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Sheriff saga moves into the open: Secrets released

The July 3rd edition of the Daily Post was all Corpus all the time with not one, two, or three, but four different articles plumbing the records that finally moved into public view.  And there was no editorial in that issue.  We covered the origins of the soap opera here back in November and the badges aspect here.  Why the sheriff's lawyers filed documents without their standard secrecy veil is a mystery to me after all this time, but details abound.  The first bit of news that I have not seen anywhere to date explains how Corpus is paying for all this legal work.  The answer is we are paying.  Per the Post:

The County pays for Corpus' attorneys.  State law requires that if requested, an elected official such as the sheriff, can request to be represented by attorneys other than the county counsel.

Talk about Friends with Benefits.  Even if she loses the whole case, will the County see a dime of what has to be a huge bill separate from what is rung up on their (meaning our) side?  That sounds like a state law in need of a rewrite.  A separate article titled "Records reveal more details about alleged affair" has an Undersheriff describing a professional conference he went to with Corpus and Aenlle where they were absent and missed appointments during the day.  It also lists some damning text messages and quotes another officer whose parents live across the street from Corpus in San Bruno who saw Aenlle there and said he tried to duck him.

But the fourth killer article is about the sheriff's alleged slurs about Jews, lesbians, and her predecessor Carlos Bolanos.  She is alleged to have called Half Moon Bay Capt. Rebecca Albin a "jew b****".  I'm not sure why the Post feels the need for asterisks there when they quote her alleged description of Bolanos as a "coconut" according to Detective Morgan–  "brown on the outside, white on the inside."  Who knew there was a Latino version of Oreo, but she is also accused of calling him the N-word back in November?  Make up your mind.  But the absolute kicker is the allegation that she referred

to a Millbrae council woman as a "fuzz bumper" on three occasions, text messages show.

That's a new slur for a lesbian that I've never heard before.  I checked Urban Dictionary and it's there.  Recall that before running for county sheriff, Corpus' assignment was to oversee the small Millbrae-based force that Millbrae had outsourced to the County.  It's hard to imagine the level of hubris to keep all this going at massive taxpayer expense.

CC records released

Yesterday I picked up a copy of the little free paper Peninsula News that is offered in Woodside, RWC, etc by the Merc.  Their editorial titled "Corpus review lacks fairness, transparency" in the July 4th edition probably went to print before they saw the "secret records" get filed and found.  The Merc got way too far out over their skis and they now look foolish.  We'll see if we see a mea culpa from the Merc.

Update 8/31/25:  Bringing God into the picture!

Sheriff cries

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28 responses to “Sheriff saga moves into the open: Secrets released”

  1. Joe

    More bits of detail from the Daily Post:
    Sheriff Christina Corpus concealed key information from her assistant sheriff so he would arrest the head of the deputy’s union amid heated labor negotiations and an investigation into her office, according to a new report filed in court by her attorneys.
    Corpus violated a policy that said the District Attorney’s Office should investigate sheriff’s deputies, and she didn’t give Assistant Sheriff Matthew Fox the full story when she assigned him to look into Deputy Carlos Tapia for time-card fraud, the report said.
    ———————–
    That’s the top line accusation, but check out this tidbit. 30 hours/week!!
    ———————–
    Tapia was allowed to spend 30 hours a week on union work and was assigned to the transportation unit, which transports inmates from court to jail, on Fridays, the report said.
    A month after the arrest, the DA’s Office concluded that Tapia didn’t commit a crime and shouldn’t have been arrested.
    The investigation was “extraordinarily limited and did not involve necessary follow-up investigation to examine the accuracy of the allegations,” the DA’s Office said.
    Tapia remains on administrative leave, more than seven months after his arrest.
    —————————
    And still on administrative leave…..

  2. Joe

    Today’s episode of as the sheriff turns brings us another department employee put on “administrative leave”. Sgt. Joe Fava answered the retired judge’s questions and called into question Corpus’ slow rolling investigations of complaints about certain other employees that she liked.
    One guy apparently allowed a suspected teen gang member to film himself vaping in the front seat of a patrol car. You cannot make this stuff up.
    Soon there will be more people on leave than working.

