People v. Moyer
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The Penal Code authorizes but does not require, county sheriffs to issue licenses to carry concealed weapons. The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office rarely issued CCW licenses; the office would not even process a CCW application absent a special instruction Sung, who apparently ran Sheriff Smith’s 2018 re-election campaign and subsequently became the undersheriff, could issue such instructions and could place applications on hold even after licenses were signed by the sheriff. Sung abused that authority to extract favors.
Apple executives, concerned about serious threats, met with Sung, who asked whether they would support Sheriff Smith’s re-election. Apple would not give anything of value in exchange for CCW licenses but two executives personally donated $1,000, the maximum allowable amount, to Smith’s campaign. After the election, the applicants were fingerprinted and completed their firearm range qualification tests. Sheriff Smith signed the CCW licenses but they were not handed over. Although Apple had no program for donating products to law enforcement agencies, after a meeting with Sung, an Apple executive (Moyer) emailed an inquiry about donating iPads or computers to the sheriff’s office's “new training facility,” not mentioning Apple’s pending CCW applications. The Office was not setting up a new training center but asked for 200 iPads, worth $50,0000-$80,000. Apple’s team then received their CCW licenses, Apple terminated the promised donation.
The court of appeal reversed the dismissal of a bribery charge against Moyer. A public official may be bribed with a promise to donate to the official’s office.
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