Couple arrested during search for SLO police chief’s gun request her phone records in court
The phone records of San Luis Obispo police chief Deanna Cantrell and city police officers are part of a legal motion to subpoena evidence in the case involving a local couple charged with felony child endangerment charges related to the bizarre turn of events on the day the chief lost her gun.
The attorneys for couple Cheyne Orndoff and Vanessa Bedroni, who have pleaded not guilty to child endangerment, submitted the request Tuesday in Judge Tim Covello’s court.
The records could reveal the nature of communications made by the chief and officers around the time of the search of the couple’s home just outside of the SLO city limits on July 10, a search defense attorneys believe was improper.
Bedroni’s lawyer, Peter Depew, also requested the judge authorize a re-test of Bedroni’s urine sample.
It’s unclear what specifically Bedroni’s urine sample found in relation to the case, which was not clarified in court Tuesday.
The phone records for Cantrell and officers involved in the arrest of Orndoff and Bedroni, as well as Bedroni’s urine test, will be considered by Covello at a hearing on Sept. 5.
SLO city attorney Christine Dietrick told The Tribune the city is opposing the scope of the phone record request, saying that sensitive information might exist on the devices of police personnel, and privacy concerns are at issue, as well.
SLO contract attorney Roy Hanley will argue those issues in court at the Sept. 5 hearing, according to Dietrick.
“We’re seeking for them to clarify and to be crisp about the records they’re looking for are,” Dietrick said. “We oppose it because the scope requires narrowing (the information requested) and objections need to be made.”
Deputy District Attorney Phillip Joo previously cited evidence against Orndoff and Bedroni of needles and methamphetamine in an August court hearing related to the custody of the couple’s children.
But the specific details of that drug-related evidence have not been revealed yet in court.
A preliminary hearing, to determine if sufficient evidence supports moving the case to trial, is scheduled for Oct. 17. That hearing is expected to more fully vet the legal issues at stake, and possibly what exactly was found in the couple’s home.
At the same preliminary hearing, the defense attorneys are expected to argue that the search of their client’s home was improper because neither Orndoff nor Bedroni was on probation, as initially stated by police. The home was searched without a warrant.
City officials said police believed Ornoff was on probation because of a clerical error in a criminal database record that showed he was. But in fact, the person on probation was his brother, Cole Orndoff, who was convicted of impersonating him in a drug-related arrest; Cole used Cheyne’s identity as an alias.
The home of Orndoff and Bedroni on O’Connor Way was searched by officers on the afternoon of July 10, the day that Cantrell left her gun in the bathroom at an El Pollo Loco restaurant. SLO police believed Orndoff may have been the man in the surveillance footage from El Pollo Loco who took the gun.
The weapon was returned two days later by Skeeter Mangan, a Los Osos man who actually found the gun and took it home. Mangan wasn’t charged by the District Attorney’s Office with a crime, though SLO police recommended felony charges.
Dietrick has cited case law that shows that if officers believe a warrantless search is allowable based on “a court-maintained, computer-generated search,” the evidence collected inside a defendant’s home can’t be suppressed in court.
Officers also observed some of the conditions of the home from outside the residence, city officials have stated, which could become part of the prosecution’s argument, as well.
Defense lawyers are expected to argue to suppress the evidence collected based on the legality of the search.
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