  3. Joe

    The SF Gate reporting has added another phrase to the saga: “the Millbrae mafia”. They write:
    In her June 11 rebuttal to the report accusations, Corpus defended her decisions and blamed internal sabotage and political interference.
    “You have to understand that in the sheriff’s office, there are gangs … that existed before the Millbrae Mafia,” Corpus said. “And the Millbrae Mafia used to call the Hispanics the cartel. And this mindset is still existing.”
    Corpus also detailed rising tensions with County Executive Mike Callagy, calling him “the godfather” of these internal factions. “I’ve worked for three different sheriffs and I’ve never seen a county executive … so intertwined in, uh, backdoor deals with, um, members of my organization,” she said. Callagy has since filed a defamation claim against her.
    ——————-
    She can’t be talking about the police unless it was a long time ago as Millbrae outsourced its PD to the County which is what Corpus was leading when she decided to run for sheriff. So who is or was “the Millbrae mafia”?

  4. Joe

    The hottest ticket in town for the hearing on Aug 28-29 is being stymied by the sheriff:
    The First Amendment Coalition is urging the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to reject Sheriff Christina Corpus’ request to close her August removal hearing to the public.
    The nonprofit group argues that barring the public and press from the proceedings would violate the First Amendment right of access to judicial and quasi-judicial hearings. In a letter to the board, the group warned that approving a closed hearing could expose the county to legal action and financial liability.
    “Barring the press and public from the Removal Hearing as Sheriff Corpus has requested would violate the First Amendment right of access to public proceedings, undermine a panoply of compelling public interests in administering the Removal Hearing transparently, and needlessly shut San Mateo citizens out of a key phase of a process they voted to begin in Measure A,” the coalition wrote.
    ————————–
    C’mon. With all the money taxpayers are blowing on this charade, we should at least get to see the show.

  5. Joe

    Dave Price at the Daily Post has the inside scoop on the latest sheriff misfire in his column today:
    Apparently seeking to avoid the press outside the courtroom last Monday, the sheriff “and her entourage of lawyers and supporters walked through the judge’s door and into a non-public hallway meant for judges and court employees.”
    That’s a big no-no and Judge Stephanie Garrett “was unhappy to say the least” and had a follow-up conversation with a captain who wrote a don’t-allow-that-again email to the department.
    PS. Sometimes those doors are used for prisoners coming from…or going to….jail…….

  6. Joe

    Game on. It’s sort of like having an NFL or MLB TV blackout lifted:
    San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus, who faces multiple efforts to remove her from office, said Thursday she now supports having her upcoming removal hearing be “open to the public” — reversing an earlier request to close the proceedings. County officials confirmed Friday that the hearing will be open.
    In a statement released Thursday, Corpus’ office described her decision as one made “with firm conviction.”
    “The people of San Mateo County deserve to hear the truth directly, not filtered through political agendas, biased narratives, erroneous reports, or closed-door deliberations,” the statement said.
    The shift comes weeks after the First Amendment Coalition, a free speech advocacy group, urged the county and sheriff to keep the removal hearing open — warning that closing it could expose the county to legal action. The county said earlier this week it supported opening the process to the public but, under the adopted removal procedures, could not overrule the sheriff’s request to close the hearing.
    —————————-
    I have firm conviction that this move was necessary to maintain some sort of optics around being “transparent”. It’s one thing to dance around with the County and another to defy a long-time First Amendment non-profit.

  7. Joe

    The Federal judge is “reluctant”:
    San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus urged a federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday to halt her potential removal from office on corruption accusations, describing the county’s process as unconstitutional. The judge appeared hesitant to step in and did not immediately rule.
    U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria questioned whether a federal court should interfere in a local process approved by voters. He said the issuance of a preliminary injunction would be “an extraordinary step” and that courts are “supposed to be reluctant to do so.”

