California Attorney General Rob Bonta says his office will assume all responsibility for investigating allegations that LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said led to searches of the home of Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and other locations last week.
In a letter made public late Tuesday Bonta said the Sheriff's Department should, "cease its investigative activity and refrain from any actions in furtherance of these investigations," and asked that the Department forward all investigative materials to the attorney general.
"I believe that the handling of these matters by DOJ will be in the public interest," Bonta said.
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Earlier Tuesday an LA Superior Court Judge ordered the Sheriff's Department to temporarily stop searching computers, hard drives, and other material seized during a search of Kuehl's home last week.
Judge William C. Ryan scheduled a hearing Thursday after lawyers for Kuehl and the Metropolitan Transit Agency's Inspector General, another the of the locations searched last week, filed motions to quash, or stop, the search warrants.
The motions claim the Sheriff's Department searches were legally dubious and weren't based on a legitimate criminal investigation.
