The Seven-Year Saga of San Benito County Deputy Sheriff Dave Zander, Part 1

MICHAEL L. RAINS
Principal Attorney
Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver, PC

I have handled more than a few protracted and highly contentious disciplinary cases for police officer clients in the 43 years I have represented members of the PORAC Legal Defense Fund, but my representation of San Benito County Deputy Sheriff Dave Zander has to be one of the top five cases I have handled in the categories of “contentious” and “protracted.”

The good news is that this saga, which started with Zander being placed on paid administrative leave on August 25, 2016, finally came to a close in the latter part of 2023 as a result of a settlement between the County and Zander, which followed his reinstatement to employment through arbitration. The precise terms of the settlement reached on behalf of Zander are confidential, but suffice it to say that he and I are very satisfied that the County finally settled this case and are also satisfied with the terms of the settlement. The settlement was facilitated after Zander was originally fired by the former sheriff, and the current sheriff appeared to be far more reasonable and amenable to resolving the case before the initiation of formal civil litigation.  

This seven-year saga began with a two-year federal criminal investigation, which resulted in no charges being filed. This was followed by a lengthy administrative investigation that resulted in Zander’s termination and an arbitration that resulted in his reinstatement, followed then by the County’s refusal to comply with the arbitrator’s decision for 10 months before the case was settled with the help of a mediator.

Zander’s Employment History and Assignments

Zander was hired as a San Benito Deputy Sheriff in June 2001. After serving as a patrol deputy for approximately four years, he was assigned to a narcotics task force supervised by an agent from the California
State Department of Justice between 2005 and 2008. He returned to patrol duties in 2008 until July 2015, when he was again assigned to the narcotics task force. He remained on this task force until he was placed on administrative leave by the sheriff on August 25, 2016. During his 15 years of service prior to being placed on administrative leave, Zander had not suffered the imposition of any disciplinary action and had received very good evaluations for the manner in which he performed his duties and interacted with members of the public.

Zander’s Placement on Administrative Leave and the Commencement of an FBI Criminal Investigation Lasting Over Two Years

In July 2016, the former sheriff contacted the San Jose FBI Office and requested the initiation of a federal criminal investigation of Zander, prompted by the allegations by a well-known but credibility-challenged drug addict named “Jill.” Jill claimed that over the course of more than two years after Zander had detained her and her boyfriend for investigation of drug activity, she had met with Zander while he was on duty no less than 60 times to engage in oral sex or sexual intercourse. Zander vehemently denied the allegations. As discussed below, those allegations and others made by Jill to FBI agents in her initial interviews could have easily been disproven within two or three months had the available evidence been examined objectively.

Following Zander’s firing by the former sheriff in June 2021, and our ensuing threat to sue the County to produce the FBI criminal investigation reports and supporting documentation that the County initially refused to produce, we received two large binders containing the FBI investigation report and learned why the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not file criminal charges of any nature against Zander. We also saw that the FBI seemed to have a cozy relationship with the former sheriff.

Indeed, from their first meeting, 42 pages of one of the agent’s text messages, which we found in one of the FBI binders, included a text from the sheriff telling the agents about Zander’s stated aspiration to run for sheriff (presumably against him). Notes of the sheriff’s first meeting with the agents, taken by one of the agents, recorded the sheriff saying that Zander’s wife had recently passed the Bar in California and was “litigious,” an opinion the former sheriff apparently arrived at following the settlement of a lawsuit that had been filed by Zander’s wife while she was employed as a non-sworn employee of the County. As described in greater detail below, the text messages from the agents demonstrated their determination to find any possible basis to charge Zander criminally and to protect at least one other deputy who had potential criminal and/or administrative exposure and also provided insight into one of the agent’s low opinion of Jill’s credibility as a witness.

Jill told the FBI agents in July 2016 that she first had contact with Zander when he stopped a van driven by her boyfriend in July 2014 and discovered she was in possession of drugs. She told the agents that Zander had let her keep the drugs. The agents apparently never bothered to look for a report written by Zander that detailed the stop of Jill and her boyfriend, described her offer to provide him information on drug deals and drug dealers, and Zander’s contact with his sergeant, who authorized him to cite-release her for the drugs and book them into evidence. Zander’s report of that encounter demonstrated Jill’s dishonesty to the FBI on that issue alone.