  8. Joe

    The Federal judge is really “reluctant”:
    A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday denied San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus’ request to block a voter-approved removal process by the county’s Board of Supervisors.
    With a hearing set to begin Monday, the sheriff faces possible removal due to multiple accusations of corruption and misconduct. In his ruling dated Aug. 13, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria wrote that “the Court is skeptical that Corpus will ever be able to prevail on her claims that the removal process violates her federal rights.”
    He added that “even if there were serious questions going to the merits of her claims, the Court would decline to take the extraordinary step of interfering with an ongoing local government process, particularly given that Corpus could (if she were somehow able to prevail) get most of the relief she seeks in this lawsuit after the fact.”

  9. Joe

    The DJ and the Daily Post both have full, front-page articles about this week’s court testimony:
    DJ: Former Confidant Testifies
    DP: Ex-allies contradict Corpus
    Mark Simon at the DJ has also sat through the proceedings and has written a full column about the mess.
    If you have been following along here or elsewhere, you already know 95% of what went down in court–the only difference is now it is sworn testimony by named individuals.

  10. Joe

    Here are a couple of tidbits from yesterday’s DJ coverage:
    Each party is allotted 35 hours, or approximately five days each, to present their cases. Cross examination counts toward that time, which hearing officer retired Judge James Emerson particularly noted to Corpus’ counsel.
    Corpus’ attorneys have spent significant time during their cross examinations of witnesses, that often included repetitive lines of questioning that Emerson found ad nauseam and hypotheticals that often yielded objections by the county’s legal team.
    “Tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday you’re going to need this time that you’re burning through today,” Emerson said to Corpus’ attorney Christopher Ulrich.
    Emerson said he wasn’t understanding the connection between Ulrich’s questions and how he hopes to defend the sheriff.
    “I’m doing something wrong if you don’t understand the connection,” Ulrich said to Emerson.
    Ulrich moved on to further questioning that Emerson described as “really obscure.”
    “What I want you to understand is that you aren’t getting to any points that make me think, ‘wow, you really proved a point,’” Emerson said to Ulrich. “I’m just getting garble.”

  11. Joe

    Here’s another rich little snippet from testimony:
    Corpus is alleged to have mismanaged the professional standards bureau and was inattentive to internal investigations. The county’s counsel team has worked to establish that internal investigations have been piling up and sit on Corpus’ desk awaiting final approval for months after investigations are completed by staff.
    Enriquez testified that the amount of internal investigations — 38 — yet to be completed and closed is “not a lot.”
    ——————
    Yea, right. 38 completed investigations sitting on a desk waiting to be reviewed and acted on….nothing to see here.

  12. Joe

    The Daily Post has done it again with an amazing front page that I have added to this post! No words!

  13. Joe

    Now they go for the purse per the Merc

    As she faces two separate efforts to remove her from office, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus is now subject to tighter financial oversight, with supervisors voting unanimously Tuesday to require county executive approval for any contracts below $200,000 — a change Corpus says will hinder her ability to run the department.

    The ordinance, approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors, comes after a review found Sheriff’s Office reserves had fallen to less than 0.5% of net appropriations, far below the 4% minimum required under the county’s reserve policy.

    Under the new rules, the Sheriff’s Office no longer has authority to approve contracts below $200,000 on its own. Instead, those agreements must be submitted to the County Executive’s Office for review and approval. Contracts over $200,000 already need approval from the Board of Supervisors, according to current county policies.

  14. Joe

    Drip, drip, drip. Check out the number of lawyers were are paying for in the DJ photo:

    A judge’s advisory opinion found Sheriff Christina Corpus should be removed from office for maintaining an inappropriate relationship that resulted in a conflict of interest, wrongfully arresting a union leader and retaliating against an employee.

    The official recommendation by retired Judge James Emerson was provided to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and Corpus Monday, outlining Emerson’s conclusions following a two-week evidentiary hearing that was held a little over a month ago.

    https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/judge-sheriff-removal-warranted/article_a54e87a0-8041-4dc2-8c65-dcfa33ff1138.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1759845608&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

  15. Joe

    And it’s unanimous. Corpus is told to turn in her gun and her badge…… it was all over the radio news yesterday and this is from the DJ:

    San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus was fired by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday, a culminating vote after a year of controversy at her hand that has plagued the law enforcement agency.

    The board’s vote was historic — no other sheriff in California has ever been removed from the elected position without a recall effort or civil grand jury procedure.

