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San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe announced Monday, Dec. 16, that his office would not file charges against Carlos Tapia, president of the Deputy Sheriff’s Association who was arrested on felony charges in November by Sheriff Christina Corpus, stating that Tapia committed no crime.
Tapia was ordered to be arrested by Corpus on Nov. 12 on charges of felony timecard fraud that she said occurred between Jan. 1, 2024, and Oct. 18, 2024. In a press conference on Nov. 12, Corpus announced her arrest of Tapia just 15 minutes before a county press conference where San Mateleo County Supervisors Ray Mueller and Noelia Corzo shared damning findings from an independent investigation into Corpus and her Chief of Staff Victor Aenlle.
In a press conference following Tapia’s arrest on Nov. 12, Corpus said that her office “did consult with the DA’s office,” when asked why she didn’t involve the DA’s office in the investigation.
However, Wagstaffe, in a press release on Dec. 16, cast doubt on Corpus’ claim and said that Corpus’ arrest of Tapia was conducted without a warrant and the involvement of the DA’s office following an internal investigation by the Sheriff’s Office. Wagstaffe said that the case was not referred to his office until the morning of Nov. 13.
The DA’s office’s follow-up investigation found that there were some “clerical errors” in the way that Tapia had coded some of his work hours but that there was no monetary loss to the Sheriff’s Office due to the miscoding and that Tapia “did not commit grand theft, theft by false pretenses or any sort of timecard fraud.” Wagstaffe said that since August 2024, the miscodings have been corrected and proper timecard entries have been made by Tapia.
“We have concluded based on the follow-up investigation that no crime was committed by Deputy Carlos Tapia,” said Wagstaffe. “The complete investigation showed that there was no basis to believe any violation of law had occurred, and finally that deputy Tapia should not have been arrested.”
In a press conference held on Dec. 16 following Wagstaffe’s announcement that he would not be pursuing charges against Tapia, Tapia said that the DSA is calling for a civil rights violation investigation into his arrest. Tapia also said that his arrest was another example of Corpus retaliating against her employees; he has been a vocal critic of Corpus’ administration.
Corpus has come under fire for allegedly retaliating against Sheriff’s Office employees — an allegation which was sustained by the county’s independent investigation.
“The DSA remains extremely disturbed that Tapia was arrested to begin with. Arresting a union leader just before Judge Cordell’s damning report was released was a clear attempt at silencing an opponent and stifling dissent,” the DSA said in a statement on Dec. 16.
According to Wagstaffe’s press release, the Sheriff’s Office’s internal investigation into Tapia was conducted “entirely by an acting assistant sheriff,” who Wagstaffe said was “assigned” to the case. The acting assistant sheriff at the time was Matthew Fox, who resigned on Nov. 15, just two days after he submitted the case against Tapia to the DA’s office for prosecution. Wagstaffe confirmed that Fox is the assistant sheriff that was referenced in the Dec. 16 press release.
“The Acting Assistant Sheriff’s investigation was extraordinarily limited and did not involve necessary follow-up investigation to examine the accuracy of the allegations,” said Wagstaffe.
Fox apparently noted in the investigation report that he submitted to the DA’s office that the investigation was “ongoing” and that “more needed to be done,” but the Sheriff’s Office executive leadership team directed that Tapia be arrested on Nov. 12 without any additional investigation being conducted.
Wagstaffe said that after the case was referred to the DA’s office, they conducted a “complete investigation” into the claims against Tapia, which involved speaking to Tapia’s supervisors to confirm his work schedule and assignments, to county human resources analysts who verified union contract rules that allowed Tapia release time for his union work, to the assistant county controller regarding payroll rules and to county public works staff to track Tapia’s building logins and logouts. The DA’s office also conducted an interview with Tapia himself.
Corpus said in a statement on Dec. 16 that there will be a separate internal review that will take place regarding the arrest of Tapia as “standard protocol” dictates. Corpus said that the internal review would be conducted by an independent, third-party investigator to ensure fair review.
In an email to this news organization, Wagstaffe said that “it is very unusual” for a law enforcement agency to conduct a warrantless arrest of an employee, but that it is not illegal to do so. There is no basis for any criminal charges against Corpus in regards to her arrest of Tapia, according to Wagstaffe.
“We think that it is best for public confidence that a law enforcement agency contact us as soon as they believe criminal conduct and let us investigate it … rather than the agency investigating it themselves,” said Wagstaffe. “But this is a choice to be made by the police chief or sheriff. There is no rule or law requiring the referral to my office.”
Eliot Storch, a spokesperson for and member of the DSA, said that it is a Sheriff’s Office policy that investigation into any member of the Sheriff’s Office should be referred to the DA’s office.
“We generally will not do a criminal investigation into our own for fears of it being improper, for fear of any sort of bias,” he said. “We let the District Attorney, and the District Attorney’s investigators do that. Clearly, in this case, Sheriff Corpus did not.”
The announcement by Wagstaffe led Corzo and Mueller, who have led the county’s investigation into Corpus’ office, to renew their calls for Corpus to resign.
“We want every person in this county to know of your (Tapia’s) innocence,” said Mueller. “I don’t know if the sheriff or her executive leadership team will ever apologize to you, but on behalf of the county, I want to tell you how incredibly apologetic we are for what happened to you.”
Tapia said that he and his fellow deputies “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.”
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Corpus needs to go.