San Diego Judge Bars Sheriff’s Use of Funds

Sheriff John Duffy, who opened a secret bank account for drug forfeiture money two months ago to bypass restrictions set by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, cannot touch the nearly $700,000 in estimated deposits he has accrued, a Superior Court judge ruled Friday.

Judge Harrison Hollywood also ruled that the county cannot place the money in its treasury--as it had hoped--before a Nov. 27 court hearing to determine who legally controls the funds.

In the meantime, Duffy has been ordered to write a check covering the full amount of the secret bank account--estimated at about $680,000--when he returns to work next Tuesday and deposit it with the Superior Court’s trust fund.

Duffy is at a law enforcement conference in Hawaii and is unable to make the transfer from the account before he returns.

The secret bank account has been a source of controversy since Duffy admitted several weeks ago that he deliberately kept the money out of the county treasury so he could control how it is spent.

He has not yet detailed how much he has spent or what he bought with the money. He declined to provide the information to The Times, which made a request under state and federal public records laws. Duffy argued that bank records are private even though the Sheriff’s Department is a public agency.

On Friday, county attorneys asked Hollywood for a temporary restraining order that would keep Duffy from spending any more money. County counsel Andrew J. Freeman said he feared that Duffy might try to spend some of the funds before he leaves office Jan. 7.

Hollywood said he would not permit the money to be transferred into the county treasury until the hearing because he does not want the county to spend it either.

After the hearing, Janet Houts, the sheriff’s attorney, said she will probably seek a restraining order next week to keep the county supervisors from spending any of the drug funds already deposited in the county treasury.

Houts argued Friday, as Duffy has argued in the past, that the federal money does not belong to the county and that supervisors have no authority to spend it.

Further, she said, the county’s decision last summer to spend $404,000 in drug funds for jail security measures instead of laptop computers--as Duffy wanted--violated federal drug fund spending guidelines.