Did Reporters Conspire With Court Clerk to Illegally Obtain Sealed Warrant? The Record Refuses to Respond.
STOCKTON- Thirteen minutes prior to the Record releasing their own version of events, 209 Times had emailed Record reporter Aaron Leathley to ask if she was aware that according to her neighbors, the very same deputies whom visited her home [around noon on August 30th] first visited a court employee that lives in the very same apartment complex she does?
We asked the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office if these visits have anything to do with embattled SUSD Trustee Angelann Flores’ sealed search warrant that was illegally leaked to the Record last November. Their answer: “This pertains to an ongoing investigation that we are unable to speak on at this time.”
Instead, the Record’s own September 12th article confirmed it was connected. However, the author, Hannah Workman, conspicuously failed to disclose the fact that Aaron Leathley is neighbors with the court employee suspected of illegally leaking a sealed search warrant to her.
In the original Record article written by both Leathley and Workman and published on 11/28 /2023, they state that the search warrant was “unsealed.” We reached out to the Sheriff’s Office to confirm and were told that statement was “misinformation” and that the warrant remained sealed. Further research revealed it was never unsealed as only a judge could unseal it, and not a court employee.
Bottom line Aaron and Hannah should have never been given a copy. The search warrant was sealed because it the investigation was still ongoing into Angelann Flores, which led to evidence of her theft of public funds and insurance fraud. One of the major concerns with Aaron and Hannah publishing details of a sealed search warrant was the fact that they revealed the identities of witnesses who reported Flores to law enforcement as required by law.
It is our opinion that Aaron and Hannah were doing so as a way to interfere with the investigation and help Angelann Flores and her defense attorney Tori Verber Salazar. Both Aaron and Hannah have shown a consistent pattern over the years of favoring Flores in their coverage and attacking anyone who criticized her.
When Flores was raided by deputies in November 2023, 209 Times along with TV stations submitted public records requests for the search warrant. All were denied because it was sealed by a judge. When we asked both Aaron and Hannah to explain how only they “got a call from the court to come pick up the document” they refused to answer.
The Record has thus far refused to answer any questions, including if Aaron and the court employee being neighbors played any role in the judge’s order being violated.
The investigation remains ongoing. Angelann Flores is due in court October 1st for the multiple felonies she was arrested for and charged with.
