Former Santa Clara County Undersheriff Rick Sung pleaded guilty on Monday to two felony bribery charges and agreed to community service to avoid a prison sentence.
Sung had been second in command to longtime former Sheriff Laurie Smith. He was charged with participating in a scheme to leverage his office’s rarely issued gun permits to get Apple computers and access to a luxury suite at the SAP Center, home of the San Jose Sharks.
The negotiated disposition that resulted in the guilty plea was reached as Sung’s retrial was approaching after an earlier hung jury resulted in a mistrial, according to prosecutors.
The District Attorney’s Office said in a press release that the agreement requires that the former undersheriff sign an official form permanently surrendering his California peace officer certification and complete 400 hours of community service. At the same court hearing, a bribery charge against Harpreet Chadha, who was the holder of the license to the luxury suite, was dismissed “in the interest of justice.”
One of the counts concerns Sung’s role in the promise of 200 iPads from Apple to the Sheriff’s Office and the other count concerns the luxury suite and Sharks tickets to be donated to the former sheriff and her guests.
The plea ends an eight-year-long series of DA-initiated criminal corruption cases that led to six convictions, including former Sheriff’s Captain James Jensen, and eventually forced Smith to resign in 2022, just before a civil grand jury removed her from office.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement: “My office enforces the law without fear or favor. Law enforcement in Santa Clara County must be equally determined to be incorruptible as it is determined to protect our community.”
The investigation by the DA’s Office began shortly after the 2018 election, based on a tip that an individual had made an unusually large campaign contribution to an independent expenditure committee that had supported the former sheriff’s reelection that year.
That investigation led to the prosecution and conviction of several employees of AS Solution, Inc., an executive protection security company, among others, including a jury verdict against Jensen for conspiring with them to make donations in return for “CCW” licenses to carry concealed weapons.
The investigation into the issuance of CCW licenses by the Sheriff’s Office also resulted in indictments against Sung for bribery in connection with the issuance of CCW licenses to several executive protection security agents employed by Apple, Inc. and to Chadha, a local businessman. Those are the charges that were resolved with Sung’s Sept. 21 guilty pleas.
After the criminal grand jury’s indictments in these cases in 2020, the civil grand jury decided to pursue a removal action against Smith and issued an accusation against her based largely on the evidence gathered during the criminal investigation.
The trial of former Sheriff Smith on the accusation, which was prosecuted by the San Francisco County District Attorney’s Office, resulted in a conviction and — although she resigned shortly before the verdict — her formal removal from office after 24 years.
