The sordid sage of a pay-to-play scandal in Santa Clara County, California involving rarely-issued carry permits and tens of thousands of dollars in cash and prizes “gifted” to the sheriff’s department and a campaign to re-elect the former sheriff has taken yet another strange turn, with one top deputy acquitted on bribery charges and another given a reprieve through a mistrial.
Former Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith resigned her position shortly before she was convicted on corruption charges during a civil trial back in 2022, and former Sheriff’s Capt. Rick Jensen was sentenced to 10 months in jail last December after he was convicted of similar charges during a criminal trial last July.
In the last round of legal proceedings related to the pay-to-play scandal, Jensen, former undersheriff Rick Sung, and Apple security executive Thomas Moyer were accused of brokering a deal where Moyer would give thousands of dollars in Apple products to the department in exchange for a number of carry permits for members of Apple’s security team. Despite the previous convictions in the scandal, both Moyer and Jensen were acquitted by a California jury on Wednesday, while a mistrial was declared in Sung’s case after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous decision.
Moyer initially got his bribery charges dismissed by a Superior Court judge, but they were reinstated by the Sixth District Court of Appeal after the district attorney’s office objected. His attorneys, Ed Swanson and Mary McNamara, said after the verdict that the earlier dismissal should have been a sign to prosecutors about the strength of the criminal case.
“One of the most extraordinary things about this case is that it was already thrown out once,” Swanson said. “We think that should have been a clear signal to the prosecution that they had it wrong, but they persisted and they shouldn’t have, and the jury brought this to an end.”
Moyer and his attorneys had long argued that no bribery motive existed because the permits eventually issued to four Apple security employees in early 2019 had already been approved by the sheriff’s office by the time he proposed donating 200 iPads to the agency’s training division. In the criminal indictment, Sung and Jensen were accused of holding up those permits to procure what would eventually become the proposed donation.
“Thomas had five years of utter hell,” McNamara said Wednesday. “The case never looked like a bribe, this was a corporate donation. That’s what made this incomprehensible as a case to us.”
I’ll respect the jury’s not-guilty finding, but the reason why prosecutors pursued charges against the trio is pretty simple: there really was a pay-to-play system in place at the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, with “VIPs” getting approved while average, everyday citizens had their applications stuck in a drawer and forgotten about. And at least some of those ‘VIPs” received their permits after hefty donations to a nominally independent group supporting Smith’s re-election bid, or after giving items of value to the sheriff and/or the department itself. Moyer may not have engaged in bribery, but that doesn’t mean that bribery wasn’t taking place.
In a statement, the district attorney’s office pointed to the multiple convictions it has secured to convey the strength of its wide-ranging CCW corruption probe.
“We respect the jury’s determination,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “We remain proud of our office’s investigation because it resulted in several related convictions as well as improvements at the Sheriff’s Office and in how concealed firearms permits are handled. We remain committed to rooting out this type of corruption wherever it may lie.”
Sung’s attorney Chuck Smith took satisfaction in the fact that seven of the 12 jurors sought to acquit his client before they deadlocked on his charges.
“I would have preferred an acquittal, but out of 36 votes, the defense got 31,” Smith said. “We’re very happy that most of the people concluded Rick Sung did not commit a crime. I hope the DA decides not to retry it.”
Regarding Sung’s prosecution, Rosen’s office said: “We are reviewing our options.”
After Moyer and Jensen’s acquittal, I’d be surprised if Rosen decides to try Sung a second time. Unless some new evidence emerges, there simply might not be enough damning information to convince twelve jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Sung sought to withhold the permits for Apple security staffers until Moyer came through with a “donation” of a couple hundred iPads.
Rosen’s correct that the investigation into the sheriff’s department did lead to several convictions, but I’d dispute his statement about the investigation leading to “improvements” in how carry permits are issued in Santa Clara County. It was the Bruen decision that ended Santa Clara County’s “may issue” permitting regime, and the county is still facing a potential lawsuit from the California Rifle & Pistol Association over the four-figure cost to obtain a carry permit under the “shall issue” system that’s now in place.
The sheriff’s department is still making it as difficult as possible to obtain a carry permit, and folks are still having to fork over large amounts of cash in order to legally carry a gun. The only significant difference is that the hundreds of dollars in fees and associated costs are now sanctioned by county officials, and the money gun owners have to cough up is going to the county’s coffers and not a group bolstering Smith’s re-election campaign. The pay-to-play scandal may be over, but the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department is still placing outrageous demands on those seeking to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
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