By Frank Gayaldo
April 16,2017
San Joaquin County-Tori Verber-Salazar’s March 28th “oddly written letter” purports it is only “of concern” but not illegal that evidence guns of “unknown histories and origins” were stripped and sold to Adamson Police Supply in Hayward, California and then purchased by select deputies including Sheriff Moore at unspecified “substantial discounts”.
Sheriff Moore flatly denies ever selling evidence guns in his April 28, 2016 KCRA 3 interview with Melinda Meza. All attempts so far to reconcile Moore’s statements with the DA’s initial findings (who still hasn’t issued a “final report” so Moore says he won’t answer questions) has proven futile.
209 Times has now unearthed new documents from the County strongly suggesting the District Attorney’s Office was anything but a “disinterested third party” as Sheriff Moore claimed.
Here is a sample of documents proving that the District Attorney’s Office was also conducting business with Adamson Police Supply in Hayward, and that they too were receiving unspecified “substantial discounts”, in this instance on some body armor.
David Derksen (who replaced Chief Investigator Kenneth Melgoza who allegedly recused himself from investigating GunGate on at least two occasions) is referenced in one of Adamson’s invoices dated July 25, 2014. Almost exactly one year later on July 30, 2015, Derksen would be assigned to interview Sheriff Moore about GunGate. One of the Kevlar vests mentioned in the invoice was for “J Rocha”, who is the District Attorney’s Investigator who interviewed me on 1/27/2016 about Adamson Police Supply and the Sheriff.
In that interview Rocha never disclosed to me the District Attorney’s own apparent practice of receiving “discounts” from Adamson Police Supply in Hayward, or that former DA Chief Investigator Kenneth Melgoza allegedly recused himself from the investigation on at least two occasions. (If he had, I would have not shared with him my documentation but instead went directly to the State Attorney General’s Office to file a complaint regarding a clear conflict of interest.)
Not Sheriff Steve Moore nor DA Tori Verber Salazar have yet to answer if a sheriff employee recently arrested in part for having alleged ties to the Northside Gangster Crips obtained any of the evidence guns such as Uzis that Sheriff Moore once claimed he never sold.
While questions about GunGate continues to linger and expand amongst the public, it appears that the San Joaquin County Sheriff and District Attorney could have a new friend with the ATF, which has failed to act in another case recently:
“ATF believed education is the most effective way to stop the growing trend of law enforcement officials engaging in the business of unlicensed firearms dealings,” Harden said in the advisory. “It is our goal to educate, not investigate, to ensure law enforcement officials comply with federal law in order to avoid unnecessary public embarrassment to themselves and your Department/Agency.”
Meanwhile guns that were supposed to destroyed by law enforcement are showing up back on the street and the public is waiting for real answers.
Comments 1
I would like a list of the names of all of the privileged Deputies and Law Enforcement who were offered the discounted deals of purchasing these evidence firearms.