The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office obtained confidential information and security camera footage from the San Joaquin County Superior Court without consent during their investigation into a clerk who allegedly released sealed court documents to The Record in Stockton, according to a document filed by lawyers in court.
Although the court itself is not considered a party in Pamela Edwards’ felony case, court records show that Erin Hamor and Danielle Potestio of the law firm of Lozano Smith filed an ex-parte motion on Tuesday alleging that the sheriff’s office is using court personnel files and security video without court officials’ knowledge and consent.
The sheriff’s office also failed to protect confidential and sensitive information by not requesting that Edwards’ arrest warrant be sealed, the filing said. The attorneys also noted that the arrest warrant, prepared by sheriff’s Detective Leonardo Cagulada, includes information from the court’s confidential personnel investigation report.
The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office and Jail Entrance at the French Camp.
“The San Joaquin County Superior Court did not provide this confidential personnel information to the sheriff’s office, and it is unclear how such information was obtained by the complainant,” the attorneys wrote. “Second, Ramey’s order contains links to and description of confidential court security camera footage, which the San Joaquin Superior Court also failed to provide to the sheriff’s office or complainant.”
“The public availability of both the confidential personnel information about Defendant’s employment and the confidential court security videos that could jeopardize the security of the court is deeply concerning to the San Joaquin Supreme Court – especially since the court does not have this information has provided or consented to its use.” the lawyers continued.
Lozano Smith regularly represents the state government.
Revelations from the court’s response came to light Wednesday during Edwards’ arraignment in Judge Erin Guy Castillo’s courtroom.
Edwards, 62, faces charges stemming from allegations that she disobeyed a court order. Sheriff’s deputies arrested her on November 13. She is represented by Lodi-based attorney David Wellenbrock.
The sheriff’s office accuses Edwards, who was 27 years old in court, of releasing a copy of the sealed search warrant to the newspaper without consent in November 2023. The warrant was related to a separate criminal case against Stockton Unified School District Trustee AngelAnn Flores.
During the hearing, those in the courtroom heard that Lozano Smith’s attorneys in their Tuesday motion asked Castillo to issue an emergency injunction to seal the arrest warrant in Edwards’ case.
According to the California Judicial Branch, requests for temporary emergency orders are typically made to help prevent imminent danger or irreparable harm to a party in a case.
Castillo briefly left the courtroom at the start of the proceedings to meet privately with Hamor, Wellenbrock and prosecutors. When she returned, the judge granted the request to seal Edwards’ arrest warrant until the continuation of arraignment on January 15, 2025.
Neither the Public Prosecution Service nor the defense objected to Hamor’s request on behalf of the court.
The request appalled Sheriff Patrick Withrow, who lashed out at the court during an unannounced news conference on the courthouse steps after the hearing. Withrow was among those on the stand in the courtroom on Wednesday.
“This is a public record. Never in my entire history in law enforcement or in the district attorney’s office have they heard of this happening,” Withrow said. “We don’t know why this specific case, why the court is trying to hide what happened in this incident. We found that very strange.”
However, the sheriff did not address how his office obtained confidential information from the court or what the court alleges in the request it made.
The San Joaquin County Courthouse is located at 180 E. Weber Avenue in downtown Stockton.
How the newspaper got the Flores warrant
On November 14, 2023, sheriff’s deputies executed search warrants at the Stockton Unified School District headquarters and Flores’ home.
The Record applied to the court for a copy of the search warrant shortly after the raids were carried out.
Court staff notified the newspaper on November 21, 2023 that the documents were available, and two reporters went to the court’s archives department to retrieve them the same day.
As required, reporters paid the court a copying fee for the documents, which is set at 50 cents per page.
A week later, The Record published a story detailing what deputies were looking for when they searched Flores’ home. The information in the story comes from the copy of the warrant provided by court staff.
The sheriff’s office later informed The Record that the warrant was intended to be sealed, but said the copy was accidentally released.
For months, the sheriff’s office said nothing about the search warrant.
But in August, two deputies visited a Record reporter’s home to ask if she had received a cease and desist order regarding the copy of the search warrant.
First Amendment experts raised concerns about law enforcement’s actions. Withrow later said their actions were not inappropriate at all.
Arrest of Stockton Unified school board member
Flores was ultimately arrested in April and charged with felonies for making false claims, embezzlement of funds and grand theft of school fees over $950. She entered a not guilty plea in May and is due back in court on January 8, 2025 for a preliminary hearing.
The trustee’s attorney, former prosecutor Tori Verber Salazar, has said her client is a “victim of political retaliation, and is paying the price for raising her voice in the fight against corruption.”
Verber Salazar said Flores has been working with federal investigators to prosecute those responsible for alleged misconduct in the school district. The charges stem from a $7.3 million district contract that was approved without proper bidding in August 2021 and came under heavy scrutiny by state auditors.
Flores was the lone vote against the contract, approved during the tenure of former Stockton Unified Superintendent John Ramirez Jr. and former Stockton Unified Board President Cecilia Mendez.
District Attorney Ron Freitas announced in April 2023 that a multi-agency investigation along with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice into “all wrongdoing” at Stockton Unified had been underway for several months. Freitas’ office said the investigation was initiated after concerns raised by state auditors.
However, Freitas has repeatedly declined to give the public an update on the status of that investigation, which will soon enter its second year.
As for the criminal case against Edwards, the sheriff said his office’s investigation into how Flores’ search warrant was “leaked” is still ongoing.
San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow attends a multi-agency Operation Boogieman press conference at the Stockton Police Department on October 24, 2024.
San Joaquin County Sheriff threatens to jail reporters
Withrow accused Record reporters who wrote the search warrant article after the hearing of “obtaining their information illegally.”
When a Record reporter asked him to name which reporters he was referring to, Withrow repeatedly said he did not know their names.
It wasn’t the only question Withrow said he didn’t have an answer to.
The sheriff said he did not know why one of his deputies stated that a former Record reporter had received a “cease-and-desist” via email about the court documents the newspaper had obtained.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Withrow said. “I haven’t heard anything about that.”
The Record has asked the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office several times for clarification on the alleged cease and desist order.
“To my knowledge, we have never sent a cease and desist order to any news agency,” Withrow said.
But the sheriff made it clear he would have no problem jailing a reporter.
“We are investigating anyone who may have conspired to break the law in this case, so wherever that takes us, whether it’s journalists or private citizens, whoever,” Withrow said. “We will take action against them if we come forward with evidence to prove it.”
David Loy is legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit organization that advocates for free speech and open and accountable government. He said it is “absolutely inappropriate to insinuate that there is anything illegal” about journalists reporting information from documents obtained while gathering news.
“If a reporter or member of the public legally obtains the document from the government or otherwise is a matter of public interest, then they have an absolute First Amendment right to report on that document and its contents” , Loy said.
“For example, if a reporter goes to the courthouse and says to the clerk, ‘I would like a copy of this affidavit,’ and the clerk gives it to you, the clerk may or may not have made a mistake, but if you have simply asked for it in a lawful manner, openly, and they give it to you. You have the right to report it, even if the court staff made a mistake in giving it to you,” Loy said “Similarly, if a whistleblower you leak a confidential document… then you don’t steal it. You get it from a whistleblower.”
Record reporter Hannah Workman covers news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at hworkman@recordnet.com or on Twitter @byhannahworkman. Support local news and subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared in The Record: San Joaquin Court, sheriff at odds over access to confidential files
