Orange County prosecutors have dropped a felony drug case in the aftermath of defense allegations that embattled sheriff’s Sgt. Matthew LeFlore and his partner planted evidence.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office dropped charges of possession for sale against defendant Ace Kelley after his attorney alleged LeFlore and Sgt. Arthur Tiscareno moved nearly 18 grams of methamphetamine from an unrelated case into Kelley’s case.
Deputy Public Defender Tammy Nguyen said the charges against Kelley were dismissed because the deputies manipulated evidence and got caught.
“If officers hide the truth about how they handled evidence, they shouldn’t be officers,” Nguyen said. “The dismissal is a relief for Mr. Kelly, but it’s reasonable to ask how many other times this has happened without the defendant ever finding out.”
The allegations of planting evidence have been cited in another drug case to support requests by attorneys to obtain the findings of a reported sheriff’s internal affairs investigation into LeFlore.
Sheriff’s spokesperson Carrie Braun would not comment on the Kelley case, other than to say LeFlore remains on active duty. Braun said police privacy laws prevent her from confirming whether LeFlore is the target of an internal affairs probe.
The District Attorney’s Office did not immediately comment on the case.
Meanwhile, LeFlore also faces highly publicized allegations of illegally eavesdropping on attorney-client phone calls from the jail.
Nguyen’s accusations add new light to a 2019 evidence scandal in which sheriff’s deputies were routinely booking evidence late and sometimes not at all, a problem that department officials have said has been corrected.
In the Kelley case, LeFlore wrote in a police report dated Oct. 20, 2020, that he collected and booked methamphetamine that he said was seized from Kelley’s motel room in Buena Park. LeFlore and Tiscareno had the room under surveillance and conducted a probation…
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