OPEN GOVERNMENT: Former Sheriff Had Secret Records Closet

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Dec 14, 2008 | Legal Issue: Open Government | 0 |

The Orange County Register reports that the government's final witness in the public corruption trial of ex-sheriff Mike Carona testified Wednesday that FBI agents removed files on concealed weapons permits and volunteer reserves that were stashed in a "secret closet" in Sheriff's Department headquarters.

FBI Agent Jon Habben said he and other investigators found the hidden room in Carona's old office on May 23, 2008 after they were alerted by then-Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson.
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"I have discovered that inside the closet is a concealed button that activates an electronic latch which opens a secret compartment door that leads to a secondary small room," Anderson wrote in a confidential memo that was obtained by the Register. "Inside this clandestine smaller room is stored two computer towers, two monitors, a keyboard, a power backup unit, and a safe."

About The Editor

Terry Francke, General Counsel

Terry Francke has a 39-year history of helping journalists, citizens and public officials understand and use their First Amendment and open government rights. With CalAware, Francke has authored comprehensive and authoritative guidebooks to California law on access to government meetings and public records and the news gathering and publication rights of journalists. Focusing on these issues in public forum law, he supervises CalAware's legislative and litigation initiatives; conducts workshops on legal compliance; helps design public records audits; supports local sunshine ordinance drafting efforts; writes CalAware Today, a blog on current developments and proposals in the law and best practices; and answers countless queries by phone and e-mail from citizens, journalists, public officials and employees, and lawyers. Francke previously served 14 years as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, after a 10-year post as legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He has served as an advisory panel member to the National Center on Courts and the Media; taught journalism law at the Department of Communication at Stanford University; and served as an expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution. Francke is a 1967 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1979 graduate of McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Prior to his legal career, Francke worked as a weekly newspaper editor and in military and local government public affairs positions.

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