Former Riverside County Superior Court clerks indicted for violating court order

 Two former clerks of the Riverside County Superior Court were indicted by a criminal grand jury for conspiring to commit the crime of violation of a court order.

Angela Franz, 46, and Michelle Valdez, both of Thousand Palms, were indicted on April 14, 2022.

Franz and Valdez were arrested and booked into jail after the indictment. They were released after posting bail. They were both arraigned on Tuesday, were the indictment was unsealed.

Their arraignment was continued to Aug. 18, 2022, at the Hall of Justice in Riverside.

Franz and Valdez were working in the court clerk’s office at the Larson Justice Center in Indio on Jan. 16, 2020, according to the District Attorney's office.

The DA's office noted that the investigation that led to an arrest revealed that a law enforcement officer provided the court with a search warrant request. The officer asked that the documents be sealed because they contained confidential information regarding an ongoing investigation.

The search warrant request was brought before a judge that same day. The judge signed the warrant and ordered it sealed. That same day, just before 5 p.m. Franz allegedly pulled the warrant from the court system, printed it, and gave it to Valdez.

"Franz and Valdez were court clerks for several years and would know that reviewing, printing, and sharing a sealed court document in this manner would be against the law," reads a news release by the DA's office.

The case is being prosecuted by Deputy DA Francisco Navarro of the DA’s Public Integrity.

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