The State of Laurie Smith’s Internal Affairs

Recently the Mercury News launched a large scale piece covering the sexual harassment of a former Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Brady and the subsequent interference in the Internal Affairs case against the accused, then Assistant Sheriff Laurie Smith.

Let’s set aside the sexual harassment charge, because there are disputes as to whether or not it happened. I assume it did, but I won’t make that the gist of this piece. What will be the focus is the fact that Laurie took evidence and interfered with the ability to successfully conduct an Internal Affairs investigation where she was the accused. Why? Because she admitted to this conduct to the media. She’s changed her story a couple of times, but she admitted that she took evidence.

There is a far larger impact to this case – evidence in an investigation, internal or otherwise, is legally sacrosanct and not interfering with evidence is the first rule of law enforcement.

There has been more than one case that Smith has interfered, ignored or significantly mitigated or exacerbated the result of internal affairs investigations for appears to be either personal gain or personal vengeance. We saw her repeatedly illegally release information in the investigations of Donald Morrissey and Lance Scimeca to numerous entities, both private and in them media. Regardless of your personal belief on the outcomes and what should or should not have happened in them, both saw the investigations violated by the very person who was elected to hold the fairness and trust of law enforcement in the palm of her hand and make sure justice can make a blind and fair assessment.

Another case is the investigation of her former PIO. As a deputy, he was investigated and found guilty of a fireable offense, filing false paperwork in order to cover up he was not doing his job while on duty. A handful of years later he has since been her Public Information Officer, and been promoted to sergeant and he is currently a lieutenant.

You may not be a fan of law enforcement and say so what in response to all this, but an investigation is an investigation. It doesn’t stretch the memory to recall the recently done Mercury News story on Joshua Klaver where Smith was accused of helping interfere with the investigation into a deputy who had been found guilty of abusing his son, subsequently resulting in the child’s suicide. You would think a deputy accused of such abuse would be immediately put on administrative leave until the issue was cleared. We saw that appropriate actions were not taken. Smith has spent decades swinging Joshua’s mother at the end of a pendulum based on Smith’s political and personal agenda at any given time. To this date she refuses to release records to the family telling them the case is “still open” even assigning the case to a detective and claiming he is still conducting an active investigation to this very day, while at the same time telling others the case is closed and resolved to it’s best possible conclusion. The sheer depth of time the sheriff has invested into manipulating the Klaver case rather than offering any real conclusion to a grieving mother is disturbing.

But it doesn’t stop there. Joshua’s case, like the current case of former Deputy Brady, shows the sheriff’s corrupt actions have been long standing from the beginning of her climb to power. Today we can still see efforts to interfere in cases involving the public for her political benefit, her friend’s benefit, her internal benefit, all in an attempt to cling to power she has severely abused over the years.

The case of Audrie Pott where now Assistant Sheriff Binder sent a School Resource Officer to write citations for bullying after the sexual assault and subsequent suicide of Audrie. This would have effectively ended the investigation into the perpetrator’s crimes if deputies at West Valley hadn’t found out that Binder had completely circumvented the entire chain of command to write this case off with citations. Deputies stepped up to demand an investigation happen. As it was, evidence was lost and the suspects, at least one of which had a father who was friends with the sheriff, saw insignificant sentences for their actions because the lack of evidence that would have allowed harsher sentencing.

There’s the case of Sierra La Mar where the sheriff was more interested in saving money, telling the media even after her clothing had been found, that the case was still being treated as if she was a runaway. She the refused to work with other organizations in a timely manner to try to find Sierra, who to this day remains missing and believed dead.

There is case after case of willful interference or negligent disregard for the investigative process that we can currently name – the fact she was removed from the Medical Examiner’s office after accusations by Dr. Michelle Jorden of interfering with their cases, the De Anza rape case are another couple that come to mind off hand.

While you may be shrugging off a case that is 25 years old, or an act of sexual aggression and retribution that you don’t believe happened, believe that the sheriff, by her own admission, interfered with the evidence.

As the saying goes, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.