Charges dropped for union official critical of San Mateo Co. Sheriff Christina Corpus

SAN MATEO, Calif. (KGO) -- The San Mateo County District Attorney announced on Monday that he will not file time card fraud charges against a union head who has been highly critical of Sheriff Christina Corpus. Carlos Tapia, the head of the Deputy Sheriff's Association, said a month ago the charges weren't true and that the timing of his arrest was highly suspect.

A little over a month ago, Sheriff Christina Corpus blasted a scathing audit report into her office that alleged abuse of power, intimidation and retaliation, and a personal relationship with her chief of staff.

Corpus said in a November 12 news conference, "I am disgusted at how low these people will go."

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The I-Team has since identified problems with the report including missing pages from an interview transcript and outright mistakes.

"This is a hatchet job of an inquiry which was commissioned with a predetermined outcome in mind," Corpus said.

But on the same day the report came out, Corpus took action against one of her loudest critics, arresting the president of the Deputy Sheriff's Association on charges of time card fraud. Carlos Tapia self-surrendered and kept speaking out. He read a statement at a news conference Monday: "I am grateful to the District Attorney's Office for recognizing these charges for what they were, yet another attempt at retaliation from Sheriff Corpus on our expressed loss of confidence in her administration."

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After a month of investigation, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe has announced he's dropping the case, adding, "So what the sheriff's office had, what the investigator had, it wasn't wrong. It was simply the investigator did not talk to the additional people in their own, his own fiscal team, as well as with the county HR to find out exactly why there were explanations for every one of those hours."

Sheriff Corpus told the I-Team, "I'm disappointed. But I'm not surprised. He has an independent office, and I didn't have to respect his decision. But you know, with the information that I was presented. I felt that we had overwhelming evidence."

Wagstaffe also admits his own inspectors are members of that same union but says he got approval from the Attorney General for them to perform the investigation.

The sheriff tells us she is moving forward with an internal affairs investigation into the Tapia time card issue.

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