It used to seem that Stockton politics were, at their worst, shambolic, but the courts were run by serious, capable people. That assumption has been roughed up by this mess over sealed warrants.
To simplify, a judge signed a warrant to raid and arrest school district whistleblower/now-defendant AngelAnn Flores and, officials say, sealed the warrant. But the court released a copy of that warrant to the Stockton Record.
Later, sheriff’s deputies showed up at a reporter’s home, and then arrested a now-former court clerk named Pamela Edwards over the release.
In that case, the court issued an arrest warrant for Edwards. The plot thickened at Edwards’ first hearing. An attorney for Superior Court itself swooped in and asked the judge to seal the Edwards arrest warrant, though it had started life as a public document, an odd turn of events.
A judge agreed to temporarily seal the warrant. That angered San Joaquin County Sheriff Pat Withrow, “who blasted the court, accusing it of not cooperating with his investigation,” Stocktonia reported.
As it turned out, when the Sheriff’s Office put together the information in the arrest warrant, it had done an end-run around the courts to obtain it, saying, in essence, it’s OK when they do it because it just is.
“All information received was through investigation and received lawfully,” said Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office.
Whether you followed all that or not, the question is whether these issues are strictly legal or whether they have been infected by Stockton’s shady politics. The possibility of the latter cannot be ignored.
That’s because AngelAnn Flores was, for years, usually the lone dissenter and whistleblower on Stockton Unified School District’s Board of Trustees during a time outside auditors found had all the hallmarks of “illegal fiscal practices,” “misappropriation of funds” and “fraud.”
The board majority was, together with certain district executives, so sketchy they generated two scathing Civil Grand Jury reports and investigations by the FBI and the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office.
According to the civil inquiries, honest-bidding rules were ignored, the district blew millions on air purifiers that didn’t meet its standards, and honest people quit over the ethical objections to the process.
Flores fought all this. She fought the backroom deal to give controversial then-Superintendent John Ramirez Jr. a lucrative severance in violation of open meeting laws. She called in the FBI.
The thing is, District Attorney Ron Freitas, who vowed to “leave no stone unturned” to punish “any and all wrongdoing” has charged only Flores – with charges focused on her use of a credit card – though he has been investigating now for two years.
Whether Flores is guilty as charged, there is no getting around how her case looks like selective enforcement. Almost two years down the road, and no further busts in that can of worms?
Another question involves Freitas’ decision to submit Flores’ case to the criminal grand jury.
“This step was essential to prevent additional delays and to maintain the fairness of the legal proceedings,” Freitas posted on the DA’s website.
If by “fairness” Freitas means that submitting the charges against Flores to the grand jury avoids any appearance of political motivation by his office, it was a principled move.
There is, however, another interpretation. One that involves the difference between grand jury proceedings and public trial.
In a public trial, both prosecution and defense present evidence and witnesses at a preliminary hearing that is open to the public and media. A judge decides whether there is enough evidence to merit a trial.
On the other hand, before a grand jury, which is closed to the public, only the prosecution presents evidence. The defense can only write the prosecutor a letter requesting that exculpating evidence be presented. The prosecutor need not oblige.
And if the defense’s evidence casts any arm of law enforcement in a bad light — an agency, say, conducting political retaliation—a prosecutor is even less likely to present that evidence.
Bottom line, Flores is a public official. Her case should be public.
Yet Flores’ search warrant is still sealed. Why was it sealed in the first place? Sealed warrants are the exception or should be. Courts should seal a warrant only when the cops or DA show that exposing warrant information compromises an ongoing investigation.
Examples include gangs, drug rings, and human trafficking: criminal enterprises with multiple suspects who would bolt or cover their tracks if they knew from an initial warrant that the cops were coming for them, too.
But Flores is a lone bust.
If the warrant remains sealed to protect the integrity of an investigation, county sleuths are taking their sweet time to produce results. So much time that the competence and integrity of the investigation is called into question.
The grand jury, by the way, decided the evidence did not support one of Freitas’ four charges against Flores, grand theft. It upheld three other charges, making a fraudulent insurance claim and two counts of embezzlement.
A word about these charges.
The amounts Flores allegedly embezzled have never been specified. But it’ll be peanuts compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions the audit and inquiries at Stockton Unified raised questions about. Don’t get me wrong. If she embezzled, she must pay. But don’t the six-figure embezzlers deserve exposure and punishment, even more? Don’t the $7 million scammers? This is birdwatching for budgies while the sky is full of buzzards.
As for the allegation of insurance fraud, it has nothing to do with her role as a public official. If true, it looks like investigators went on a fishing expedition and got lucky.
If she’s guilty, so be it. Still, ask yourself how you would fare if investigators sifted every part of your life. They can find something on most everybody. That’s why the Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Except when it doesn’t.
Authorities seized two computers and two phones from Flores in
April 2023. They have yet to return them. Downloading data does not take this long.
Let’s switch to Edwards, the court clerk.
The attorney for Superior Court argued that Edwards’ confidential personnel information, as well as certain secrets about court security, were contained in the warrant; both would be compromised were the warrant not sealed.
It took five hearings, but a judge ruled that the Superior Court had no standing — that the court’s attorney was, in effect, a buttinski — and unsealed the warrant, commenting that it should never have been sealed.
You can read the rest here.
Another question is why the Sheriff’s Office treated Edwards so harshly. She is 62, a 27-year court employee, and her case is a misdemeanor, a nonviolent “paper case.”
In similar cases the DA sends the defendant a letter saying they have been charged and must report to a court date. Edwards was arrested at home, handcuffed, photographed as she was trundled into a sheriff’s vehicle, and booked into the county jail. The post of her arrest quickly went up on the sheriff’s Facebook page.
If county law enforcement is playing by the rules, it can still be said that they’re enamored of likes on social media. But we can’t say they are playing by the rules because so much is hidden by grand juries and sealed warrants.
PS: The Sheriff’s Office has stated that a reporter “remains a person of interest until this matter is fully adjudicated.”
No, the persons of interest are the framers of the U.S. Constitution who specifically identified and protected one profession — journalism — and the state of California, which has shield laws that protect publishers, editors and reporters from overzealous — or politically motivated — public officials.
Postscript: It was long ago reported that the FBI was investigating. But it is time to drop the presumption that the G-men are taking so long because they are investigating the corruption root and branch. It seems they abandoned Stockton. I hope I am wrong. But perhaps there is a reason some people say that the FBI stands for Famous, But Incompetent.
Fitzgerald’s column runs in Stocktonia. On Twitter and Instagram as Stocktonopolis. Email: mfitzgeraldstockton@gmail.com.
Here’s how Stocktonia is covering the story of school board member’s arrest, search warrant.