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Deputy Juan Lopez of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office has filed a lawsuit against the county and the Sheriff’s Office, alleging retaliation over his decision to run for sheriff (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) against sitting Sheriff Greg Munks in the March 2014 primary election.

Mr. Lopez, through his attorney, David W. Washington of Stockton, claims in an April 24 lawsuit filed in San Mateo County Superior Court that the county violated his First Amendment rights and his rights as a California law enforcement officer.

Mr. Lopez, who is 51, has been on administrative leave as a deputy since July 2014.

The complaint says the county deceptively sought and received search warrants without probable cause and concealed and discarded exculpatory evidence.

Asked to comment, Chief Deputy County Counsel David Silberman said: “The lawsuit doesn’t make much sense. As far as we can tell, it doesn’t have much merit. We don’t, frankly, understand what he’s alleging in his complaint.”

Mr. Lopez was arrested in November 2014 and charged in connection with a plan to bring cellphones and drugs to Redwood City jail inmates, the District Attorney’s Office said. He is not accused of bringing contraband into the jail, but of being complicit in allowing a cellphone to be brought into the jail. Mr. Lopez pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been out of custody.

In February 2015, the DA charged Mr. Lopez with violating election laws in his run for sheriff. Prosecutors allege he lied about his residence, embezzled from his campaign funds and, in a separate case, attempted to profit off of his Newark home by filing false documents. Mr. Lopez pleaded not guilty to those charges as well.

Mr. Lopez alleges that in searching his homes — he also has a residence in Redwood City, he says — investigators exceeded the scope of the search warrant and inappropriately targeted his friends and family.

The circumstances of his arrest, on nonviolent charges, by officers with their guns drawn and requiring him to get on his knees before being handcuffed “places a chilling effect on employees that are considering running for the Office of Sheriff and thereby violating the rights of all peace officers employed by the San Mateo County Sheriff’ s Office,” the lawsuit says.

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7 Comments

  1. Here is a $30,350,000.00 Law Suit filed 12 days ago by San Mateo County Sheriff Deputy Juan P. Lopez.

    The key question is who accessed the State of California DMV Computer and placed Deputy Lopez’s Driver License number on another persons ticket.

    Here is the short list of people would couldn’t care less.
    Kamala Harris, Steve Wagstaffe, DA Inspector Jordon Boyd, Sheriff Greg Munks, Under Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, and the DMV. The Board of Supervisors of San Mateo County

    http://www.thissideofthehill.com/threads/san-mateo-county-sheriff-deputy-juan-p-lopez-vs-county-of-san-mateo.983/

  2. In the meantime the perpetrator has plenty of time to cover his or her tracks. In the digital world, there are tracks.

    The state doesn’t want to even acknowledge this could happen as it would mean acknowledging their system is not as secure as they would like to have everyone believe.

    If the system is secure from outside attack, then the only logical deduction is that the person that did it is in law enforcement or works for the DMV. We know how much our DA WON’T go after those in law enforcement if he can possibly avoid it. It’s too bad this didn’t happen in Santa Clara County. The DA there wouldn’t put up with this nonsense, much less participate in it.

  3. I had called California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office in San Francisco, about 2 months ago. I spoke to one of the Deputy Attorney Generals, when I asked her about Deputy Lopez’s driver license being hacked, she said call theDMV ,but do not tell them I told you to do so. She said the Attorney Generals office will not investigate this issue.

  4. Thank You Mark,

    “Deputy Lopez’s driver license being hacked,”

    I just want to make sure this point is as clear as possible. It was the State of California’s Computer the DMV Computer not Deputy Lopez’s driver license being hacked.

    Somebody got access to a San Mateo County Sheriff Deputy Confidential Information first and then proceeded to access the DMV Computer and place Sheriff Deputy Juan Lopez’s number onto an existing ticket.

    Is this even possible in Silicon Valley, San Mateo County,

    Look up R.E.A.C.T. Task Force, or Palantir Tech.

  5. For you law enforcement officers and private citizens reading this post, you know that police officers(deputy sheriffs) home address’ do not appear if a law enforcement officer runs another officer’s drivers license.
    So how did Deputy Lopez get his personal address on his DMV suspension?
    Someone with personal data inputed it into the DMV.
    Any guesses?

  7. I should not be surprised that this story is not front page news.
    Let’s see how long it takes for the Bay Area advertising papers(newspapers) to cover the total lawsuit. Many persons and agencies are involved; one of the agencies is in Los Angeles County.

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