Liccardo calls on Sheriff Smith to resign over allegations of prison mismanagement and corruption scandals

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San José Mayor Sam Liccardo on Monday called for the resignation of Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith over allegations of prison mismanagement, lack of transparency and accountability, as well as several bribery scandals. of wine and corruption.

Liccardo joins a long list of local leaders who have criticized Smith.

Days before Liccardo’s announcement, county supervisors Joe Simitian and Otto Lee called for an investigation into the sheriff’s office following millions of dollars in payments to settle litigation related to the injuries of men detained in the county.

“The prison has been the scene of a series of tragic and costly incidents, sometimes without explanation and without apparent responsibility,” reads a note from Simitian and Lee. “The answers are scarce. And in the absence of greater transparency, the question of possible political influence arises.”

Simitian and Lee also asked the California attorney general to investigate Smith’s leadership – an appeal Liccardo agreed with.

“And I think it’s probably not a bad idea, frankly, for the American lawyer to take a look at it,” Liccardo said.

The pair of supervisors in their memo also called on the county to release all documents and video footage relating to the case of Andrew Hogan – a mentally ill inmate who suffered a head injury in August 2018 while being transferred from Elmwood Correctional Institution to San Jose Main Jail, a five mile trip.

He was in psychiatric distress when he was placed in the back of a standard Sheriff’s Office van.

His arms and legs were held in chains but he was not strapped to his seat, which allowed him to bang his head against the metal grill until he lost consciousness, according to the Simitian memo / Lee.

Hogan was then left in the van with his head bleeding for a while before being transferred to hospital.

He was rendered unable to take care of himself because of the brain injury, and the county settled with Mr Hogan and his family for $ 10 million.

A similar incident also occurred a year later in the case of Martin Nunez, who struck head first into the metal door of his cell and injured his cervical spine while in psychiatric distress. .

In Nunez’s lawsuit against County, which is still pending, he details that he was left in his cell for an “extended period” and then roughly moved by correctional officers, which made his spine injuries worse. vertebral.

And in 2015, mentally ill Michael Tyree was beaten to death by three correctional officers while spending the night in the county jail. The officers were convicted, and the county settled his family’s excessive force claims for $ 3.6 million.

In addition to the money spent on the settlements, Liccardo pointed to the nearly $ 450 million invested by the county to improve detention conditions.

“The repeated mismanagement of the prison by Sheriff Smith, especially as witnessed by the horrific incidents of recent years, has destroyed lives and violated most basic civil rights,” Liccardo said. “It’s a huge amount of resources, a huge amount of time, taxpayer money, that is being invested in investigating a series of leadership failures by this sheriff.”

Liccardo also pointed to Smith’s troubling warrant that required officers from different police departments to turn off body-worn cameras when some people were taken into custody.

“After repeated objections from local police chiefs, the sheriff finally suspended this warrant in June of this year,” said the mayor of South Bay.

He also highlighted two scandals: a criminal corruption investigation that led to indictments of Smith’s top aides and campaign fundraising and a pay-to-play scandal involving $ 300,000 in union contributions for re-election. by Smith in 2018.

Smith has invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, refusing to cooperate with the grand jury’s investigation of his own staff into corruption charges related to his re-election.

“When the county’s top law enforcement official refuses to cooperate with a bribery investigation for fear of self-incrimination, the time for worry is long past – Sheriff Smith must resign,” Liccardo said in a statement. communicated.

He continued that Smith, who had been sheriff for 23 years, “would be doing the public a great service by simply resigning,” and hopes other local leaders will join him in the call.

The sheriff did not respond to a request for comment from Bay City News Service, but is holding a press conference Tuesday morning to comment on the Simitian / Lee memo and provide “an update on accuracy,” according to a statement from press sent Monday afternoon.

County supervisors will vote on Tuesday on whether to move forward with an investigation into the sheriff’s office and release documents related to Hogan’s case. The Supervisory Board meeting will start at 9:30 a.m. and can be watched live on the County Meeting Agenda portal, YouTube page, or via Zoom at https://sccgov-org.zoom.us/j / 96612349693 or (669) 900 -6833, Meeting ID 96612349693 # (Participant ID not required).

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