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An effort to dismiss charges in a long-standing case against retired San Mateo County Sheriff’s deputy Juan Pablo Lopez fell short on Thursday (Jan. 9) when Superior Court Judge Danny Chou ruled against a defense motion in the case.
Chou also dismissed three motions from Lopez’s attorney Tony Serra to suppress evidence from searches that were conducted of Lopez’s home and car, Serra said in a phone interview.
Lopez ran as a write-in candidate for county sheriff against his boss, now-retired sheriff Greg Munks, in 2014, and Serra has said the current charges and other charges in the case that were previously dismissed were made in retaliation for Lopez’s ballot-box challenge to Munks, the predecessor to current Sheriff Carlos Bolanos.
Lopez still faces three counts of mortgage fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit a crime, one count of filing a false declaration of candidacy, and one count of voting where he was not entitled to vote.
A trial date has been set for April 13, the eighth trial setting in the case.
The trial may be continued again until July, if Serra is busy with the Ghost Ship trial in Oakland, in which he is representing defendant Derik Almena, according to San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.
Lopez remains out on $170,000 bail.
Serra has also filed a complaint against William Massey, an investigator from the county District Attorney’s Office, for allegedly carrying on a personal vendetta against Lopez.
According to the complaint, Massey disclosed confidential information about Lopez to unauthorized parties with the intent of influencing people who supported Lopez’s 2014 run for sheriff before directing a criminal investigation of Lopez, his fiance and their supporters.
“Senior Inspector Massey’s described conduct calls into question not only his trustworthiness as a neutral investigator but the legitimacy of his investigation into my client,” Serra wrote in the complaint addressed to Wagstaffe. “In short, he has tainted and contaminated the legitimacy of those investigations.”
This is what happens when a Reporter writes a story about a court action when he didn’t bother to go to the court.
There is No Mention of the Recently Commenced Internal Affairs Investigation of William Massey and John Warren. That’s 73 days to Commence Investigation, October 28, 2019-Jan. 9, 2020 It’s On Going and will remain On Going until Juan P. Lopez’s criminal case is complete.
Hon. Judge Danny Chou issued two SEAL orders one was the Motion to Quash Subpoenas (filed by attorney Joseph Charles) for Inspector William Massey and John Warren and according to San Mateo County Counsel John Beiers it included the Complaint. Which is partially reported in this article. Which is a violation of the court order.
Serra has also filed a complaint against William Massey, an investigator from the county District Attorney’s Office, for allegedly carrying on a personal vendetta against Lopez.
According to the complaint, Massey disclosed confidential information about Lopez to unauthorized parties with the intent of influencing people who supported Lopez’s 2014 run for sheriff before directing a criminal investigation of Lopez, his fiance and their supporters.
“Senior Inspector Massey’s described conduct calls into question not only his trustworthiness as a neutral investigator but the legitimacy of his investigation into my client,” Serra wrote in the complaint addressed to Wagstaffe. “In short, he has tainted and contaminated the legitimacy of those investigations.”
Every Case that William Massey and John Warren have touched since 2014 should be looked at that includes the entire Sunny Day cases.
The second SEALED order involved an Unnamed San Mateo County Sheriff Employee, and the Belmont Police Report which finally surfaced after 5 years. I’ve written about the Sgt. many times.
Tony Serra?????
Gees, this really is starting to smell. Time for a story about Chou, too?
“I’ve written about … many times.”
True dat.
grassy knoll:
What smells is DA Wagstaffe.
“One count of voting where he was not entitled to vote?” Really? Has DA Wagstaffe ever charged anyone else with that ? This is ludicrous.
” Has DA Wagstaffe ever charged anyone else with that ?”
Of course not. This is about our corrupt DA punishing Lopez for having the temerity to challenge Munks and the corrupt status quo.
Whether someone has ever been charged in San Mateo County with voting in the wrong place could easily be determined by the press- IF they wanted to. That the DA of San Mateo has been able to get away with this is an outrage. How many other District Attorneys in the state of California have been sent at least two warnings by the State Bar for making false statements to the press, as Wagstaffe has? But press just seems to roll over with him.
When the District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s Office and County County Counsel’s Office all TEAM up to cause harm against an individual there is a very good chance that person will submit and give up, nobody would blame him or her.
