Monterey County Sheriff candidate accused of embezzling money for campaign

A Monterey County Sheriff’s deputy running to become the county’s next sheriff is being accused of embezzling money for his campaign.

At a news conference Tuesday, Commander Joe Moses said the purpose of the press conference was to bring to light evidence of potential fiscal mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud, and campaign money laundering by Deputy Sheriff’s Association president Dan Mitchell and former president Scott Davis.

Deputy Scott Davis is running against Sheriff Steve Bernal in the June election. He’s also a current Salinas City Council member.

The Monterey County Deputy Sheriff’s Association has more than 300 members split into units based on whether they were deputies, sergeants, commanders or investigators with the District Attorney’s Office.

Moses, who was on the board representing the commanders and captains (C Unit) said he began asking for financial records several months ago and had not received them. He finally got them through and accountant and found that things didn’t add up.

“What we uncovered in our limited investigation shows over $31,000 of membership dues being laundered into Scott Davis’ campaign fund to pay his campaign manager, Christian Schneider of Pivotal Campaign Services. In addition, there are several questionable donations and reimbursements made on behalf of Scott Davis out of the DSA coffers,” said Commander Moses.

Moses said after more members began asking questions, the board voted to remove the command unit from the union. They still pay dues but have no voting rights.

Davis responded to the accusations saying, “This isn’t about the campaign finances, let’s be honest. This is about a Trump republican who is trying to take out a democrat and someone who is going to win on June 5. If the sheriff had a record that he could run on and like I said before the only thing that he can do is take a page out of the Trump playbook and come at this campaign in that way.”

Moses and other command staff have sent a complaint to the California Fair Political Practices Commission. They would like for them to investigate the records. The commission has ten days to respond. Moses said they are also considering asking another local agency to investigate the claims. He said they would not ask the District Attorney’s Office, since the investigators are represented by the union they are in.

Davis believes the claims are political motivated but welcomed an investigation, saying his campaign records show no mismanagement.

Sheriff Steve Bernal is not a member of the DSA, and has no input in their activities.

“This is strictly a DSA matter between the individual bargaining units inside the DSA. We are concerned with the alleged allegations and will await the outcome of any investigation that may come as a result,” said Sheriff Bernal.