by Mary Duan
A Monterey County Superior
Court judge has agreed to keep search warrants served on the King City Police
Department, a police sergeant and a city technology contractor sealed for
another 90 days as investigation into apparent widespread police corruption in
that city continues.
The warrants, served on the
Soledad home of Sgt. Bobby Carrillo, King City Police headquarters and the King
City home of IT consultant Ken Tippery on Jan. 17 were due to be unsealed April
20. But Chief Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz confirmed DA
investigators requested the 90-day clock be reset on April 14, citing the
ongoing investigation.
The Jan. 17 warrant service
came more than a month before DA investigators, backed by Monterey County
Sheriff's deputies, FBI agents and Salinas police, went on a pre-dawn raid Feb.
25 and arrested the acting police chief, the former police chief, the acting
chief's brother and two King City cops—including Carrillo—on a variety of
charges. A third officer surrendered later at the sheriff's office.
Carrillo, along with Acting Chief
Bruce Miller and his brother, Miller's Towing owner Brian Miller, allegedly
engaged in an ongoing scheme to tow and impound vehicles that Carrillo pulled
over while on duty. Prosecutors allege Carrillo targeted impoverished,
undocumented Latinos in the scheme—on the theory the victims would be too
frightened of deportation or other backlash to complain—seizing their cars and
swinging the towing and impound business to Brian Miller.
When the victims couldn't
afford to retrieve their cars from impound, they were sold. Prosecutors claim
that for every 10 or 15 cars Carrillo had towed, Brian Miller kicked one back
to him for free. In all, they say Carrillo seized upwards of 200 cars.
Brian Miller has been charged
with conspiracy and bribery, while Bruce Miller is accused of accepting a
bribe—one of the towed and impounded cars. Carrillo is charged with conspiracy,
accepting a bribe and bribing an executive officer.
Other officers arrested that
day on charges unrelated to the towing scheme are Jaime Andrade (charged with
possession of an assault weapon and illegal storage of a firearm); Mark Allen
Baker (making criminal threats against a citizen); and Mario Alonso Mottu Sr.
(embezzlement, related to a department owned vehicle allegedly transferred to
him by former Chief Nick Baldiviez, who's also charged with embezzlement).
It remains totally unclear why
investigators served a warrant on Tippery, the IT contractor, but the morning
of the arrests, District Attorney Dean Flippo confirmed computers had been
seized from Tippery's home. In a bizarre turn of events, Tippery was on a
ride-along with former Soledad Police Officer Jesus Yanez when Yanez shot and
wounded a man he claimed was armed with a firearm. Yanez, also a former King
City officer, was dismissed from the Soledad Police Department in March.
Tippery has previously been convicted of child molestation, but had the
misdemeanor case that dated back to the late 1990s dismissed after successfully
completing probation.
It's widely believed that the
first round of arrests won't be the last one. The sealed warrants include
statements of probable cause—the statement a law enforcement official crafts
before seeking a search warrant—that lays out the facts of a case.
One thing likely still under
investigation: money that went missing following a botched bank robbery at the
Central Coast Federal Credit Union on March 25, 2013. King City police quickly
arrested the suspects, who have all since pleaded no contest and started
serving their prison sentences. But there was $6,000 missing by the time the
stolen money—$24,352—was recovered, booked into evidence and then turned over
to the FBI.
