Prosecutors in the felony trial of Stockton Unified School District board member AngelAnn Flores focused Wednesday on text messages they say reveal a coordinated plan to delay reporting a car accident until after an insurance policy was activated.
Flores, who has pleaded not guilty, faces three felony charges, including embezzlement and filing a false insurance claim. Prosecutors allege she used a district-issued credit card for personal expenses and filed a claim for a crash that occurred before her insurance coverage took effect. Flores’s defense contends the charges are politically motivated, citing her past cooperation as a whistleblower in a federal investigation into district contracting practices.
Search warrant led to insurance fraud allegation
San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Deputy Rocky Bullen resumed his testimony Wednesday, confirming he executed the search warrant at Flores’s residence. Bullen said he seized two mobile phones—an iPhone 16 and an iPhone 12 — subsequently examined by the department’s digital forensics team. He testified that he only became aware of the alleged insurance fraud after reviewing the forensic report compiled by Deputy Colton Mitchell.
Prosecutors presented text message exchanges recovered from Flores’s devices, including a series of messages with Randy Gaines, the coworker whose vehicle was involved in the November 2022 collision. The messages begin early in the morning of Nov. 15—before Flores had purchased her insurance policy—and describe the incident in detail.
“I hit my coworker’s car this morning,” Flores texted a contact labeled “mychild” at 8:30 a.m., adding that she “backed into the car” on a “foggy morning.”
Later that same day, at 9:50 a.m., a message sent to Gaines read: “I am going to contact my insurance agent on Friday morning and tell them I backed into you at work. No police report is needed, it just goes through the insurance.”
According to court testimony, Flores purchased her six-month policy later that day and reported the crash on Nov. 18. Prosecutors argue the delay was intentional, pointing to messages in which Flores described Gaines as a “cool Christian guy” who allowed her to delay reporting until coverage was in place.
Additional messages from an encrypted app called Signal were also presented. Bullen explained that forensic investigators were unable to extract Signal data through conventional methods, and instead screen-recorded the contents of the app to preserve the messages. In one of those messages, Flores told a contact identified as “sis Amelia” that she had the accident “on the morning she was planning to get her insurance reinstated.”
While the prosecution argues the messages show deliberate deception, Flores’s legal team maintains that the evidence has been taken out of context. They emphasize that despite the timeline, the insurance claim was ultimately approved and paid — $2,010.68 to the car owner —following an internal review by the insurance provider.
Court proceedings will continue this week in San Joaquin County Superior Court, with testimony expected from Joann Juarez, former chief business officer of Stockton Unified School District, who previously stated that all board members, including Flores, had “questionable expenditures.”