A full-blown R-rated soap opera has broken out at the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, as the sheriff is alleged to have hired her boyfriend to a position she created, and used the n-word. Oh, and the president of the county’s deputy sheriff’s union was arrested Tuesday.
Tuesday was an all-timer down at the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors released a 400-page report based on the sworn testimony of 40 current and former employees of that county’s sheriff’s department detailing patterns of alleged abuse by Sheriff Christina Corpus. The Chronicle describes “that Corpus used slurs, including ‘n—,’” as well as referring to a lesbian city council member as “fuzz bumper,” and that she “engaged in retaliation and intimidation tactics.”
And that was the mild stuff. The report also alleges that Corpus created a new full-time department job for her alleged romantic partner Victor Aenlle at $246,000 a year. The report says Aenlle moonlights as real estate agent, and had conflicts of interest in picking properties and contractors for the department. It also accuses Corpus of approving Aenlle’s pay raises with requests submitted under other employees’ names.
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors called for Corpus’s immediate resignation. “It’s clear we have a sheriff that we cannot trust,” Supervisors Noelia Corzo said at a Tuesday press conference.
For her part, Sheriff Corpus held her own, competing news conference Tuesday to deny everything.
“I am shocked by the outright slander by two members of the Board of Supervisors this afternoon. No one will call me a racist or a homophobe,” Corpus said at her press conference. “I’ve been dealing with this kind of rhetoric my entire career. I am a woman of color that has gone up the ranks in a male-dominated field. This is nothing new to me.”
It gets nuttier. The Bay Area News Group notes that just hours before these scrums, San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff’s Association president Carlos Tapia was arrested on felony grand theft charges. The Sheriff’s Office acknowledged the arrest, but curiously provided no detail on these felony grand theft charges. And Tapia, a frequent critic of Sheriff Corpus, says the whole arrest is retaliation for his whistleblowing.
“I will not tolerate the sheriff’s abuse of our authority, and retaliation against our union,” Tapia said in yet another separate Tuesday press conference. “I will continue to faithfully represent the interests of our union members, and I look forward to the district attorney’s review of this investigation, and I’m confident I will be vindicated.”
This drama all comes two months after Corpus was in the news making public accusations against County Executive Mike Callagy. As KTVU reported, Corpus held a late-Sunday press conference in September to detail accusations against Callagy of "retaliation, abuse of power, sexual discrimination, and bullying." That dustup appears to have presaged this one, with Corpus suggesting that Callagy had "made an inappropriate and offensive request, ordering me to inform him who I dated within the county and when." That seems like a meeting that directly related to her hiring of Aenlle.
The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon (today) at 4pm to discuss a course of action in the Corpus situation. That meeting is a closed session, but we’re sure to hear more about the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office in the weeks to come.
Related: San Mateo County Sheriff Files Complaint [SFist]
Image: Christina Corpus for San Mateo County Sheriff via Facebook
