No criminal evidence found in Monterey County Sheriff’s search warrant investigation

The Monterey County District Attorney has cleared the sheriff’s office of any wrongdoing after a deputy was accused of issuing false search warrants.

It’s a story KION broke back in March, but the investigation started in January.

The issue centered around allegations that a supervising detective was writing search warrants that deputies should have worked on.

Though they’ve been cleared of criminal wrongdoing the Sheriffs Office says policy changes could be on their way.

It was an anonymous tip from a sheriff’s deputy that started the major investigation by the Monterey County District Attorney’s office.

Looking into allegations that a deputy was serving invalid search warrants.

“They came in and we gave them access to everything they needed, everything they wanted,” said undersheriff John Mineau.

Twenty-seven search warrants from 2017 were reviewed and 14 current and former staff members interviewed.

Emails between the supervising detective and those who wrote search warrants were also examined.

The sheriff’s office maintained that there was no wrongdoing but is grateful to have the DA’s investigation prove it.

“It’s good when there’s an independent look from the outside, it’s good for transparency it’s good for the public’s trust,” Mineau said.

The investigation didn’t find any ghostwriting of warrants – one of the accusations – but it did find that deputies were using search warrants templates from the supervising detectives. Something the DA and undersheriff say is common practice.

Undersheriff John Mineau says that’s because it helps make sure they don’t forget anything that may need to be searched, like all the attachments to a computer, including cables or flash drives.

“That would become the template to use for the future to make sure that we don’t make any mistakes or leave anything out and it’s very descriptive of all the potential parts that we might need when we’re looking for computer equipment,” Mineau said.

Still, Mineau says the investigation may lead to some policy changes.

“There was some good recommendations from the DA’s office so we’ve already started to work to implement a few changes related informant management,” Mineau said.

The undersheriff says three staff members have already been sent to an updated informant management school.

He says those people are already at work revising sheriff’s office policies to make sure they’re up to modern standards.

PREVIOUS STORY: The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office said no criminal evidence was found in the investigation of a deputy using invalid search warrants.

KION first broke the story regarding the DA’s Office investigating claims made towards the sheriff’s office back in March.

The investigation looked at 27 sheriff’s office search warrants from 2017. Investigators interviewed 14 current and former sheriff’s personnel.

Emails were examined between the supervising detective and subordinates who wrote search warrants.

KION’s Zach Fuentes has the full story at 6p.m.