settlement with Corpus. Given all the employees who will sue the county for harassment, retaliation and other claims against the sheriff, we ought to send Corpus and Aenlle a bill for the damage they’ve done.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
Let’s face it, the most qualified MAN for the job is Carlos Bolanos.
Labor loved him, the people loved him, and elected leaders like Kevin Mullin and Jackie Speier held gun buybacks with him.
This isn’t about Carlos or any previous Sheriff . I don’t think we need to compare her to anyone. She’s in a league all her own.. let’s keep the focus not on her sex, but her complete failure and incompetence as an elected official. Hiring her boyfriend for six figures, allowing him access to guns silencers, to impersonate a law-enforcement officer ,firing, retaliation, and corruption. She and Victor Aenlle are dangerous and we need to take action.
I do agree it is very sad but the first female Latina Sheriff has been a complete disaster and threw it all away for a two bit con man.
Sherriff Batmobile?
No way, people loved him because he gave away licenses to carry like golden tickets, and he got caught doing the wrong thing.
He had his days…let some respected leaders come in and clean up this debacle. No more chaos needed. Leave the past in the past. Get rid of this current train wreck and move on. Enough- we have all had it with this nonsense, lies, grandstanding, abuse of power, abuse of gender/race, humiliating the public.
What about a potential false arrest over Tapia’s alleged $950 time card fraud? But was there an investigation into Aenlle’s time card fraud for volunteer reserve hours while being paid? How is that different? Corpus isn’t able to be impartial to ANY wrongdoing of Aenlle!
What about Aenlle’s allegedly pulling someone over when driving with the Undersheriff in the passenger seat?
What about traveling to all of these county funded conferences and meetings with Corpus/Aenlle and not attending sessions? Expensing dinners, travel, hotels and conference fees?
What about Aenlle leaving work to pick up Corpus’ kids from school?
When will the county have enough evidence to press charges and get this immoral lady out?
Great points . I’m not hearing a lot about Aenlle’s apparent time card fraud. Why is this ? Is there an investigation by Wagstaff ? Tapia gets arrested we don’t see any of the evidence but there’s pretty clear evidence on Victor . What is our DA afraid of?? Why has Aenlle not been arrested for impersonating an officer.
Board of Supervisors are now offering Christina a golden parachute? She does not deserve it..
The article says it best : “Corpus didn’t have enough experience to know she was being used by Victor Aenlle”
We voted this love struck nutcase into office and now we need to get her out.
This process all started because Corpus ignored issues outlined in an organizational assessment that was posted publicly in JULY. Corpus ignored everything that was pointed out leading to the undersheriff quitting and the domino effect of a litany of terrible choices made by Corpus coming to light. Then this independent investigation took place because of the multiple HR complaints coming in that were being ignored.
The public needs to know how much corruption is capable because of the relationship- friendship, inappropriate whatever the case. Corpus won’t discipline Aenlle regardless of any complaint.
The board of supervisors and sheriff office personal and leaders have gotten involved because Corpus is not acting professional, not taking responsibility and trying to hide behind her wrong doing. This is least of all anything about race or gender and not a political coup.
What a shame people think a relator should have a badge and work at the sheriff department. Corpus should have fired him 6-8 months ago or in the very least had Aenlle on admin leave. The decisions she made since these complaints and the deputies, captains assistant sheriff and undersheriff interviewed in the investigation should be valued- there is no reason for any of them to lie and make anything up. Spreading ignorance is not bliss.
The logic behind the County’s offer makes perfect sense from a financial standpoint. If Corpus would leave, the County would not have to spend $4-$7 million on the Special Election in March. With Corpus gone, the retaliatory behavior that has provided the grounds for substantial lawsuits would cease, preventing additional lawsuits for any future retaliation. With her entire Agency having asked her to quit, virtually every single Sheriff’s Office employee is in danger of acts of retaliation from Corpus, Perera, and potentially from Victor Aenlle, who is the origin of this mess.
Paying Corpus to leave is a bit like painfully cleaning a wound to clear out an infection.
But it doesn’t matter how much Corpus would receive, it would eventually wind up in the pockets of Carlos Tapia, Ryan Monaghan, Brian Phillip, and their lawyers, along with a lot of the County’s other money.
Dave Price is 110% correct!!!
What about lowering the hiring standards to find and hire unqualified applicants who were passed on by other agencies? Fill the vacant positions with junk and these incidents and lawsuits will continue to happen. Hey, did the trainee who left the gun in restaurant ever get fired or disciplined?