Far more significant in the “dishonesty” category was Jill’s claim that during the two-year period between her initial detention by Zander in July 2014 and June 2016, she met him no less than 60 times while he was on duty to engage in either oral sex or sexual intercourse. According to Jill, each of the sexual encounters would be initiated as a result of a text message she received from Zander telling her when and where to meet him. In addition, she claimed that she had texted Zander information on no less than 15 drug users or drug dealers in the County.

By early October 2016, the FBI had obtained and reviewed extraction reports of the download of both Jill’s and Zander’s cellular telephones, starting in July 2014. Although her interview statement to the FBI indicated there would be a minimum of 75 text messages between the two of them for that time period, the extraction reports of both cellphones disclosed that there were 12 telephone calls and five text messages between Jill and Zander during that period of time. Jill initiated five of the telephone calls, and 10 of the calls lasted a minute or less. That should have been enough to convince the FBI that Jill was not to be believed. Even before that revelation, after the FBI had asked Jill to participate in two pretext phone calls with Zander to accuse him of the sexual encounters on duty, and although she had said she would confront him, she failed to show and participate in both calls.

Clearly, the agents had reason to know that Jill’s claims were bogus. Indeed, text messages from one of the agents to Jill’s boyfriend involved the agent complaining about Jill’s failure to provide the agents any supporting information for any of her claims (she was unable to name the 15 drug dealers/users whose names she had supposedly provided to Zander). While discussing the lack of supporting information concerning her claims of sex with Zander, the agent told her boyfriend that “some of my colleagues say it is because perhaps Jill made the whole story up.”

In another text message to Jill’s boyfriend, he complained, “I have tried to help Jill, and she screwed me over and wasted my time … now I am stuck with a difficult case, and if it goes and I get Zander, great. If not, I really don’t care. I think maybe I should just close the case and move on.” In yet another text message to the boyfriend, the agent stated, “not that hopeful that we can get Zander because we are having trouble finding anyone to corroborate Jill’s story. Still trying though and doing our best.”

Fourteen months after the FBI had initiated a criminal investigation of Zander, I received a telephone call from an assistant United States attorney whom I knew from a federal criminal case I had handled for some San Francisco police officers. He was not the U.S. attorney in charge of this investigation, as the female AUSA in charge of this case worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Jose, and he was in San Francisco. Nevertheless, he told me that he was contacting me at her urging to suggest that I plead Zander to a felony involving lying to a federal agent. (Zander had given the FBI agents an extensive voluntary interview on August 25, 2016, without requesting counsel, and before he was placed on administrative leave.) I was told by the U.S. attorney that Zander would be “doing himself a favor” by agreeing to plead prior to being indicted and might even avoid incarceration in a federal prison by doing so. In a profane-laden response, I told the U.S. attorney that I believed Zander had done nothing that violated federal or state law and that if the federal government was “confused” with the “evidence” in its possession concerning Zander, I would agree to accompany him to yet another voluntary interview with the FBI. On November 27, 2017, I accompanied Zander to the San Jose FBI office, where he participated in a three-hour voluntary interview by the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the investigation and an FBI agent (the original agents were no longer on the case).

Almost a year later, on November 9, 2018, I received a telephone call from the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of Zander’s investigation who simply stated that the federal government was “closing our file” and that no charges or indictment against Zander would occur.

What I did not know when I received that good news from the U.S. attorney was the bad news that the FBI claimed to have found when it examined Zander’s computer and found an informant agreement, which he had presented to Jill for signature when she was incarcerated in the San Benito County Jail in February 2016. She had signed the agreement on the same date as Zander and another deputy, who had signed the agreement as a “witness.” Text messages from one of the agents to the former sheriff revealed that the agents were giddy with excitement when Jill had told them during an interview that Zander had interviewed her by himself in the jail and that there was no “witness” deputy present and that when the FBI interviewed the alleged “witness” deputy whose name appeared on the informant agreement, he had denied signing his name to the agreement, leading the agents to conclude that Zander had forged the witness deputy’s name.

Zander’s saga continues in next month’s PORAC Law Enforcement News, as the former sheriff, ignoring the opinion of a county-retained handwriting expert, pursues the forgery charge and five other baseless charges in his efforts to fire Zander.

About the Author

Mike Rains is a principal and founding member of Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver, PC. He heads the firm’s Criminal Defense and Legal Defense of Peace Officers Practice Groups. Mike is one of California’s top trial attorneys. He has over 40 years of experience representing peace officers and other high-profile clients in civil and criminal litigation.