A reasonable person would believe the Charges of Smuggling a Cellphone and Drugs into the Redwood City Jail and giving them to a Hells Angel Gang Member were true and accurate. Steve Wagstaffe, Jamie Draper, Jordon Boyd, William Massey, John Warren, Carlos Bolanos, Sgt. Jason Peardon, Hector Acosta, Andy Armando, John Beiers, David Silberman is a short list of Those Who Knew the Charges were false.
Forced to Retire Sheriff Deputy Juan P. Lopez has Never wavered, He wants 12 Jurors to hear the testimony of the above at his trial which most likely be July 2020.
There is precedent for the current DA Wagstaffe (when he was the chief deputy) to charge people for voter fraud. Ironically, the one case I know about was actually a police officer also.
In the late 1990s (I believe), the SMC DA’s office charged the Atherton police chief Steve Cader for wrongfully voting in an Atherton election.
That smacked of a political motivation at the time, since as everyone knows, the DA’s office is extremely simpatico with the sheriff’s office and police departments in the county. The attitude is one of “I’ve unconditionally got your back” rather than “I’ve got your back, unless you do something wrong, in which case, watch out”. This has come up time and time again in various cases over the years when police officers behaved wrongfully but the DA didn’t charge them, or otherwise covered for them.
In the Lopez case, a lot can be learned about the motivations when you consider that the DA charged Lopez’s girlfriend with a few trumped up charged also, that were thrown out of court.
The standard for getting a charge thrown out of court before a criminal trial is extremely hard to meet. Basically, it involves not a scintilla of evidence being there to support the charge, not just weak evidence.
And a jury found Atherton police chief Steve Cader not guilty of election fraud:
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Atherton-s-Ex-Police-Chief-Not-Guilty-of-Voter-2709033.php
Jury foreman Curtis Smith, a Redwood City resident who teaches physical educationin Hayward, said after the verdict that prosecutors simply had not convinced the jury that Cader knew he was breaking the law when he voted in an Atherton election last November while living in an apartment in Menlo Park.
___
To Atherton Almanac editors: what is the penalty for the misdemeanor of voting in the wrong election? Anyone?
The fact that Wagstaffe has declined to prosecute deputy sheriffs on extremely serious felonies, but then tacks on this misdemeanor election fraud charge as part of his kitchen sink charges against Juan Lopez , is ludicrous and overkill.
In 2000, then San Mateo DA Jim Fox declined to prosecute Half Moon Bay police Sgt Michael O’Malley for putting down his office address on his voter registration form. Also declined to prosecute the wife of a former police officer for same thing.
https://www.hmbreview.com/district-attorney-james-fox-won-t-charge-sgt-o-malley/article_efa20f81-ccd6-552e-a022-30bc111e6f57.html
San Mateo County District Attorney James P. Fox declined to prosecute Half Moon Bay Police Sgt. Michael O’Malley for the misdemeanor charge of voter fraud.O’Malley had illegally declared the police department, located at 537 Kelly Avenue, as his home address on his voter registration form.The district attorney’s office also declined to prosecute the wife of a former officer for the same offense.
“for making false statements to the press”
Wait, what? Uh-oh….
What’s your point, *AG Barr? It’s very rare that the Bar sends warnings to anyone, let alone a district attorney. In the case of one of the Bar warnings, Wagstaffe made an outrageous and misleading false statement to the press about the facts of a rape case the day before the trial. Defendant was one who filed the Bar complaint. They’re at a disadvantage anyway going into the trial, and there is no need for a DA to make up things about a case that didn’t happen.
Or are you just implying that the DA making false statements to the press is so routine that it’s not worth getting bothered about?
In Juan P. Lopez’s case he was registered to vote from his Redwood City Condo that he owned and his Drivers License showed as his address as a matter of fact the District Attorney has acknowledged that address is his residence.
The key to this case is Sergeant Jason Peardon, Andy Armando and William Massey, the False charges of Smuggling and Drugs.
Most of the remaining charges came from Documents in the Stolen Backpack from Juan’s car at his Redwood City Residence. SMCSO Gang Task force has been requested to break into vehicles according to testimony of a D.A. Inspector. Sergeant Jason Peardon is in charge of the Sheriff Gang Taskforce he will be testifying.
