The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department carried out a search at the home of Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl as part of a sweeping corruption probe, according to reports.
Ms Kuehl, who is an outspoken critic of Sheriff Alex Villanueva and has called for his resignation, was escorted away from her Santa Monica home as the raid took place on Wednesday morning, reports The Los Angeles Times.
The warrant stated that the search was linked to a probe into Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit run by Patti Giggans, who is a member of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission.
Ms Giggans is a friend of Ms Kuehl and has also called for the sheriff’s resignation, said the newspaper.
The Sherif’s Department confirmed the searches but would not give any further detail, citing an ongoing investigation.
Ms Kuehl has branded allegations against her as “totally bogus”, saying she “didn’t know anything about the contract”.
Austin Dove, a lawyer for Ms Giggans, told the newspaper: “These are Third World tactics. Vladimir Putin would be impressed.”
Ms Kuel told Fox11 that the search warrant was “signed by a judge who is a friend of the sheriff.”
“There’s no investigation going on that would support this warrant,” she said.
Sheriff Villanueva, who is up for reelection in November, has denied that he is targeting political enemies.
But it is a claim that has been publicly made by Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who denied an invitation to work with LASD on public corruption investigations.
“He’s only targeting political enemies,” Mr Gascon has told the LA Times.
“It was obvious that was not the kind of work I wanted to engage in, so we declined.”
Following the comments, Sheriff Villanueva became a public supporter of the failed campaign to recall Mr Gascon, says the newspaper.
Joshua Ritter, a former prosecutor for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, told The Independent that he was surprised at the early-morning raid, which was carried out in front of TV crews.
“The whole thing reeks of political retaliation. If you’re going to execute a warrant against a sitting county supervisor, especially a person who’s been very adverse to the elected sheriff, you would expect there would have to be something very substantial there, or a lot of people are going to look very bad at the end of this,” said Mr Ritter, who is now a defence attorney in the city.
The Sheriff’s Department can investigate public corruption, and Sheriff Villanueva says he’s recused himself, but that might not be enough from an optics standpoint. If there isn’t something really good that comes out of this search, it won’t justify the political backlash he’s inviting.”