San Mateo County Supervisors Pass Vote of No Confidence in Sheriff Christina Corpus

Before she left, Supervisor Ray Mueller asked Corpus if she would agree to an interview with the retired judge who compiled the 408-page report, released Tuesday, that found evidence of abuse of power, intimidation and retaliation among members of her leadership team.

Corpus did not respond.

“It’s just unbelievable,” Mueller later said of Corpus’ decision to promote Aenlle, who the sheriff has allegedly had a romantic relationship with for several years.

“Today, colleagues, we enter into a new stage in the investigation,” Mueller said, suggesting that subpoenas may soon be issued to compel people to testify.

John Nibbelin, county counsel, couldn’t say definitively if Aenlle, who is not a sworn officer, was legally qualified to serve as assistant sheriff. Mueller called the promotion “prophylactic” to spare Aenlle from the board’s action.

‘Lies, secrecy, intimidation’

Retired Superior Court Judge LaDoris H. Cordell, who led the investigation, called for Corpus to step down, arguing in the report that “nothing short of new leadership can save this organization that is in turmoil, and its personnel demoralized.”

Cordell has previously audited multiple other Bay Area law enforcement agencies, including a San Francisco Police Department investigation in 2015 when several of its officers were found to have exchanged racist texts.

“Fear of retaliation is rampant in the organization,” Cordell wrote in the report. “Lies, secrecy, intimidation, retaliation, conflicts of interest, and abuses of authority are the hallmarks of the Corpus administration.”

Hours before the report was released, Carlos Tapia, president of the San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, and a vocal critic of the Corpus, turned himself in to the sheriff’s office and was arrested on multiple charges, including felony grand theft. Details of his alleged crimes have not yet been made public.

“I will not be intimidated by our sheriff. I will not tolerate the sheriff’s abuse of her authority and retaliation against our union,” Tapia said in a written statement to reporters following his release from jail on Tuesday afternoon.

The county’s lead counsel hired Cordell to conduct the investigation after several sheriff’s office employees complained of harassment, mistreatment and retaliation from Victor Aenlle, the office’s executive director.

Following interviews with 40 current and former sworn deputies and civilian employees, Cordell concluded that the “Corpus/Aenlle administration is obsessed with loyalty that borders on paranoia.” Examples included Aenlle requesting that offices “be swept for bugging devices” and voicing concerns that staff were leaking information.

The report concludes that Corpus should step down and Aenlle’s employment with the office should be terminated immediately.

Corpus ran for sheriff in 2022, becoming the first woman and first Latina to hold the office after defeating incumbent Carlos Bolanos, who faced internal allegations of favoring campaign donors when issuing concealed carry gun permits.

When Corpus took office in January 2023, Aenlle, who had served as her de facto campaign manager, took a civilian job in the department, collecting a $192,000 annual salary, according to Cordell’s report. By July 2023, Corpus had hired Aenlle, a real estate broker, as her office’s executive director, raising his salary to nearly $247,000. On several occasions, Corpus requested he get further pay increases, which the county denied, the report noted.

“There was no announcement of this job opening, and no applicants other than Aenlle,” Cordell wrote.

Although Aenlle was a non-sworn employee, Corpus still issued him a gold badge – potentially a misdemeanor, Cordell noted – and counted him among her reserve sheriff’s deputies – or trained and sworn volunteers – even though he did not meet the requirements.

Cordell also found that “Corpus and Victor Aenlle have a personal relationship, beyond mere friendship,” despite denying that.

“Aenlle’s and Sheriff Corpus’ dishonesty about their personal relationship, their incompetent management of the sheriff’s office, and Sheriff Corpus’ shocking willingness to relinquish control of the Office to a real-estate-broker- turned-Reserve-Deputy, who failed to complete the Field Officer Training Program, have combined to leave the sheriff’s office in utter disarray,” Cordell wrote.

“After publicly decrying this investigation as a ‘witch hunt,’ Sheriff Corpus refused the offer of this investigator to respond to the serious allegations lodged against her and her leadership team. Her silence speaks volumes.”

The sheriff’s office did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.

Cordell also found evidence to support allegations that Corpus used racist and homophobic language while on the job. In early 2022, Corpus, then a captain in the office, used the N-word twice to describe Bolanos, the sheriff at the time, and, later that year, used “a homophobic slur” to criticize a City Council member.

The report also found that Aenlle – who is still a broker with Coldwell Banker – played “a major role” in securing a lease for a new substation, brokered by his firm, in what Cordell called a clear conflict of interest that Corpus should not have allowed.

Nearly all 318 members of the deputy sheriffs’ union recently held a vote of no confidence in Aenlle, which “attests to the extreme level of discontent with their leadership,” Cordell wrote.

In its resolution calling for a vote of no confidence, the board said Corpus fired Assistant Sheriff Ryan Monaghan in September “in retaliation” for participating in Cordell’s investigation and noted that since she assumed office, at least 106 sworn deputies have quit, half of whom were not yet eligible for retirement.

At a press conference on Tuesday announcing the findings of the report, Supervisor Noelia Corzo called Corpus’ relationship with Aenlle a “clear violation of the county’s nepotism policy.”

Supervisor Ray Mueller said the report shows the sheriff’s office is run like “a good old boy network.”

“It’s just a question of who is now exercising that power over others in a way that demands loyalty at all expenses,” he said.

Mueller said the board will be referring Cordell’s report to the county’s civil grand jury and the District Attorney’s Office, noting that the board doesn’t currently have independent authority to remove the sheriff..

“The Board of Supervisors wants every member of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office to know that your concerns have been heard and we are fully committed to addressing the findings of this independent investigation,” he said.

Both Mueller and Corzo also said they were concerned by Tapia’s arrest.

“While we do not know the facts surrounding the arrest or the merits of the case,” Corzo said, “we know it is highly irregular in San Mateo County for the sheriff’s office to conduct a criminal investigation and arrest a member of their own department.”

Tapia was released Tuesday on a $10,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 9.

Corpus, in a statement, said she stands by Tapia’s arrest and called the county’s report “a hatchet job” that’s full of lies.

In a statement, the San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff’s Association said that Corpus is abusing her power by not referring Tapia’s case to the District Attorney’s Office.