Under oath, San Mateo County sheriff takes the stand

“Your honor, this is a hearing where they’re trying to take my job away from me,” Corpus said on the stand. 

Little spent a good amount of the inquisition into Corpus attempting to define her relationship with Victor Aenlle, who was central to the chaos initially raised by personnel last year.

Aenlle was Corpus’ chief of staff, whose official title was executive director of administration, a civilian role on Corpus’ executive team at a similar rank as the assistant sheriffs. Before this role, Aenlle worked as a contract employee on Corpus’ transition team, which was created by the county to help facilitate Corpus’ integration as sheriff during the six months between the election and being sworn in. He also worked on her campaign. 

In September 2024, the Deputy Sheriff’s Association and the Organization of Sheriff’s Sergeants voted no confidence in Aenlle, alleging he was overstepping his role as a civilian leader and leading with an intimidating style. He became a focal point in the raised concerns against Corpus’ administration, and unions repeatedly asked Corpus to remove him from his role and assured that Corpus was not the source of strife. 

However, as months went by and Aenlle remained in his role, tensions grew as did frustrations with Corpus for not responding diligently to the raised concerns. 

In November 2024, the Board of Supervisors abolished the executive director of administration role — which was a new role in the Sheriff’s Office established for Aenlle in particular — due to the consistent complaints made about Aenlle. 

To this day, Aenlle’s photo and biography remains on the office’s website, under the title of chief of staff/executive director of administration, Little said. 

“I’ve been a little busy ma’am,” Corpus said to Little. 

Friendship or more?

The relationship between Corpus and Aenlle — which Corpus said is strictly a friendship — is foundational to the corruption within the Sheriff’s Office, county attorneys worked to establish. 

Corpus’ status as sheriff is political; she had to run for office and win an election to serve. Her personal life is constantly under scope, especially within the Sheriff’s Office, where she and her ex-husband John Kovach worked and were often discussed. 

“I think everyone in the Sheriff’s Office knew we had not a good marriage,” Corpus said. 

The couple divorced in 2023, and retrieved text messages between Corpus and a former employee show that Kovach would yell and demean Corpus. She testified that the two had marital problems long before Corpus decided to run for office. 

Witnesses testified that Kovach was aware of an affair between Corpus and Aenlle.  

Jeffrey Kearnan, who worked on Corpus’ transition team along with Aenlle, testified Monday that he noticed Corpus and Aenlle’s unusual and close relationship. When Kearnan would ask Corpus a question, Aenlle responded on her behalf. Former Undersheriff Chris Hsiung testified he often saw the two sharing meals, and would both be offline at the same time during the day. 

Corpus denies any relationship with Aenlle beyond mere friendship.

Her testimony showed discrepancy in how she responded to concerns of Aenlle compared to those raised of other staff. Her efforts to secure Aenlle’s role in the Sheriff’s Office continue, and contrast to the turnover of other executive level positions. 

Corpus went to continuous lengths to get pay differentials for Aenlle, that were often denied, and defended these requests by stating “when someone does extra work, they deserve compensation,” but that ideal didn’t translate during overtime pay negotiations with union members. 

Although Corpus admitted the agreement for double overtime pay for personnel who worked over nine hours was an attractive deal for retention purposes, she didn’t like the agreement because there were “no rail guards” and it cost too much. 

Corpus admitted that compensating for the abundant overtime deputies were working due to the workforce shortage was valuable, she felt deputies were able to take advantage of the situation and log too many hours. 

Loyalty as a value

Separately, when the deputy and sergeant unions voted no confidence in Aenlle, Corpus said she was indifferent about the declaration of concern regarding someone on her executive team. 

“It didn’t make a difference, because the DSA had no bearing over Mr. Aenlle,” Corpus said. 

Alternatively, Corpus’ rationale to arrest Carlos Tapia, the DSA union president for alleged time card fraud, quickly and without warrant, was because of her duty to efficiently respond to learning about misconduct of an employee, she testified.

“If someone in my organization is committing time card fraud and I did nothing about it and I waited and it was still happening, how would that look to the residents of this county?” Corpus said. 

“I was looking at it from a political perspective,” Corpus said.

Loyalty was a consistent declared value of Corpus, who often spoke about her need to trust her employees, and cited her mistrust as rationale to fire or reprimand staff. 

Rebecca Albin, former captain of the Half Moon Bay bureau, gave Corpus her notice that she was leaving the Sheriff’s Office. Before her final day of work, Albin announced she was leaving her position on a Half Moon Bay community social media page. Corpus felt the post was preemptive and did not allow Corpus enough time to tell Half Moon Bay city staff and council that their contracted captain would soon change. 

Little noted Corpus had at least two weeks to share that information with city officials. 

Corpus then blocked Albin from accessing her work email after the Nextdoor post was made, but before her final day of work. 

“Since she was no longer my employee, she wasn’t thinking about what she would do, how it would affect me,” Corpus said. 

Corpus said she couldn’t know what Albin would do next. 

Coincidences?

When asked about various transfers of personnel and allegations of retaliation against her opponents, Corpus chalked the timing of her staffing changes and terminations she initiated as purely coincidental. 

The same day Sgt. Jimmy Chan was seen on the news attending a rally in support of Measure A — the March ballot measure that ultimately passed, giving the Board of Supervisors the authority to remove an elected sheriff from office — he was transferred to airport patrol. 

Corpus fired former Assistant Sheriff Ryan Monaghan two days after Monaghan informed Corpus he participated in an investigation of her administration, raising concerns of retaliation. 

However, Corpus said was thinking of getting rid of Monaghan before she was made aware of his participation, but kept him on board as a courtesy because of personal problems. 

“I was trying to be a human being,” Corpus said. “And trying to hang on to see if anything was salvageable.” 

Corpus said she no longer trusted Monaghan, but not because he participated in the investigation. 

The arrest of Tapia, ordered by Corpus hours before the investigative report was to be released, was chalked up to coincidence as well. 

During her testimony, Corpus also denied all allegations that she had used ethnic and homophobic slurs. 

In response to the hard evidence presented that Corpus used the term “fuzz bumper” to describe a former Millbrae councilmember, Corpus said she wasn’t aware the word was a derogatory slur against lesbians. 

“I don’t use the urban dictionary,” Corpus said. 

Corpus will continue on the stand tomorrow morning when court returns at 9 a.m. Wednesday Aug. 20.