Maybe there was no golden parachute and made up to make the BOS look bad – team Corpus distraction tactics
The Golden Handshake offered by the County, is unfortunately a routine, typical and common manner in which to limit liability. The County should be commended for their continued efforts to limit both damage and liability. Scrutiny of the “sourced”, or leaked information to Dan Noyes about the $1M offer really amounts to the approximate salary and medical benefits for Corpus’ remaining time in office, were she to finish it.
Not enough scrutiny has focused on Corpus refusal to cooperate and making statements in the investigation itself, except to Noyes. Noyes appears not as an investigative reporter, but rather he appears to be the exclusive media outlet for the Corpus team propaganda. He damages both his personal reputation and that of his employer. Initial Noyes reporting was that Aenlle texted Noyes. Interesting that Aenlle had Noyes cell number. Why would that be the case?
Perhaps that explains the pre-election Batmobile smear campaign piece that Noyes publicized apparently on behalf of the Corpus campaign. Noyes was fairly effective at sensationalizing the matter which really boiled down to Bolanos directing the admittedly unique case to be investigated by the Vehicle Theft Task Force. The Vehicle Theft Task Force was created and exists for that purpose. Furthermore, in that Batmobile case, the out of state travel was due to a court ordered search warrant for locations out of state; the court ordered search warrant commanded the search, not Bolanos. Had the Vehicle Theft Task Force Agents not served the search warrant they could have been held in contempt of court.
Thinking back now to her run for Sheriff, did Corpus simply run for Sheriff because she missed a promotion that she felt she should have received from Bolanos? Could it be that she ostracized herself from her peers and supervisors, and was not the victim of any good ole’ boys club at all? At this point, I would not put it past her, yet I cannot say for certain.
Corpus wasn’t transparent then, doesn’t appear to be now, using assertions still to malign her predecessors and defect attention from herself, while engaging in repeated acts of what appears to be criminally and morally corrupt conduct. Please Mr. Wagstaffe, expedite this investigation. Vet the Cordell report, re-interview those Judge Cordell spoke with, then get those witnesses in front of a Grand Jury. Willful misconduct alone seems like a very low threshold, not to mention the criminal aspects that appear easily supported by the circumstances.
My bet is Sheriff Corpus is holding out for that $8M out of court settlement she was able to influence, by declining to be deposed, for one of her supporters earlier this year. Maybe, maybe not.
“Then we had the trainee deputy who left her gun behind at Crepevine in Burlingame”. This female trainee is not allowed to carry a gun until she graduates from the academy. She is a friend of Corpus’…..so just sweep it under the carpet. Wagstaff was interviewed when this happened. He said something like if he didn’t have a crime report, then apparently there was no crime.
Obviously the Daily Post doesn’t know anything about the past history of San Mateo county sheriff’s department under Bolanos. Where sexual harassment was acceptable and cost the county $8 million. Sheriff Corpus is more than qualified and county residents are already seeing the changes she has made to improve the department. Union president Carlos Tapia committed a crime in which most employees would be terminated immediately. The campaign against Sheriff Corpus is a campaign against the residents of San Mateo county to steal our votes for Sheriff Corpus. Board of Supervisors threat to steal our votes and our rights to a recall campaign for 3.5 years is an assault on the constitution. The $1 million bribe offered by the board of supervisors to the Sheriff is in violation of US Code section 201 punishable by a fine and/or 2 years imprisonment. Supervisors in their desperation to undermine the constitution are violating several laws.
Is this Janet Davis??? You usually sound angrier.
Make sure the Sheriff Unions check out the rants on nextdoor to educate the crazy talk. Might be good to debunk these movements spreading false information . Janet seems very naive and can’t see past the batmobile
I guess Janet doesn’t know her buddy Corpus and Aenlle have wronged the entire SO, that Corpus ignored countless HR complaints against Aenlle and then lied to the entire county about just about everything. Well except Corpus is a latino female that is true.
I guess Janet is the new Corpusvirus that mutated from the Karen coronavirus. Might want to actually read about the ignored organizational assessment that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Hsiung allegedly leaving because of it and the labor laws Parea violated and then firing her only respected ethical executive member left, Monaghan.
Pull your head out of your arse Janet, or your name will go down hill too. All of the people that supported Corpus are dropping like flies after stepping back and learning TRUTH!
Do you work for the Sheriff office? Or just believing statements made privately by Corpus over dinner or in passing or on the abc7 Dan Noyes show? That all seems like legitimate sources of CURRENT EVENTS and information.
