San Mateo County DA clears sheriff's deputy of time card fraud amid political drama

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - The San Mateo County District Attorney on Monday announced that prosecutors did not find any evidence that a sheriff's deputy – who is entangled in a politically charged battle with the sheriff – is guilty of time card fraud. 

DA Steve Wagstaffe went further, saying that his office's investigation into Deputy Carlos Tapia "showed that there was no basis to believe any violation of law had occurred, and finally that Deputy Tapia should not have been arrested."

Wagstaffe acknowledged there were clerical errors in how work hours were coded but "nothing showing criminal intent or criminal conduct."

Wagstaffe also pointed out that there was no monetary loss to the sheriff’s office by the miscoding.  

Typically, when DAs choose not to file charges, they simply tell the public that there wasn't sufficient evidence to charge a crime.

But this case is different.

"Public interest," Wagstaffe said in an interview. "It's the amount of interest in the case. There are certain cases I do, as most district attorneys do, where I will say the case just didn't have enough evidence for us to succeed in court. But when there's a case that is of high public interest – and this case it is the arrest of the head of the Deputy Sheriffs Association by his own agency on probable cause –  there was a great deal of followup interest. I felt it was worth it to be transparent to not just say the case isn't there, but to say why the case isn't there." 

Tapia became embroiled in a high-profile public fight with embattled Sheriff Cristina Corpus, who in turn, is the subject of a scathing report released on Nov. 12 – the same day Tapia was arrested. 

Corpus has refused to step down even though county supervisors have told her to resign. 

Tapia has been president of the San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff's Association since 2022, according to his Linkedin profile, and with the sheriff's office for 15 years. 

Tapia spoke in a press conference Monday afternoon alongside San Mateo County supervisors.

"I'm grateful to the District Attorney's office for recognizing these charges for what they were," Tapia said. "Yet another attempt at retaliation from Sheriff Corpus at our expressed loss of confidence in her administration."

Tapia has been a vocal critic of Corpus. 

The San Mateo Deputy Sheriff's Association is now calling for a civil rights violation investigation into the matter, Tapia said.

"Despite the personal stress it caused me to fight to clear my name, I love my job, and I'm proud to serve the people of San Mateo County," Tapia said, "My fellow deputies and I look forward to the day we can work with a new sheriff who will restore the trust and transparency the public deserves from its sheriff's office"

According to the report on Corpus, written by retired Santa Clara County Judge LaDoris Cordell, the sheriff has had an intimate relationship with Victor Aenlle, who was promoted to work in her office despite having a background in real estate and not law enforcement. Cordell also found that Corpus repeatedly recommended pay raises for him and had him working directly underneath her, in violation of the Sheriff's Office's conflict of interest policies.  

Corpus has denied that relationship. 

The report found the sheriff also used racial and homophobic slurs in the workplace, which she also denies. 

"I am completely baffled, shocked, and dismayed about the inquiry and its many falsehoods," Corpus wrote in a memo to sheriff's employees. "Claims that I am a racist and a homophobic are not true. I have never and would never use those words."

Wagstaffe laid out a brief timeline and some key details stemming from Tapia's arrest, where Corpus recommended he be charged with felony time card fraud, grand theft and obtaining money by false pretenses from Jan. 1 to Oct. 18. 

Matthew Fox, the acting assistant sheriff at the time, led an investigation that was "extraordinarily limited and did not involve necessary follow-up investigation to examine the accuracy of the allegations," Wagstaffe wrote. 

Nevertheless, Fox reported that the sheriff’s office executive leadership said Tapia must be arrested on Nov. 12, without doing more investigation, and submitted the case for prosecution the next day, on Nov. 13. 

DA investigators then took the next month to complete the investigation themselves, Wagstaffe said, including interviewing Tapia's supervisors, HR, the county controller, the director of finance, Tapia and others. 

Wagstaffe added that prosecutors also collected evidence to corroborate the interviews. 

Documentary evidence was collected to corroborate verbal statements and interviews were recorded.

Wagstaffe said that his office has determined the case is closed. 

Fox resigned on Nov. 15. 

The Board of Supervisors has scheduled a special election in March to ask voters to change the county charter to allow the supervisors to remove the sheriff.

Wagstaffe said his office is currently investigating four possible criminal allegations that were mentioned in Cordell's report, though none of the alleged crimes are specifically tied to the sheriff herself.