CA: Sheriff's cronies indicted for selling CC permits

[ELB]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/06/ ... n-permits/

The indictment marks the first criminal case to come out of a decade’s worth of complaints regarding political favoritism in [Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie] Smith’s issuing of the hard-to-get concealed-carry permits. [Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff] Rosen said Friday that an 18-month investigation uncovered a two-tiered policy for the concealed gun permits: a process for regular citizens whose applications were destined for a filing cabinet, and another for VIPs whose applications were fast-tracked for approval.

A Sheriff's captain, two attorneys, and a "gun parts maker", political supporters of the Sheriff, were indicted on felony charges. The Sheriff herself was not indicted at this time, but the DA said, "We are not done."

The specific scheme covered by the indictments is said to be political donations by executive security company based in Seattle, apparently with clients like Jeff Zuckerberg, in exchange for the security company employees (about 10 or so) getting concealed carry permits. The story says the employees were directed to fill out permit applications with false info indicating they were county residents. No indictments of company yet, but again DA says more charges are coming.

The Sheriff's captain is also charged with falsifying proficiency tests for six other people not related to the security company, including an county supervisor. It seems they were getting renewals without having to complete the required range test.

Santa Clara County issues only about 150 permits per year total.

Lots more at the link, RTWT.

[puma guy]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/06/ ... n-permits/

The indictment marks the first criminal case to come out of a decade’s worth of complaints regarding political favoritism in [Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie] Smith’s issuing of the hard-to-get concealed-carry permits. [Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff] Rosen said Friday that an 18-month investigation uncovered a two-tiered policy for the concealed gun permits: a process for regular citizens whose applications were destined for a filing cabinet, and another for VIPs whose applications were fast-tracked for approval.

A Sheriff's captain, two attorneys, and a "gun parts maker", political supporters of the Sheriff, were indicted on felony charges. The Sheriff herself was not indicted at this time, but the DA said, "We are not done."

The specific scheme covered by the indictments is said to be political donations by executive security company based in Seattle, apparently with clients like Jeff Zuckerberg, in exchange for the security company employees (about 10 or so) getting concealed carry permits. The story says the employees were directed to fill out permit applications with false info indicating they were county residents. No indictments of company yet, but again DA says more charges are coming.

The Sheriff's captain is also charged with falsifying proficiency tests for six other people not related to the security company, including an county supervisor. It seems they were getting renewals without having to complete the required range test.

Santa Clara County issues only about 150 permits per year total.

Lots more at the link, RTWT.

I wonder how much money was involved and why the sheriff hasn't been indicted since her approval is required if I understand the process.

[puma guy]

Who would have thought that graft and corruption would appear with one individual given such authority , latitude and discretion? Oh, wait a minute, the sheriff is elected making her a politician; make sense now.

[strogg]

I'm disappointed it took so long for the hammer to fall. Back when I as a prisoner there, it was a well known thing that you had to be "a heavy donor" to the sheriff to get a CCW in that county. It wasn't exactly a hidden fact. No one seemed to care until recently.

[ELB]

I wonder how much money was involved and why the sheriff hasn't been indicted since her approval is required if I understand the process.

The linked article discusses the money, at least the money that got them indicted. Who knows how much in the previous 20 years.

[Oldgringo]

It's dipocrap controlled Kalifornia, why the surprise? I wonder if Pelosi, Schiff, et al, have CCW permits or if they have taxpayer-funded security guards?

[WildBill]

I wonder how much money was involved and why the sheriff hasn't been indicted since her approval is required if I understand the process.

The linked article discusses the money, at least the money that got them indicted. Who knows how much in the previous 20 years.

I used to live in Santa Clara County and it has been going on for many years.

[Soccerdad1995]

Supposedly NYC is the same way from what I've heard. The well connected get CC permits if they want them. Everyone else has a slim chance at best.

This would all be solved if we mandated that the right to keep and bear arms was no more restricted than other rights, notably the right to vote. Can you imagine the uproar if a county required the sheriff to sign off on all voter registration applications? And especially if most applications were denied? Same for your license to: assemble in a group (for any reason); to protest; or to post on an internet forum. And I would maintain that every single one of the other rights I mentioned is more dangerous than the RKBA if exercised irresponsibly.

The constitution explicitly mandates that the RKBA "shall not be infringed". The other civil rights do not have such an explicit mandate.

[ELB]

The sheriff of Santa Clara county California, Laurie Smith, was removed from office by a judge’s order after being convicted in the civil trial of six counts of corruption.

Since this was a civil trial, not a criminal one, the only penalty was removal from office. She had resigned from office in October to try to short circuit the trial, but the trial continued anyway. She will still receive a pension which may be in the range of a couple hundred thousand dollars.

I have searched but not found any reason for why her trial was conducted in civil court instead of criminal court. There have been a couple other people convicted of criminal charges as part of this overall case, and I believe there are still two of her subordinates awaiting criminal trial.

Giving the benefit of the doubt, I could suppose that a civil case was chosen because the standard of judgment is lower, i.e. preponderance of the evidence versus beyond a reasonable doubt, And possibly they had some trouble actually tying her directly to the bribery-in-return-for-concealed-carry-license.

My cynical side says the civil case was chosen precisely because she would not be penalized anything other than removed from office, and she already had 50 years in law enforcement so she was probably going to retire soon anyway.

Both could be true I suppose.

Interestingly, one of the other articles I read said this all came about because of that shooting on the Google campus a few years ago by a somewhat unhinged vegan woman whose YouTube videos had been demonetized. I believe that was covered somewhere here on the forum when it happened. Her family had been trying to find her, and they had alerted the police that she might be suicidal. She was found by a couple cops who did not know the part about her possibly being suicidal or attempting to harm others, and they let her go because she was an adult (30+ yo) and there was no real crime in progress that they could see. Day or so later she went on the Google campus and killed a couple of three people, including herself.

Somehow one of the local Bay Area media outlets got interested in concealed carry permits because of that shooting incident, and as they dug into it they discovered the pay for play roulette you have to go through to get a concealed carry permit in Santa Clara.

One of the headliners is that the head of Apple security was arrested for bribery when he was trying to get concealed carry permits for his staff, but later this was dismissed. I suspect his case was dismissed because one of the sheriffs subordinates approached him for free iPads for the sheriffs department in return for the concealed carry permits.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/11/29/ ... rie-smith/

[Paladin]

May issue permits have tended to be a boondoggle since NY Sullivan's law in 1911. A law by the criminals, for the criminals.

In Bruen, the USSC recognized that certain states run their May issue permits like Shall issue... "Three States—Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island—have discretionary criteria but appear to operate like “shall issue” jurisdictions." So it is possible, but unlikely, to have a well run May issue permitting system.

[The Annoyed Man]

Another sheriff has been caught doing it.