Judge will allow evidence found at SLO couple’s home during search for police chief’s gun
A San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge ruled that a controversial warrantless search of a couple’s home amid a hunt for the police chief’s lost gun wasn’t done in bad faith, and he will allow evidence collected to be admitted in their child abuse case.
“It would be unconstitutional for me to rule any other way,” Superior Court Judge Tim Covello said Friday morning at the conclusion of a preliminary hearing for Cheyne Orndoff and Vanessa Bedroni, who were challenging evidence of drug use collected during the search due to a case of mistaken identity caused by a technical error traced to court staff.
The couple’s two daughters have been in protective custody since the July 2019 incident. They’ve pleaded not guilty to two counts of child abuse.
After four days of testimony over three weeks including witnesses such as former Chief Deanna Cantrell and a host of police and probation officers, court staff, and dispatchers, Covello not only rejected the defense’s motion to suppress evidence collected during the search, but also denied an effort to reduce the charges to misdemeanors. He then ordered the case to move toward trial.
He had previously sided with the prosecution in a defense bid to obtain unredacted copies of Police Chief Cantrell’s phone records, as well as other city-held records.
Following the hearing Friday, Orndoff’s attorney, Jason Dufurrena, called Covello’s series of rulings disappointing and unfortunate.
“The court had the opportunity to try and make good and make right by our clients but clearly decided that it was more of an affront to the process, which it is not,” Dufurrena said.
The case is scheduled to proceed with a second arraignment Oct. 7.
Error was a ‘one-in-a million mistake,’ judge says
At issue in the case was whether police officers should have realized that Orndoff — who had been a victim of identity theft committed by his brother — was not on probation and they didn’t have the authority to search the residence, where they found no gun but rather deplorable conditions, dozens of empty syringes, and needles “loaded” with heroin and methamphetamine.
A computer system glitch apparently caused by court staff and eventually corrected by county IT led police to believe Orndoff was on probation and could be searched without a warrant, even though it was his brother who was on probation.
Orndoff had made several attempts to get the court, District Attorney’s Office, and Probation Department to fix the error.
The defense contends that officers knew Orndoff wasn’t actually on probation, but were determined to find the chief’s lost gun at all costs.
Officers testified that once they realized they had the wrong man, they were compelled to arrest the couple after witnessing the condition of the home and the presence of children.
After hearing arguments from Duferrena, Bedoni’s attorney, and Deputy District Attorney Benjamin Blumenthal, Covello told the parties that the court’s scope was “very narrow.”
He said that although there was no doubt a search occurred without authority and probable cause, the issue he was to consider was only whether police had “good faith in the search terms on which they were relying.”
He cited case precedent that says that just because a search was unreasonable does not necessarily mean that evidence from the search couldn’t be used against a defendant. Another case dictates that a rule requiring exclusion of evidence does not apply when there is an error made by the court, as opposed to police.
Finally, Covello also noted another recent state Supreme Court case which ruled that excluding evidence must be a last resort, not an impulse.
“It’s clear to this court that every officer there believed they had the right to search,” Covello said, adding that an isolated incident or even simple negligence was not enough to toss the evidence. “You can’t say this was a systemic or reoccurring problem. This was a one-in-a-million thing.”
Following the ruling, Covello entertained an invitation by Dufurrena to dismiss the case in the interest of justice, with Dufurrena arguing that his client exhausted his remedies in fixing the computer error, and as a result of the court’s actions, has been arrested, lost guardianship of his children, had video of the conditions of his home released to the public by the city, and has two daughters afraid to take part in Zoom schooling because of what’s been portrayed in the news.
“This is the court’s opportunity to take mercy on our client,” Dufurrena said.
“What you’re really asking this court to do is get around the (case precedent),” Covello replied. “It would be a gross abuse ... to say that because of a one-in-a-million mistake, the court would ignore evidence that these children were placed in danger.”
Following the hearing, Dufurrena told The Tribune that the case is troubling on many levels.
“It’s disappointing that the court wouldn’t consider many factors it could have in the interest of justice,” he said. “It wasn’t just an error by court staff in entering this information, it was that when my client solicited the court and what they call their justice partners, to try and correct it, as any lay person would try to do. The insufficient response facilitated all this happening.”
He added: “I think that should really bother the public, and it should have bothered this court.”
