Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is seeking more than $10,000 in county taxpayer dollars for legal bills from a monthslong court fight triggered by his department’s seizure of more than 650,000 ballots earlier this year.
Read more What’s going on with Dan Sullivan and Dan Sullivan? The Alaska Senate litigation, explained
A lawyer for Bianco signed a Tuesday, Oct. 13, claim against the county seeking to recoup his legal expenses. A claim for damages is often a precursor to a lawsuit, and almost all claims filed against public agencies are rejected.
RELATED: Riverside County is destroying 650,000 ballots under state law; Sheriff Bianco calls it ‘destruction of evidence’
Bianco did not immediately respond Friday morning, Oct. 23, to a request for comment.
Riverside County spokesperson Brooke Federico confirmed via email that the county received the claim, and that officials would review it and “determine next steps.”
Taxpayers typically cover the legal costs of public employees and elected officials for actions done in the course of their employment or time in office. But Riverside County supervisors in April declined to cover Bianco’s legal bills in the court fight over the ballot seizure.
The county counsel’s office declined to represent the sheriff in court because it also represented the county Registrar of Voters, a party in the dispute.
The legal fight has its roots in allegations by the Riverside Election Integrity Team, a citizen’s watchdog group, of a roughly 45,000-vote gap between the number of ballots cast by county voters in the 2025 Proposition 50 special election and the number of ballots actually received by the registrar.
Proposition 50, which passed in Riverside County, was a successful statewide ballot measure that redrew California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats as part of a coast-to-coast fight with the GOP over control of Congress. Bianco, a Republican, does not dispute the election’s outcome.
Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco denied that the 45,000-vote gap existed, calling it a misreading of election data. The actual gap, he said, was just 103 votes — well within the margin of error set by California’s Secretary of State.
Nonetheless, sheriff’s investigators got search warrants in February and March to seize the ballots. Bianco, a GOP candidate for governor at the time, said his investigators would count the ballots to see if the 45,000-vote gap existed and if so, whether it was due to criminal wrongdoing.
The seizure immediately faced backlash from Democrats and voting rights activists, who called Bianco’s investigation baseless and damaging to voters’ trust in elections.
Read more Alan Wapner took 72 trips in 5 years, charging airport agency $184,997
California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued to halt the investigation, while the UCLA Voting Rights Project sued to force Bianco to return the ballots. Last month, the state’s high court ruled Bianco unlawfully seized the ballots and ignored Bonta’s directive to pause the probe and ordered the ballots returned to the registrar.
After receiving the ballots, the county destroyed them to comply with state law, a move Bianco — an elected official who can’t be fired — decried as “destruction of evidence.”
It’s not clear how much legal debt the sheriff racked up in the court fight. But it exceeds $10,000, according to the claim signed by Bianco attorney Bradley Hertz.
The county should cover Bianco’s legal costs because the lawsuits resulting from the ballot seizure “arose from (Bianco’s) performance of his official responsibilities as sheriff,” states the claim filed with the Board of Supervisors’ clerk.
“The fact that the legality of certain investigative actions was disputed, or that county officials disagreed with those actions, does not establish that (Bianco) acted outside the scope of his employment, nor does it relieve the county of its statutory defense obligations,” the claim alleges.
The claim reserves the sheriff’s rights to sue the county for unlimited damages.
Bianco’s claim comes as Bianco’s relationship with the five elected supervisors — four Democrats, one Republican — has grown tense in recent months.
In August, he said the board’s refusal to give him enough money in the county budget to maintain the current level of sheriff’s services would force him to eliminate 622 positions and dismantle specialized investigative units.
The sheriff’s critics countered Bianco’s budget programs stem from his mismanagement and that he was trying to scare the public by exaggerating public safety cuts. Bianco plans to run for reelection in 2028.
In July, the board voted to form a special committee to study the creation of a civilian sheriff’s oversight body, satisfying a long-running demand of criminal justice reform advocates and families whose loved ones died in county jails.
Bianco, who has wide latitude to run his department as he sees fit, has rejected calls for more oversight, saying such moves would take power from voters who elect the sheriff and that his department already must comply with state and federal directives and inspections.
Read more Trump expresses concern about NFL game and civil unrest in Paris