A Buena Park man who claims two sheriff’s detectives planted drug evidence against him and stole $4,000 of his money is seeking $30 million in damages from Orange County.
In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, May 2, Ace Kuumealoha Kelly accused Detectives Matthew LeFlore and Arthur Tiscareno of violating his civil rights by trying to frame him on charges of possession of drugs for sale.
Prosecutors dropped the charges after allegations that LeFlore and Tiscareno had the drug evidence switched over to Kelly’s case from other busts.
LeFlore and Tiscareno were previously caught up in an internal sheriff’s audit that found they and other deputies were booking evidence late, if at all. LeFlore is further accused of illegally eavesdropping on attorney-client phone calls from the county jail.
Despite the accusations, LeFlore and Tiscareno were promoted to the rank of sergeant.
“What is amazing about this case is that after the Orange County Sheriff’s Department booking audits showed Matthew LeFlore and Arthur Tiscareno to have engaged in core criminal conduct, such as evidence tampering, evidence planting, framing innocents, seizing evidence like illegal drugs and not booking them into evidence at all, and in falsifying their police reports … they were then promoted,” said Kelly’s attorney, Jerry Steering.
LeFlore has been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 15, 2023. The Sheriff’s Department is prohibited from revealing the conditions of his leave by state law regarding police officer privacy. Tiscareno remains on active duty.
The Sheriff’s Department declined comment on the lawsuit.
Previous court documents and resulting news stories misspelled Kelly’s name, Steering said.
In Kelly’s lawsuit, he alleged that LeFlore and Tiscareno moved large amounts of methamphetamine, fentanyl and black tar heroin from an unrelated case into Kelly’s case.
Kelly was on probation in October 2020, giving LeFlore and Tiscareno the ability to unilaterally search his…
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