A former Orange County sheriff’s deputy pleaded guilty Friday to filing a false police report as part of the evidence booking scandal.
Edwin Morales Mora, 45, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of filing a false police report in a plea deal offered by Orange County Superior Court Judge Scott Steiner, who placed Mora on a year of informal probation.
Mora lost his job in 2019 and was indicted by a grand jury on a felony count of filing a false police report in the booking scandal in which many deputies failed to file evidence or did so long after an incident. Sheriff’s officials have reformed their policies and mandate that deputies must book evidence by the end of their shift.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office objected to the plea deal. Mora admitted that he filed a false police report claiming he booked a knife, methamphetamine and a glass smoking pipe in an evidence locker in Santa Ana, but never did so.
Former sheriff’s deputies Joseph Anthony Atkinson Jr., 39, and Bryce Richmond Simpson, 31, accepted plea deals in June of last year from prosecutors and admitted misdemeanor counts of willful omission to perform their official duty. They were also sentenced to a year of informal probation.
Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders last year blasted the plea deals, arguing that he viewed them as among the “worst offenders” of failing to book evidence. In one of Sanders’ court filings he said the two filed nearly 100 false police reports combined. Sanders said a misdemeanor plea deal was offered by Mora, but he “balked,” according to court papers.
Messages left with Mora’s attorney, Robert Hickey, were not immediately returned.