A candidate for Riverside County sheriff is calling for a civil grand jury probe after a report that at least 25 sheriff’s employees trying to be promoted to investigator cheated on an exam.
In a news release issued Thursday, Feb. 15, Dave Brown said the District Attorney’s Office should review what effect any cheating might have had on criminal convictions in cases involving implicated employees. County counsel also should reaffirm whistleblower protections for deputies and other county employees, said Brown, a former Hemet police chief.
In an emailed response, Sniff called Brown’s news release “more grandstanding and political nonsense by a desperate candidate with a failing campaign trying to gain traction, that really needs to answer for his own scandals and mismanagement as alleged by the recently published claims by one of his former officers involving evidence destruction, rampant officer misconduct, and racism under his own watch as Hemet police chief.”
Sniff was referring to a complaint filed by a former Hemet police officer who alleges officers abused a prisoner, destroyed evidence and used slurs based on race, gender, sexual orientation and physical and mental disabilities. The officer alleged he was forced to resign because of the “illegal activities.”
Sniff continued that Brown’s statement “displays profound inexperience” for voicing “opinions about facts he knows absolutely nothing about.”
“Perhaps the grand jury should look into (Brown’s) prior police agency’s conduct as the grand jury has already reviewed this very issue,” he added.
Brown accused Sniff of trying to deflect from the cheating scandal “by making false claims and allegations,” and defended the Hemet Police Department and his reputation as chief.
“I have simply called for an independent review and protection for sheriff’s employees,” he said. “The public has a right to know if deputies cheated and then got promoted anyway. And if they did, does that compromise the integrity of criminal investigations and convictions? This is a big deal. If there’s nothing to hide, the sheriff should welcome an independent review.”
Sheriff’s Lt. Chad Bianco, the other candidate challenging Sniff in the June 5 election, declined to comment.
Widespread cheating alleged
Brown’s call for a grand jury probe followed revelations — first reported by the Desert Sun newspaper and not disputed by the Sheriff’s Department in a statement to The Press-Enterprise — that sheriff’s personnel cheated on a 2015 investigator exam.
Test questions and answers were widely shared via emails, phone calls, text messages and discreet conversations, according to the report; some deputies said the practice had been so common for years that they didn’t realize it wasn’t allowed.
An internal investigation found that 25 employees tried to cheat, the newspaper reported, citing audio recordings of interviews by internal affairs investigators and agency documents.
Though the test was voided and more than 200 employees had to re-take part of it, no one appears to have been fired as a result of the scandal, and four people who were accused of or admitted to cheating were still promoted to investigator following the 2017 exam, the Desert Sun reported.
“Beyond the scandal itself exist allegations of a cover-up and the eventual promotion of involved deputies with close ties to the Sniff administration,” Brown said. “Even potentially more (disturbing) is evidence of an ongoing culture of intimidation intended to keep the facts from reaching the public.”
Sheriff’s officials did not directly answer questions about how many people were disciplined, what steps the department has taken to prevent further cheating and at what point Sniff learned about the incident.
“This matter was fully investigated and closed back in 2015 with appropriate discipline imposed where supported by sufficient legal evidence,” Sgt. Chris Willison, a sheriff’s spokesman, wrote in an emailed statement. “No charges of dishonesty were sustained or supported by the evidence.”
He said the department “implemented appropriate safeguards” to prevent a recurrence, but declined to provide specifics to minimize the risk of them being breached again.
The department added it “remains confident that only the most qualified individuals will be placed in positions where the law enforcement needs of the residents of Riverside County will be met.”
DA reviewing the issue
The statement also did not address a question about whether the department was concerned that the scandal could cause investigators’ honesty and integrity to be questioned in court.
Regarding Brown’s request for the District Attorney’s Office to get involved, DA’s spokesman John Hall said: “As soon as we became aware of the report, we began to review this matter pursuant to our internal office protocol.
“The District Attorney’s Office takes its ethical obligations seriously and we will continue to monitor this. Since these types of matters are confidential, we are precluded from commenting on any specifics.”
The revelations come as Sniff, who has been sheriff since 2007, faces two well-financed challengers in his bid for another four-year term leading a department with more than 3,000 employees that’s responsible for jails, court security and law enforcement for most the county’s 2.3 million residents.
Brown has the backing of supervisors John Tavaglione and Chuck Washington. In recent Board of Supervisors meetings, Tavaglione has chastised Sniff for not doing more to help the county solve chronic budget shortfalls.
Bianco, who lost to Sniff in 2014, has the support of the Riverside Sheriffs’ Association, the union representing deputies.
February 15, 2018
The Press-Enterprise
By Jeff Horseman
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