Cop Notes: Effably Ineffable

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, Aug 2, 2022.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Cop Notes: Redwood City to Logansport

    Are you ready?

    So: Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, of San Mateo County, California, sent four agents—a lieutenant, a sergeant, and two deputies—to Logansport, Indiana, where they raided a garage called Fiberglass Freaks because his friend, a real estate agent, was upset about his Batmobile delivery date being bumped after he missed a payment.

    Anagnostou filed a complaint with Atherton police, but last September, the San Mateo County District Attorney declined to bring criminal charges at this time, according to a letter to the Batmobile builder.

    Anagnostou also filed a lawsuit in San Mateo Superior County Court, alleging Breach of Contract and Fraud, but this past March, a judge dismissed the case saying Indiana is the proper venue.

    Then, sources inside the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department tell the I-Team's Dan Noyes that the realtor asked his Facebook friend, Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, to intervene. He sent a lieutenant, sergeant and two deputies to Indiana; they raided Fiberglass Freaks last week -- July 19.

    Mark Racop tells us, "Then, they showed the warrant saying that they were here to seize anything to do with his car. So I thought, 'Oh, they're coming in to pick up his car,' which is right behind me, by the way. I thought I was gonna have to move my other Batmobiles out of the way to be able to let them take this car."

    But investigators took only two files of documents, according to the Search Warrant Return. Racop says they read his Miranda Rights, brought him to the local jail for an hour, but let him go. He only later found out they got a warrant for his Gmail, contacts and photos; that they froze his bank account; and charged him in California with two felonies -- Obtaining Money by False Pretenses, and Diversion of Construction Funds.


    (Noyes↱)

    KGO reporters also asked a former federal prosecutor for an analysis: "I just can't imagine why it's in criminal court," Tony Brass told them. "It shocks me that it's in criminal court."

    He says this squabble over a luxury item, the Batmobile, belongs in Indiana civil court - with no involvement by the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department.

    "It simply defies reason, in my view, why so many people, so many high-ranking members of law enforcement, would have to go and enforce something so unnecessary? And so trivial?"

    Sheriff Bolanos was not taking calls from KGO reporters, and was out of town on vacation. Anagnostou's attorney did not wish to comment to reporters at the time, but claimed his client will sit down for an interview after returning to the United States. Meanwhile, Racop is expected in San Mateo County, later this month, for a court appearance to answer the charges brought by an outgoing sheriff who lost an election. Deputy District Attorney Marie McLaughlin says "additional investigation" is why "the detectives were able to obtain search warrants and obtain additional evidence", but did not say what that means:

    McLaughlin would not discuss that additional evidence or the sheriff's unusual step of sending four investigators across the country, for what Racop argues is a simple business dispute.

    Noyes: "After the case went nowhere with the first criminal case, the civil case, is the sheriff stepping in for a friend here?"

    McLaughlin: "I can't speak to that, I have no knowledge about what relationship if any the sheriff has with the victim."

    At some point, it feels unbelievable: McLaughlin brought charges after saying she would not, according to unknown evidence, and without being aware of how the whole case came to be.

    Still, these are police, and San Mateo is what passes for a small county in California, pressed between Santa Clara County (San Jose) to the southeast, San Francisco to the north, and water on two sides. It remains unclear how the warrants work, or why California county sheriffs were allowed to cuff and read someone in Indiana. KGO notes Racop was taken to a local jail, but let go after an hour. That part of discovery ought to be interesting; the record of how Indiana cops cooperated or not with the San Mateo team seems nearly certain to embarrass someone, but an hour is a pretty short stay.

    Or, as the cartoonist observed↱, "wild story about apparent abuse of power, once you get past the novelty of the Batmobile replica business". As Noyes describes his discussion with Deputy DA McLaughlin, when he asked, "What changed?" her response was, "Additional investigation, the detectives were able to obtain search warrants and obtain addtional evidence." Even changing the punctuation leaves us with a strangely vague answer: What changed? "Additional investigation. The detectives were able to obtain search warrants and obtain additional evidence." There is nothing that says the "addtional evidence" actually justified the warrants; no matter how we mark it up, there is nothing about her formulation that excludes the prospect of the "additional evidence" being simply the harvest of their warrants, having nothing to do with justifying the warrants, and not really having any useful application to the question at hand.

    If Racop has committed a crime, then, like the civil matter, it is a question for Indiana. If California thinks Indiana is failing to address the issue, San Mateo County can go through the federal court in Indiana. And that's what makes this whole thing seem so strange. Well, that and the bit about the Batmobile. It's just, prima facie, San Mateo County is way out of line. Whatever they have must be spectacular, or, at least, it probably needs to be. We might think, given the way this all looks, California prosecutors might have a little more to say about what they think they're doing. But it feels like a precarious lack of confidence, and the Logansport raid is just bizarre.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    @tomtomorrow. "wild story about apparent abuse of power, once you get past the novelty of the Batmobile replica business". Twitter. 2 August 2022. Twitter.com. 2 August 2022. https://bit.ly/3d3RCi0

    Noyes, Dan. "EXCLUSIVE: NorCal sheriff orders raid on Indiana Batmobile garage, allegedly as favor for friend". ABC 7 News. 29 July 2022. ABC7News.com. 2 August 2022. https://abc7ne.ws/3zO99nw
     

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