OFF THE WIRE
BY: Teri Figueroa
Source: nctimes.com
A retired California Highway Patrol officer who was convicted in June of bribery and perjury for dismissing a woman's speeding ticket in exchange for sex was sentenced Friday to two years in prison.
Abram Carabajal, 53, of Oceanside, who had been free on bail, was immediately taken into custody. He had faced up to four years, eight months in prison.
"You violated both the oath and honor of that badge," Superior Court Judge Lisa Foster said before handing down the sentence in a San Diego courtroom.
Before learning his fate, Carabajal apologized for his actions. "I understand that the position I held was one of trust," he said. "I want to say I'm so sorry to the public."
Carabajal worked out of the CHP's Oceanside office at the time of his arrest. He had a history of hitting on attractive speeders, but four years ago, high-level CHP administrators rejected recommendations that he be taken off the street, a North County Times investigation found this summer.
In sentencing Carabajal, Foster also took aim at the CHP, saying, "There was ample evidence that Mr. Carabajal should not have been out on patrol."
Alyssa Oke, one of the women who Carabajal had pulled over and then hit on, spoke in court Friday.
"This entire event has extremely affected my view on the power of a police officer," said Oke, 29, of Carlsbad. She added that she felt rebuffed when she tried to complain about the incident to the CHP.
As she spoke to the judge, Carabajal turned toward Oke and mouthed, "I'm sorry."
Carabajal's attorney, Vincent Ross, called the sentence "excessive." He and Carabajal had lobbied Foster for a sentence of probation.
Rogette Carabajal, married to the defendant for 22 years, was in court Friday to support him. She said her husband and their family, which includes five children, "have paid more than anyone can imagine."
She said the law enforcement community "turned on" her husband for "a bad personal decision." The matter should have been handled internally within the CHP, she said, instead of humiliating her husband with criminal charges.
"I think the things that have been done to him are far worse than what he did to me," Rogette Carabajal said.
In June, the same San Diego jury that convicted Carabajal acquitted the female motorist, Shirin Zarrindej of subornation of perjury and bribery of a witness.
However, Zarrindej, a single mother from Encino, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of being an accessory to a crime. She was given three years of probation.
Carabajal's supervisors testified during the trial that the officer previously had encouraged attractive speeders to call him or meet him, then dismissed their tickets in court.
So after Zarrindej left an urgent and suspicious phone message for Carabajal at the CHP office, his supervisors organized an undercover operation to watch him appear in court on her ticket.
Carabajal, once the CHP Oceanside station's top ticket writer, appeared in Vista traffic court July 1, 2008, and moved to dismiss Zarrindej's speeding ticket, telling the magistrate he had not been properly subpoenaed ---- when in fact he had.
Carabajal and the motorist then headed immediately to the Guesthouse Inn in Oceanside, with investigators tailing them, and stayed for about an hour.
A CHP officer for 26 years, Carabajal retired July 3, 2008, a day after his superiors confronted him about Zarrindej, who was then 47 years old.
Two years before the encounter with Zarrindej, Carabajal's supervisors asked the head of the state police agency to fire him for a pattern of inappropriate behavior toward attractive female motorists, retired Oceanside CHP Capt. Dave Webb told the North County Times earlier this year.
Webb said a 2006 internal investigation by Carabajal's Oceanside supervisors revealed the veteran officer's habit of fostering inappropriate relationships with women during traffic stops.
But Sacramento officials, including the then-commissioner of the agency, rejected the station's recommendation to fire Carabajal.
Instead, Carabajal was suspended without pay for about two months and placed on close supervision for another year, Webb said.
When questioned by the North County Times earlier this summer about Webb's contention, CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader said personnel privacy laws prevented her from explaining or confirming the department's decision, but said Carabajal's 2006 discipline had been appropriate.
Call staff writer Teri Figueroa at 760-740-5442.