Maybe you should be hired promoted to Captain or better yet an Executive position .
Great summation Dave! Unlike other politicians who have faced periods of moral crisis, Corpus is too foolish, wreckless and morally irresponsible (at tax payer expense) to remove herself from office. She’ll eventually get voted out (recall or BOS resolution) but the pain, damage and fiscal impacts of her tenure will be felt for years to come. Christina, read the room and the sentiments of the honorable members of your once great organization and LEAVE. No one wants you as their sheriff anymore!
With all die respect if the Sheriff lasts until March she is sitting around with Aenlle trying to manipulate way through this mess. The fastest way to win back supporters to get people to doubt the Board of Supervisors. Did Noyes repeat an unverified rumor about getting an offer? Corpus denied even speaking or telling her side of the story.
The other smear campaign iis to cast doubt on the investigation. Sworn deputies, captains, executive team members she is calling liars? Why would 40 member of her team all have similar stories of retaliation, not following policies, intimidation, lying to her team members ? Why would the entire department be against her?
Who has access for her cell phone that would have repeatedly sent those texts she is denying? What will her ex-husband say under oath? What texts does he have? The cloud never lies even when you click delete, remember that.
Remember this- stop reacting to every single thing the Sheriff says, that is what she expects people to do. And the water get muddy. Stay focused. Don’t let Aenlle convince Corpus we are all weak because 100’s of people are coming forward with these same stories.
Publicly the handful of tainted Sheriff believers are ranting about Bolanos, the past and how change creates this, the report is bogus. These people don’t understand this complaint was started under Corpus leadership that she picked because of legitimate HR complaints being ignored and seeing s pattern of lies. The Sheriff changed stopped communicating and started hiding behind closed doors y people poorly. The team she formed have all voted no confidence snd asked her to resign
watch out for false news from Dan Noyes and Christina Corpus to try and spin their narratives- hoping to gain supporters
That story Dan Noyes had about the county paying Corpus to resign was fake, in retrospect. Doesn’t Channel 7 require its reporters to corroborate their stories in some way? I guess it was a stunt to raise the ratings. Noyes is a mouthpiece for Corpus and Aenlle.
Noyes is a complete disgrace, it’s almost embarrassing to see him on TV asking set up questions and giving a platform to these two corrupt individuals. He has lost all credibility..
Thank you Dave Price, and the other REAL journalists who are not afraid to investigate , seek the truth and ask hard questions.
Undersheriff Perea its been 3 weeks can you approve my training request?
He’s too busy printing documents to the wrong printer up on the 5rd floor
Not left on a printer by accident. Too coincidental after Fox left to try and cover himself. Parea tried to leave that day too instead wrote a cover up letter
Sneaky ways to communicate within the command staff- another show of transparency. What was the Sheriff’s reply to that letter and situation? Nothing ? Must not have had enough time to review that too or she will pretend to know nothing about this as well.
– great patterns of corrupt behaviors.
As of 7 p.m. on Wednesday, the SO’s website has only three people listed under “executive staff” — Corpus, Perea and Aenlle. Aenlle isn’t allowed physically go inside the department and doesn’t get a paycheck. So you have only two “executive staff”. Corpus really needs some help, but god knows where it might come from. Who would risk the reputational damage that could be caused by going to work for her, even temporarily. So any new “leadership” will be coming from the bottom of the barrel.
Aenlle’s photo title Chief of Staff , and name on the sheriffs website is a complete embarrassment. .. this guy who is at the center of the chaos , no longer chief of staff and literally is not allowed on the grounds of the Sheriff’s Office yet she’s got him still posted up.
Christina sure had the other administrative staff photos immediately removed but she keeps this loser on ?
Come to think of it, it’s probably a good thing , as it is a just another reminder of the absolute disregard for the damage and destruction Christina land Aenlle have caused.
Christina, he’s never gonna marry you girlfriend, have you not figured out yet that you were used?
Queen of Denial, good luck trying to hire Assistant Sheriffs…no QUALIFIED sworn from the S/O will take the offer. And anyone from the outside would have to be living under a rock to even consider coming to work for you!
Save the County,your agency and informed citizens further agony and expense…and GET THE HELL OUT! Nobody wants you there and yet you continue to act like you’re going to try and rebuild a successful administration! You’re living in an alternate reality, or you’re taking so many meds you can’t separate fact from fiction…or both.
Could we please order an alien abduction intervention off the Specials menu?