SANTA ANA (CNS) - An Orange County sheriff's sergeant is being accused of breaking the law by deliberately eavesdropping on several of an inmate's calls to his defense attorney, according to a motion filed Wednesday in a drug and weapons case.
Orange County Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who represents Brittany Shahbakhti, filed a motion alleging that Orange County Sheriff's Sgt. Matthew LeFlore listened in on calls made in 2017 between Taylor Camuferguson and his attorney Jon Andersen. Sanders is seeking personnel records for LeFlore in what is known as a Pitchess motion because LeFlore is the lead investigator in Shahbakhti's case.
The county was rocked by a scandal in 2018 when it was discovered that the company providing phone service for jail inmates had been improperly recording what are meant to be confidential phone calls between inmates and their attorneys.
"In 2019, (sheriff's officials) were confronted with compelling evidence that LeFlore repeatedly eavesdropped upon calls between Camuferguson and Anderson, based upon an audit of inmate phone calls to their attorneys that had been accessed by OCSD personnel," Sanders wrote in the motion.
An audit of the phone calls following the scandal "included a log of law enforcement notes about the accessed calls," Sanders said.
Those records showed LeFlore "accessed seven calls to Andersen, and according to his own log entries, listened to five of Camuferguson's calls to Andersen," Sanders wrote.
Sanders said sheriff's officials did not investigate LeFlore, but instead promoted him and assigned him "to the same jail where the eavesdropped calls were made."
Carrie Braun, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department, said, "The department takes any allegation of misconduct seriously. We are reviewing the motion and are committed to investigating, if discovered, any instances of misconduct."
Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney's Office, referred calls to the county counsel's office.
"We don't respond to Pitchess motions," she said. "That is handled by county counsel so you need to contact them as we don't have a role."
According to Sanders, it appears from the calls in question that Andersen suspected LeFlore was listening, as he and his client mocked LeFlore with advisements that it is illegal for law enforcement to listen in on privileged attorney-client conversations. They even personally insult LeFlore on the calls.
Sanders argued that LeFlore retaliated against Camuferguson by resurrecting an investigation of a burglary that led to additional charges for the defendant.
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