Criminal case against Fresno County Sheriff's deputy dismissed

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The criminal case against a Fresno County Sheriff's Deputy is now dismissed.

"It does appear the conditions of the diversion have been satisfied. So based on that, the court will reinstate criminal proceedings and, at this time, will dismiss the matter," Fresno County Judge Robert Mangano said on Friday.

Prosecutors filed the misdemeanor battery complaint in October and accused Sheriff's Deputy Eric Schmidt of using force against another sheriff's office employee.

The complaint only says the alleged incident occurred last February and references a Fresno Police Department report.

"There was never any facts to these allegations," Schmidt told Action News moments after the ruling. He is also the president of the Fresno Deputy Sheriff's Association.

"There was never any truth to these allegations. This case was bogus from the beginning," he said.

The case did not go far because Schmidt reached an agreement with prosecutors in which he would complete an online anger management course, and prosecutors would drop the charge.

That is exactly what happened. The court received a certificate of Schmidt completing 12 hours of classes on Tuesday.

"What the court is saying here is, let's divert this and see if this person just takes a class - for example, anger management," Action News Legal Analyst Tony Capozzi said. "If he gets through that class and does well and shows proof that he's done that and that he stayed out of trouble and had obeyed all the laws, let's look at dismissing this case."

Because he agreed to a diversion program, Schmidt never had to enter a plea, and the court never heard any evidence.

Schmidt also says he remained on duty during the investigation and was never on administrative leave. He is still the president of the union.

"Moving forward, I intend to continue serving the people of this county with honor and integrity as I've been doing for the past 27 years of my career," Schmidt said.

Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni told Action News he had complete faith in the legal process that played out.

He said the sheriff's office will complete its internal investigation into what happened in the coming weeks.

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