Court sides with journalists over releasing records in Oakland police sex abuse scandal

OAKLAND, Calif. - The city of Oakland must release records it has withheld about its investigation of police who had sex with a teenage abuse victim, and the suicide of one of those officers, the state Supreme Court ruled in a case brought by two local journalists.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported the court on Wednesday unanimously denied review of an appellate ruling requiring the city to provide documents to freelancer Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham, now the editor of The Oaklandside, who filed suit in 2019 after the records were withheld. 

The justices also upheld the ruling, a broad interpretation of California’s Public Records Act, as a binding precedent for all trial courts in California, the Chronicle reported.

In a social media post, Winston credited their attorney, Sam Ferguson, for filing the suit. 

Oakland paid $989,000 in 2017 to settle a suit by the 19-year-old Richmond woman, whose first name was Jasmine but who went by the alias of Celeste Guap, the daughter of an Oakland police dispatcher.

Guap said 29 police officers in Oakland, Livermore and San Francisco, as well as sheriff’s deputies in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, had sexual relations with her, some of them when she was still a minor, and others sent her sexually explicit messages.

A city investigation found misconduct by five Oakland police officers and six current or former Oakland officers were charged with crimes. 

The scandal had become public in 2015 after Brendan O’Brien, an Oakland officer, committed suicide and left a note describing his and other Oakland officers’ relationships with the young woman.

The 1st District Court of Appeal said the Public Records Act, which requires government agencies to disclose significant information to the public, must be interpreted broadly because it "furthers the people’s right of access."

The wrongfully withheld documents included the police report’s recommendations of new policies and training for offices, Justice James Richman said in the 3-0 ruling, which became final  when the state’s high court upheld it.

The appeals court also said Oakland must identify the officers who testified about misconduct by their colleagues, because a state law allowing witnesses’ names to be withheld from public records applies only to civilians and not to police.