So Wagastaffe and Bolanos held a press conference in 2014 to announce they had arrested Deputy Juan Lopez for smuggling a cell phone. But Wagstaffe declined to press criminal charges against a Burlingame police officer who solicited sex from women he was arresting. Got it. Wake up, sheeple of San Mateo County, as Menlo Voter likes to say. Your County is corrupt.
https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/da-will-not-reopen-case-against-officer/article_aef90a96-1ae3-11e9-9eff-8b977c603443.html
After reviewing accounts from five women alleging misconduct by a former Burlingame police officer, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe opted against reopening a criminal case against the officer fired from the department last year, claiming he did not find the officer’s conduct in those incidents to be criminal.Though Wagstaffe acknowledged some of the behavior alleged in the reports, which he said included salacious language and propositions, was unbecoming of a professional, he said it didn’t warrant the reopening of a criminal investigation into the conduct of former officer David Granucci.
LACSO Baca finally going to serve his prison sentence. He has remained out pending all of his appeals.
FORMER Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was the last in a group of Sheriff’s Department deputies and commanders to be accused of playing a role in the 2011 scandal , which involved hiding an inmate who was an FBI informant and threatening to arrest the agent leading the investigation.
All 10 of the people who faced charges in the case have either pleaded guilty or were convicted. They included Baca’s second-in-command, former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who in 2016 was sentenced to five years in prison after a jury found that he had played a leading role in the scheme.
The obstruction plan played out over six weeks in August and September 2011, after sheriff’s officials discovered FBI agents had used a corrupt deputy to smuggle a cellphone to a jail inmate who was working as an informant.
Notice the similarities in the retired Deputy Juan P. Lopez case, the amount of perps obstructing.
— Wake up, sheeple of San Mateo County
And listen to the conspiracy theorist who calls us sheeple? Got it.
Once people restrict themselves to a bubble, everyone on the outside is a sheeple. Right, left, cult, whatever, those on the outside are sheeple.
Moon landing!
A bubble? Right. Those living in bubbles are the sheeple of SMC that do not want to see the corruption of their county officials. They think it will never happen to them. There’s a certain resident of Atherton that probably thought it would never happen to him until it did. If it can happen to someone of significant means it can happen to anyone.
x Sheriff Deputy Juan P. Lopez next court date is tomorrow Feb. 4, 2020 8:45 A.M. 400 County Center, Redwood City.
I believe it is a Motion to SEAL by San Mateo County Counsel. You will recall they are representing the 2 District Attorney Inspectors who are under an Internal Affairs Something and at least 5 Sheriff Employees.
At the last Hearing the Belmont Police Report finally surfaced. The County Counsel attorney wanted to view it before Tony Serra and Maria B. Juan Lopez’s attorneys could, the judge allowed that. After she viewed it she asked that it be SEALED. This is the Police report that the PADP wrote about after the City of Belmont was served the law suit for it. I was surprised how fast word traveled for the paper to know about it. I served the City of Belmont Attorney just the afternoon before the article was published the next morning.
This is going to be exciting:
https://www.almanacnews.com/square/2014/11/13/san-mateo-county-sheriff-deputy-juan-lopez-was-arrested
So, what happened yesterday?
Yesterday in Superior Court in Redwood City, California, in the retired Sheriff Deputy Juan P. Lopez case. San Mateo County Counsel Deputy Tara Heuman’s Motion to SEAL the Belmont Police Records of Sheriff Deputy Jason E. Peardon from 2004.
The Hon. Judge Clifford V. Cretan asked:
“What does the 2004 incident have to do with the Lopez Investigation now?”
I almost laughed out loud, Everybody in the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, County Counsel, County Manager & the Board of Supervisors all know that Sergeant Jason E. Peardon is the Sheriff Deputy Juan P. Lopez case period.
Judge Cretan stated “He had read the 8 page document that had been provided to the Court from the Belmont Police Department regarding San Mateo County Sheriff Deputy Jason E. Peardon. The documents were from a 2004 EVENT.
“He saw no evidence in the 8 pages of a crime.”
He granted Tara Heuman’s Motion to SEAL.
Why would Judge Cretan bother to SEAL a 15 year old 8 page document about a San Mateo County Sheriff Deputy who was acting as a civilian that night in Belmont. Sgt. Jason Peardon is currently in charge of the SMCSO Gang Task Force. Tara Heuman read the 8 pages and saw something she didn’t want the Public to know.
Did the Belmont Police Department do a big Favor for a Sheriff Deputy and the Sheriff’s Office back in 2004. Did they violate several laws including San Mateo County’s Domestic Violence Protocol?
Who was the Police Chief at that time and where is he working today? Take a wild guess.