Prosecutors on Tuesday revealed a grand jury indictment of school board member AngelAnn Flores on embezzlement and false claims charges, accelerating one of Stockton’s highest-profile criminal cases against a public official in years.
The charging document, unsealed Tuesday morning, accuses Flores of two counts of embezzlement by a public officer and one count of making false insurance claims.
The indictment, issued by a grand jury after hearing prosecutors’ evidence, adds momentum to the controversial case, which had been headed toward trial since Flores’ April 2024 arrest. Sheriff’s deputies had investigated Flores on suspicion of misconduct including improperly using a school district credit card to make restaurant, gas and other purchases.
Flores remains on the Stockton Unified school board. Her attorney has called the case political retaliation for her questions about corruption claims there.
The charges from the grand jury mirror three that prosecutors originally filed. Jurors voted not to bring a fourth charge of grand theft against Flores, her lawyer, former District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar, said.
Prosecutors did not elaborate on why they have now sought an indictment, nine months after filing charges and more than a year after investigators originally raided Flores’ home and office. Chief Deputy District Attorney Donald Vaughn, who is leading the prosecution, declined to answer questions after the Tuesday morning hearing.
“This step was essential to prevent additional delays and to maintain the fairness of the legal proceedings,” District Attorney Ron Freitas said in a statement issued later that morning.
Verber Salazar blasted the DA’s decision to take the case to grand jurors. “We had over a dozen witnesses coming forward, we had people with critical information as to the nature of this case,” she said. “We were prohibited from putting those witnesses on because we (were) not there to do it.” The defense team was blindsided by the grand jury development when they learned of it last week, she said.
Like a judge overseeing an evidentiary hearing, criminal grand juries are tasked with deciding if there’s probable cause to try the defendant, former Santa Clara County prosecutor Mike Galli said. But unlike at evidentiary hearings, defense lawyers aren’t allowed into grand jury proceedings, he said.
“It’s a very, very secretive proceeding,” Galli said.
Prosecutors often use grand jury indictments to bypass evidentiary hearings and head straight to trial — especially if they feel the defense team has been dragging its feet, Galli said.
District attorneys may also use indictments to avoid revealing too much strategy at the evidentiary hearing, according to University of the Pacific law professor Mike Vitiello. “(If) I’m a prosecutor, and I don’t want to show much of my hand at the early stage, I may use the grand jury hearing because there’s no defense attorney there,” he said.
The indictment’s filing means an evidentiary hearing originally set for Tuesday — in which a judge decides whether there’s enough probable cause to take the case to trial — will not take place. Instead, the trial itself is now expected to begin in March.
Before the indictment, Verber Salazar said she’d planned to mount an “aggressive defense” at the evidentiary hearing, including calling up to 12 witnesses. Often, defense lawyers take a more limited approach, mainly focusing on cross-examining prosecutors’ witnesses, both Galli and Verber Salazar said. But Flores’ lawyer said she believed she could’ve had the case thrown out.
In court Tuesday, Verber Salazar also asked the judge to unseal a search warrant that had authorized the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office November 2023 raid of Flores’ home and Stockton Unified offices, pointing out that the warrant has been sealed for over a year. The judge declined.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Judge Ronald Northup said. “If you’re asking me to make a decision without reviewing anything, I’m not going to do that.”
The warrant has been at the center of a separate legal saga since the November arrest of a former Superior Court clerk, who is now accused of intentionally releasing a sealed document to reporters. Ex-clerk Pamela Edwards’ case was back in court Tuesday morning in a separate hearing.
Here’s how Stocktonia is covering the story of school board member’s arrest, search warrant.