Stockton has seen a number of official reports about major government corruption. But the arrests so far don’t seem to be getting at the problem.
The latest example is the case of Pamela Edwards. Edwards, 62, was a San Joaquin County Superior Court clerk. Then she was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of disobeying a court order. Authorities accuse her of releasing a sealed warrant to the press.
“This District Attorney’s Office will not tolerate this betrayal of justice …” San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas said in a forceful statement.
The sealed warrant is related to the AngelAnn Flores case in the Stockton Unified School District. While reporting on that story a year ago, the Stockton Record obtained a copy of the warrant from the court and published a story based on information gleaned from it.
Authorities now allege that Edwards released that warrant, though it was “sealed” by court order, its contents supposed to remain confidential.
Originally, the release looked like a mistake. “Court staff released a copy of the warrant following a request by The Record, stating it had been ‘unsealed,’” The Record reported on Dec 1, 2023.
The matter rested until August. On Aug. 30, two San Joaquin County Sheriff’s deputies visited the home of then-Record reporter Aaron Leathley. The deputies wanted to question Leathley about the release of the warrant.
This was over the line.
After that weird twist, the matter rested again until the Nov. 13th arrest of Edwards. The arrest, too, had certain peculiarities.
This being a “paper case,” a misdemeanor, and Edwards being a 27-year employee, it might be expected that the D.A. would send her a letter instructing her to report to court on an appointed date. That’s how many misdemeanors are handled.
Instead, Edwards was taken into custody.
She is also no longer a court clerk. “Pamela Edwards is no longer employed by the court,” said Erica A. Ochoa, Superior Court’s Public Information Officer.
The Sheriff’s Office posted about the arrest on Facebook that same day.
“Through our investigation, we learned that the responsible party was a long-time court employee who was/is neighbors to the ‘The Stockton Record’ reporter who received the warrant,” reads the post, which includes a photo of the clerk – their 27-year colleague – being marched off toward a squad car.
The Sheriff’s Office post goes on to lay out what would seem to be its evidence in the case. An apparent office wall-cam photo shows a woman, supposedly Edwards, seated at a desk (we see her from behind), holding a document way too grainy to read. A red arrow points from the doc in her hand to an enlargement supposedly of the same document: the court order sealing the warrant.
The accusation is clear: Edwards had the court order in hand so she must have known about it.
Edwards’ attorney declined to comment. Edwards’ guilt or innocence should be decided in court.
In any case, as that post made the rounds, the court clerk was booked into the county jail, and held until she posted bail. By this harsh treatment, Freitas evidently intended to send a message.
“Violating the sanctity of a Court Order, especially a sealed warrant, is not only an assault on our justice system but puts law enforcement and potential witnesses in harm’s way,” said Freitas’s statement the next day.
I accept this principle. Though in this case how exactly law enforcement or witnesses were put in harm’s way is unclear.
It seems that in the view of the prosecutor’s office, the warrant is still sealed. But it should have been unsealed long ago. At the least, authorities should have answered in court why it should remain sealed.
Let’s put this weird case in context. The real case, that is – the one about AngelAnn Flores.
Flores serves on the Stockton Unified School District school board. For years she was the lone dissenter to a 6-1 majority. A special state audit concluded that during that time, the district had seen misappropriation of funds and illegal fiscal practices, including ignoring its own rules to grant contracts to a preferred vendor.
Flores said she went to the FBI. The FBI opened an investigation (which has yet to produce results; thanks for nothing, G-men). Freitas later followed suit, opening his own investigation.
The warrant to search Flores – the one later obtained by the Stockton Record – revealed that two Stockton Unified higher-ups accused her of financial misconduct. After the Sheriff’s Office investigated, Freitas filed charges against Flores: theft of public funds; grand theft of money exceeding $950; embezzlement by a public official; and insurance fraud for knowingly filing a false insurance claim as a result of a non-SUSD-related vehicle accident.
It looks funny that the one and only person indicted is the whistleblower. That is true even if the charges against Flores are proven. The state’s audit laid out a raft of other activities it found were illegal. The charges against Flores don’t address these topics. Will officials be arresting anyone else?
So a distressing ambiguity hangs over the county sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices. Do they act in the interests of justice? Will their investigations include the people behind the problems revealed in the state’s audit? Or will they turn a blind eye?
One doesn’t ask these questions lightly. But when top officials make a giant spectacle of an arrest for one alleged misdemeanor when they have yet to demonstrate action on far greater problems – found by both a special state audit and a civil grand jury – it’s hard not to have questions.
This is the story The Record was covering when it first obtained the search warrant. It is the county’s most important story. Be glad there are people left to do it.
Leathley, by the way, quit The Record. She freelances stories to Stocktonia.
Here’s how Stocktonia is covering the story of school board member’s arrest, search warrant.
Michael Fitzgerald’s column runs on Wednesdays. On Twitter and Instagram as Stocktonopolis. Email:mfitzgeraldstockton@gmail.com.