SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- There was a sharp exchange between a retired judge and the chief of staff to San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus.
The ABC7 News I-Team has obtained the recording of a two-hour-plus interview, that led to a scathing report and calls for the sheriff to resign.
TIMELINE: San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus investigation
JUDGE CORDELL: "Have you ever given any directives or any kind of orders to Sheriff Corpus?"
VICTOR AENLLE: "What? No."
JUDGE CORDELL: "Just answer. Listen, man, just - "
VICTOR AENLLE: "Okay, (laughing) the answer is 'no.'"
But that recording also raises questions about how the judge carried out her investigation. The I-Team's Dan Noyes compared that recording to the transcript included in a massive report by retired Judge LaDoris Cordell and discovered that she left out 29 pages of the transcript and made one basic, yet very important mistake.
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Before going to work as Sheriff Corpus' chief of staff, Victor Aenlle had a long career in real estate and a private security business. In an interview last month, Aenlle told us once he went to work at the sheriff's office, he stopped those outside jobs.
VICTOR AENLLE: "Everybody knows that when I started the sheriff's office from that first day there, there wasn't any room to breathe. We worked around the clock, seven days a week."
DAN NOYES: "Are you doing outside work now?"
VICTOR AENLLE: "No, I'm not."
That's the same thing he told retired Judge Ladoris Cordell, who was hired to investigate the sheriff's office at the request of County Executive Mike Callagy.
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This was in the recording of the interview from Sept. 25th, obtained exclusively by the ABC7 I-Team.
JUDGE LADORIS CORDELL: "And it's just a very straightforward question: do you have any outside employment?"
VICTOR AENLLE: "No, ma'am."
Aenlle explained he still has his real estate and private investigator licenses, but that the sheriff's office demanded too much of his time to work anywhere else.
VICTOR AENLLE: "And by the time I got my position, I'm basically doing the job of three people here. I stopped doing everything altogether."
JUDGE CORDELL: "Got it."
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Still, in her final report, Judge Cordell concluded that Aenlle broke sheriff's office rules by having "outside employment that has not been approved." She cited his LinkedIn profile that says his real estate and private security careers continue to the present day, and she quoted an anonymous employee who said Aenlle was out showing houses one day this year.
DAN NOYES: "What's your response to that?"
VICTOR AENLLE: "That's absurd. I didn't do any business. So, for her to make those statements, I would have to look at my CV that maybe wasn't updated."
Judge Cordell also concluded that Aenlle had a conflict of interest in negotiating the lease for a new substation and childcare center for employees at this site because of his work for Coldwell Banker, and implied he may have personally profited from the deal.
JUDGE CORDELL: "So, my question to you is did you know that Coldwell Banker was the broker for this lease?"
VICTOR AENLLE: "Ma'am, I don't think that is correct."
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In the report, Judge Cordell clearly confuses two distinct companies. She cites the logo on this letter of intent for the lease, CBRE, and writes, "A Google search revealed ... that 'CBRE' stands for Coldwell Banker Real Estate."
"That's not what CBRE stands for," Aenlle said. "CBRE stands for CB Richard Ellis."
Do your own online search and you'll find that Coldwell Banker, a regional residential and commercial real estate firm, and CB Richard Ellis, a global commercial real estate goliath that's on the Fortune 500, share their beginnings in 1906 San Francisco--but they haven't been associated in decades. In the report, the judge insisted that Aenlle must have known the CBRE broker on the property, even though Aenlle denied it.
JUDGE CORDELL: "And did you know Mr. McSweeney before that walk-through?"
VICTOR AENLLE: "I've never met Mr. McSweeney before in my life before that day."
JUDGE CORDELL: "OK."
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The judge never bothered to contact the broker from CBRE, Bob McSweeney. Noyes texted him, and McSweeney quickly confirmed, "Totally different companies. Do not know Victor."
Aenlle told us, "I wish there were more steps that were taken to verify some information, because I feel that even the agent involved got kind of smeared on this one a little bit."
Dan Noyes emailed Judge Cordell several times about those mistakes. She's usually responsive when we contact her, but not this time. The bottom line is that the Board of Supervisors--and the public, for that matter--made decisions about the sheriff and her chief of staff on sometimes faulty or incomplete information.
In that 400-page final report, Judge Cordell omitted pages from the interview transcript at various points--29 missing pages in all. It might be a coincidence, but the missing pages --that the supervisors and the public never saw--include some of Aenlle's strongest denials.
Page 49 is missing, but here's the recording:
Aenlle told the judge, "And just for the record, ma'am, I guess I want to make sure that it isn't misunderstood: I never in any capacity or by myself, and I've never benefited from any, any deals or been representing myself as a broker or an agent at all whatsoever."
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Judge Cordell also concluded that Aenlle and the sheriff may have committed a misdemeanor crime because of his gold badge with "Chief of Staff" rocker "allowing him to impersonate a full-time, salaried sworn employee with full police powers."
You won't find most of Aenlle's response in the report because of missing pages, but here's the recording:
JUDGE CORDELL: "Does your gold badge look like the badges of a sworn personnel?"
VICTOR AENLLE: "Can I bring a little bit more clarity into this?"
JUDGE CORDELL: "Please."
VICTOR AENLLE: "So, all sworn personnel and civilian staff have gold badges."
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It's true that the civilian director of the forensics lab has a gold sheriff's badge. Volunteer reserve deputies have them, as do the volunteer air squadron at San Carlos Airport. One photo shows former sheriffs Greg Munks and Carlos Bolanos in the middle. Aenlle has also been a sworn reserve deputy in the department for 17 years.
"She should have checked," Aenlle said. "You know, she took the word of disgruntled employees and that's it, and no verification."
Aenlle tells us Cordell did not ask for his police training and qualification records. The I-Team obtained them in two days by filing a Public Records Act request.
In the Cordell report, you also won't read what Aenlle told the judge about improvements he made to the new sheriff's headquarters: "The sheriff wanted me to look at the plans of the building, because nobody's ever looked at them."
The transcript is missing, but we have the recording. Aenlle was shocked to find a terrible lack of security at the building -- no key card readers, no cameras, no safety doors or metal detectors.
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VICTOR AENLLE: "We had to add an additional $750,000 of security features to the building in order to make it safe for the employees."
JUDGE CORDELL: "And that's only because you spotted it and brought it to their attention."
VICTOR AENLLE: "Yes, ma'am. I'm not here to toot my own horn. But yes, that is, I know construction, and it was missing, and it was an oversight."
Given the problems in her report, the I-Team has emailed Judge Cordell, all the supervisors, and the county executive, asking if they would correct the record, file an addendum to the report and do interviews with us. We'll keep you updated on their response.