State Attorney General declines to investigate county sheriff’s and DA’s involvement in Batmobile case

Disappointing but not shocking. While Bolanos and Wagstaffe should be ashamed for wasting taxpayer money for personal gain, I unfortunately doubt this is the case.

"your letter…does not allege that the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office committed a crime". Lavrentiy Beria, who was Stalin's right hand man, famously said, "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

California Penal Code 424 makes it a crime for a public officer or a trustee of public funds to misappropriate the funds for improper use. A conviction is a felony punishable by up to four years in jail or prison, fines of up to $10,000, and permanent disqualification from holding public office.

Do Special Assistant Attorney General Michael Redding and County Counsel John Nibbelin know about this part of our law? Of course they do. Even I found it.

Could PC 424 apply to the actions of Carlos Bolanos? Obviously. It's the entire nature of the public outcry against his actions with the Batmobile and using public funds to send our deputies halfway across the country over a contractual dispute involving a donor to Bolanos.

Know that if the police got involved every time, or even ANY time, there was a business dispute between people, it would be completely unsustainable. That's why there are civil courts, for those business people to sue each other. Police are around for crimes, like robbery, rape, murder, assault, etc.

As I said when this started, the request for the state AG to "look at this" was just part of a whitewash. It should not inspire confidence in any of the people involved with this, including the Board of Supervisors.

It's more like an unspoken code between the officials in the San Mateo County government. "We don't ever go against a member of our club – no matter how flagrant the violation."

Not that unlike the "blue wall of silence" in the police departments nationwide.

If Bolanos and Wagstaffe could try to shoehorn the Batmobile issue into a crime in California (and they both did), it's a much smaller leap to apply Penal Code 424 to the actions of Carlos Bolanos AND Stephen Wagstaffe.

Both of them belong behind bars.

While we no longer need to worry about Bolanos we definitely need to remember this case when Wagstaffe runs again and hopefully someone with integrity and a moral compass runs against him. We can add this to his soft stance on felony gun crimes where he is willing to plea bargain a violent felon who used a handgun to commit a violent crime down to mere months in county lockup.
Web Link

I certainly do not feel safer with Wagstaffe as our DA.