    Before the Board of Supervisors voted, Corpus and her attorneys spoke for more than 30 minutes in a last-ditch effort to preserve Corpus’ job. Beyond denying any misconduct, Corpus stood proud in her tenure as she was prepared for the board to remove her from office.

    “If I lose my position today, I will walk out with my head held up very high because I never betrayed the people who trusted me, I never compromised my values, I never bowed down to intimidation and I never stopped believing that reform was possible, even in the face of major corruption,” Corpus said.
    —————————–
    Talk about living in a state of total denial. I new she was unqualified to begin with. Here is my Voice comment from May 18, 2022 that includes my LTTE to the DJ:

    The DJ did a piece on the sheriff race that helped me reach a decision. It was pretty easy and in line with the Daily Post perspective above. One bit was particularly revealing for me and moved me to write this LTTE of the DJ:
    Editor,
    I want to thank the Daily Journal for the article about the upcoming county sheriff’s election.
    I was surprised and concerned about Cristina Corpus’ comment criticizing the use of $10 million of reserves for a new building instead of for salaries. This comment shows a fundamental lack of understanding about how budgets work. Reserves are a form of capital budget (used for one-time costs like facilities, vehicles or equipment) while on-going expenses like salaries must come from the current expense budget. The two are totally different types of financing and anyone with any budget experience would know this immediately.
    The article notes that the sheriff runs the largest department in the county government. It appears that Corpus would need a lot of on-the-job training and I am very uncomfortable with that idea. She also appears not to understand who negotiates the deputies’ union contract. Hint: it is not the sheriff. I will be voting to reelect Sheriff Carlos Bolanos and voters who care about professional managerial competence should do the same.
    Joseph Baylock
    Burlingame

    https://burlingamevoice.com/2022/05/05/sheriff-election-funding/

  16. Joe

    The Daily Post alerted us to the fact that Corpus has two different lawsuits going on in two different courts. A federal judge called it “court shopping” and not in a good way.

    One case includes charges of defamation. Judge Chhabia “I mean, elected officials say weird things about each other all the time. That’s politics, right?”

    Right, your honor!

  17. Joe

    I’m pleased that Mark Simon is still on the sheriff’s case. Yesterday’s full column is a gem. If you are a subscriber, click through to read the whole thing. Here are a couple snippets:

    And so, we have Carlos Bolanos, who confirmed in an interview with me this week that he is thinking about running for sheriff whenever the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors sets the special election to replace ex-Sheriff Christina Corpus.

    Bolanos could call his campaign the I Told You So Tour. “Obviously, I thought I was the better candidate,” Bolanos said. “I wasn’t surprised she had these difficulties but it exceeded my expectations.”

    Here is some good news: The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training has revoked Corpus’ law enforcement credentials, which means, at least, she cannot run for the office herself.

    Meanwhile, my friends have begun to wonder, as have I, how many more columns I might write about the Sheriff’s Office. They put the over/under at six.
    ——————————–
    I’ll put the over/under at twice that–12!

  18. cassandra

    New chance for Joe to continue the narrative arc:

    Millbrae Police Chief lives in Idaho.
    As with the Burlingame Train Station illegal bedroom, so too the illegal rooms and liquor at the department office.

  19. Joe

    You have to love that the Supes are holding a public meeting to take input on what characteristics and skills the new sheriff should have. We really are governed by the kids who got C- ‘s in skool. Corzo was more on the D end of the curve.

  20. Joe

    Yesterday’s Daily Post ran a front-page piece titled “Rumor may cost millions”. Capt. Eamonn Allen from the Millbrae force (run by the sheriff’s department) has sued the County for $15 million over a claim that “Corpus allegedly told another sergeant that Allen had an alleged affair with Associate Management Analyst and Corpus’ former friend, Valerie Barnes.”

    How any of that is the County’s fault is anyone’s guess. Here’s how he gets to $15 million of “damages”. $5 million for all the “past emotional distress and pain and suffering”. $5 million for and future emotional distress and another $5 million for harm to his reputation………Yikes!

    Maybe we need a class action suit by the County taxpayers for all of the emotional distress this whole affair is causing us.

