CURRENT AND FORMER EMPLOYEES of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office testified to mismanagement and what they perceived as retaliation in hearings that could end in the removal of Sheriff Christina Corpus.
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is seeking to remove the elected sheriff. The first week of hearings that ended Friday is one of the final stages in ousting Corpus, giving her the opportunity to address allegations against her.
The hearings were spurred by Corpus’ move to appeal the board’s unanimous decision to strip her of office in June. The board won authority to act after voters approved a charter amendment in March’s special election.
Corpus, the first woman to serve as the county’s sheriff, has defied calls to resign after the release of a scathing, 400-page report by retired judge LaDoris Cordell. The investigation concluded that Corpus had an inappropriate relationship with her chief of staff, Victor Aenlle, and fostered a culture of intimidation and retaliation in the Sheriff’s Office.
Several former Sheriff’s Office employees were called to testify, including former acting Assistant Sheriff Matthew Fox, former Capt. Brian Philip, Lt. Jonathan Sebring, Sgt. Joseph Fava, and Lt. Dan Reynolds.
Some of the witnesses spoke about alleged retaliation against them from Corpus, as well as how turnover and transfer rates within the office have hurt the operations of certain units.
Fox delivered emotional testimony explaining his decision to resign two days after the release of the Cordell report.
Initially dismissing the report as “just kind of a hit piece,” Fox said he began to question whether the accusations in Cordell’s report could be true after reading it in its entirety.
One allegation in the report that stood out was that Victor Aenlle unlawfully possessed suppressed rifles — weapons with silencers — which he was not authorized to have as a non-sworn officer.
“I started to kind of go through it and I started to wonder, ‘Is this really true?’” Fox said.
Philip, Sebring, Fava and Reynolds all worked in the Professional Standards Bureau. PSB is a unit in the Sheriff’s Office that conducts internal investigations and background checks for recruitment.
They testified on Friday regarding allegations of retribution from Corpus’ executive team, and the disarray that continues in PSB as a result of turnover rates and transfers.
Ordered arrest without warrant
Philip testified that he was ordered to arrest Carlos Tapia, the president of the San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff’s Association union and an outspoken critic of the sheriff, without a warrant. Corpus directed the arrest, citing suspicion of timecard fraud.
When he for information on the basis of the arrest, Undersheriff Dan Perea declined to provide documentation.
“I asked him for a statement of facts to support probable cause. I asked him for a police report. I asked him for a felony affidavit,” Philip recalled. “I asked him for an arrest warrant. I asked him for some kind of evidence to support the arrest of Carlos Tapia for two felony charges.”
Philip said Perea responded, “You’ll have none of that.”
“He said that if I didn’t arrest Carlos Tapia, we’d be back in the office in 10 minutes to discuss my insubordination,” according to Philip.
Philip refused to arrest Tapia.
“Then I realized my choices were to resign,” Philip said while choking up. “I unclipped my badge, slid it across the table, with the other option being violating someone’s civil rights. That’s not what I signed up for.”
Philip has filed a lawsuit against the county alleging whistleblower retaliation.
Another PSB employee who left the unit was Sebring. He believes that he faced retaliation for investigating Aenlle’s background and telling an employee that she could file an HR complaint about Aenlle.
Jenna McAlpin, a former manager in the records department of the Sheriff’s Office, testified on Wednesday that Aenlle came to her office and accused her of running an active Instagram account that contained denigrating posts about Corpus and Aenlle.
“After he left, I was crying so hard that someone went and got Lt. Sebring, and I had told him what happened,” McAlpin said in her testimony.
Sebring then told McAlpin that she should file a complaint with HR.
Two months after, Corpus ordered Sebring to transfer to the Sheriff’s Office’s Corrections Division, which operates the jails. He viewed it as retaliation for suggesting that Aenlle mistreated McAlpin, since members of the Sheriff’s Office members view it as less desirable.
“I believed that it played a key role in my transfer,” Sebring said.
Investigations pile up at PSB
Fava and Reynolds, who worked together at PSB, testified that the recent volume of transfers and turnover in the PSB has caused delays in processing and investigating complaints of misconduct within the Sheriff’s Office.
“Constant turnover, no structure at the executive level, and the sheriff and undersheriff not making decisions,” Fava said while describing the state of the PSB.
Fava and Reynolds discussed several instances in which investigations of potential misconduct were delayed or not acted upon with the standard measures.
One of them involved a group of corrections officers that allegedly tackled an unarmed inmate at one of the county’s jails in August 2024.
When reviewing body camera footage, Fava observed that one of the corrections officers used excessive force by placing his hand and forearm across the neck of the inmate.
After initiating his preliminary inquiry in January, Fava sent a memorandum to Reynolds, recommending that the corrections officer be dismissed immediately since they were a probationary employee. Reynolds agreed with Fava’s recommendation.
According to Fava and Reynolds, Corpus never acted on the recommendation and the officer continued his employment.
“She didn’t make decisions in a timely manner,” Reynolds said.
Last month, Corpus put Fava on administrative leave, which drew more allegations of retaliation since he was listed as a key witness for the county’s attorneys.
With a skeletal PSB following the transfer of one sergeant, one captain, and the departure of two lieutenants and two assistant sheriffs, the unit is suffering from a backlog of pending investigations and delayed decision-making.
Last month, Reynolds decided to leave PSB due to the mismanagement and disorder.
“I had a moral problem with the way the sheriff was running the PSB,” he said. “The way PSB was being run didn’t align with my values.”
The hearing is expected to conclude next Friday, Aug. 29.