Judge Kato Dismisses One of Two Section 111 Counts With Prejudice, Finding HSI's Repair of an Agent's Vehicle Was Bad-Faith Failure to Preserve Evidence (US v. Blandon-Saavedra, C.D. Cal.)

Order date: 2025-11-14 (Dkt. 64, ruling date). The task lead gave Nov 3, 2025; that is the date of the government’s opposition brief (Dkt. 47), which is what the lead’s URL points to. The order is Dkt. 64.

What the court found (all quotes from Dkt. 64; the defendant is named only as the record names him):

• Facts as the court recounts them: on 2025-09-04 an ERO/HSI operation in San Bernardino ended in two collisions, one with an ERO vehicle (Officer Perera, Count One) and one with an HSI vehicle (Agent Tomaselli, Count Two). The defendant told HSI Agent Garcia in a post-arrest interview “they hit me”; the court says Garcia’s report recorded it and his complaint statement left it out (c6).
• Timeline of the repair per the court: repair authorization email about one hour after the interview (2025-09-04, 2:30 p.m., c7); three estimates 2025-09-11 and 09-15; expedited approval to avoid a funding cutoff the court says it could not explain (FY2025 ran to 2025-09-30); approval and payment 2025-09-16 (c8); indictment 2025-09-24; repairs finished about 2025-10-27; defense asked to inspect vehicles 2025-10-27. The ERO vehicle was never repaired.
• Disposition: Count One (ERO vehicle) motion denied; Count Two (HSI vehicle) dismissed with prejudice (c1). The court found the HSI vehicle was “potentially useful,” not material exculpatory, evidence, and that photographs were not comparable evidence.
• Bad faith: the court found the government knew the vehicle’s potential exculpatory value (c2), faulted Garcia and Wolcott by name, rejected “followed its own policies” as a defense, and wrote “at best … administrative expedience … At worst, the Government intentionally expedited repairs” (c3). The court did not find which of the two it was. Government counsel conceded she never asked agents to preserve the vehicle (c9).
• The “pattern” language is footnote 8 and is hedged (c4): “appears to be”; it names two prior vehicle-collision evidence-loss cases: United States v. Martinez, No. 1:25-cr-00636 (N.D. Ill. 2025) and United States v. Castillo-Ortega, No. EDCR-25-00261-JGB-1 (C.D. Cal. 2025). Footnote 6 is separate (c5) and cites jury-acquittal or dismissal cases where officers used force first: United States v. Ramos-Brito, No. CR-25-00501-SVW (C.D. Cal. 2025); United States v. Reid, No. 1:25-cr-00244 (D.D.C. 2025); United States v. Quintanilla-Chavez, No. 5:25-cr-00388-XR-1 (W.D. Tex. 2025). The lead blended the two footnotes; the court did not say the footnote-6 cases involved lost evidence.
• Also in the order (footnote 1): the court recorded “disappointment and disapproval” that the government “has knowingly and intentionally chosen to erect unnecessary barriers that hinder the right to counsel” after ICE took the defendant into custody (Adelanto) despite a release order from the magistrate judge.

Appeal: government noticed interlocutory appeal 2025-11-17 (Dkt. 68); Ninth Circuit No. 25-7261 opened 2025-11-18. Opening brief 2026-04-10; answering brief 2026-08-26; optional reply brief due 2026-10-16 (c10). No argument date on the docket as of the 2026-09-11 last entry. The district court denied the government’s motion in limine as premature pending appeal (Dkt. 91, 2026-01-12) and vacated the Dec 2025 trial date (Dkt. 73), so Count One is not yet tried.

Not established here: any motive on the part of the agents (the court expressly left bad faith as “at best/at worst”); whether the Ninth Circuit will accept the bad-faith finding (the question on appeal per NACDL, secondary).