  21. JP

    This is the same guy!!! And there are more elsewhere using stations as crash pads!

    Local leaders are calling for an investigation into allegations that Millbrae Police Chief Eamonn Allen has been living in Boise, Idaho, and residing at the police station while in Millbrae.

    ABC 7 originally reported that Allen bought a house in Boise in June 2024 and had been living in the station — in a converted room with a mattress, desk and no windows — during the weekdays, an allegation to which he did not respond.

  22. Joe

    Mark Simon is covering the Canepa-Corzo catfight over the Millbrae “hostel”. I’m not sure what there is to fight about, but he writes “It would appear they do not like each other all that much.”

    Sheriff applicants have less than a week to fill out an extensive application and create a two-minute video on why they want the job. All will be posted in the name of “transparency”. Can’t wait.

  23. Joe

    Idaho is investigating possible tax shenanigans. From the Merc:

    A county assessor in Idaho has opened an investigation to determine how Millbrae police Chief Eamonn Allen and his family received a tax break on their Boise-area home last year, amid questions over their eligibility for the subsidy.

    Ada County Assessor Rebecca Arnold on Thursday said she is looking into the circumstances surrounding the tax break on the home Allen shares with his partner in Meridian, after reading Bay Area media reports about Allen allegedly spending his work nights sleeping at the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Millbrae station.

    Allen and his partner received a homestead exception — which can reduce a property’s taxable value — beginning in 2024, according to Arnold. But she is uncertain how Allen received the tax break, which can ax the taxable value of a house up to $125,000, significantly reducing a homeowner’s annual tax bill.

    As of Jan. 1, 2025, a new Idaho state law requires anyone seeking such an exemption to supply a valid Idaho driver’s license. Arnold said that Allen and his partner continued to have a California driver’s license as of Oct. 29.

  24. Joe

    We went from 7 to 6 to 3:

    After giving each candidate 30 minutes, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors chose three finalists — Kenneth Binder, David Lazar and Brian Wynn Huynh Travis — to continue on in the running to be the next sheriff.

    Lazar, universally voted for, was the sixth and final candidate to be questioned by the board.

    Recently retired, Lazar’s 33-year law enforcement career is primarily out of the San Francisco Police Department, and although he said he will bring with him his experience, he assured the county would not become “SFPD 2.0.”

    Lazar described himself as the “polar opposite” of current Undersheriff Dan Perea, who is discharging the duties of sheriff due to the vacancy left by ousted former sheriff Christina Corpus.
    ———————————
    I’m not sure what THAT means……

  25. Grace

    Do you think County Attorney Nibbelin bothered to look at the latest law on the definition of residency for an appointment before encouraging out of County applicants? September 30, 2025 People ex rel. Alameda County Taxpayers’ Assn. v. Brown. The case was just remanded to the trial court to determine whether the appointed Supervisor had the requisite intent to be a permanent resident after he moved into the county to fulfill the residency requirement. (Be cautious is using AI to summarize the case. It ignored the relevant second part of the ruling.)

  26. Joe

    I recall that four of the original seven applicants had recently “established residency” in the County. How does one do that? Take a one-month lease on a small apartment until you find out if you get the job?

  27. Joe

    Dave Price at the Daily Post zeroed in on the cost of the Corpus saga last week. He writes:

    The county is refusing to say how much it has spent in taxpayer dollars on attorney fees related to the Corpus matter…the county refused to divulge what it spent, citing attorney-client privilege. An appeals court rejected the county’s bid to keep the costs secret. Still the information hasn’t been released.

    Elsewhere, at the Daily Journal, there was a news squib that Victor Aenelle was finally released from his job last Tuesday (Nov 18th). Wow. Nice work if you can get it.

  28. Joe

    The Daily Post is out with its top stories of 2025 list, and the sheriff saga is #1. After “allegations and findings of misused public funds, retaliated against subordinates and violated conflict-of-interest laws” Corpus is history. I had missed the little factoid that the new sheriff, Ken Binder, is the brother of Palo Alto police chief Andrew Binder.

    The big story of 2026 will emerge if and when we find out how much this all cost after all the various lawsuits have been dealt with. That will be BIG.

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