Fairfax County Police Watch: Pacific Grove cop pleads guilty in new federal case

Allison Gatlin

A former Pacific Grove police commander pleaded guilty Tuesday to possessing firearms stolen from Monterey Peninsula College, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Since his arrest in March, John Nyunt has faced a number of state and federal charges. The most recent of those were filed last Thursday in the U.S. District Court, the Northern District of California.

According to the complaint, Nyunt knowingly possessed stolen assault rifles, shotguns and semi-automatic pistols between August 2009 and November 2012. The firearms previously belonged to MPC, which had planned to divest them at the closure of the police academy.

On Tuesday, Nyunt pleaded guilty to possessing stolen guns, said Philip Guentert, assistant U.S. attorney. Per the plea agreement, he will be sentenced to 30 months in prison to run concurrent to his previous prison commitment.

In 2009, Nyunt was an instructor at the MPC police academy, according to a release. MPC asked Nyunt if the Pacific Grove Police Department would accept the firearms as a donation.

“Knowing that the PGPD did not want the firearms, Nyunt signed a memorandum of understanding with the MPC that falsely stated he was accepting the firearms on PGPD’s behalf,” according to the release.

In actuality, Nyunt wasn’t authorized to forge such an agreement, nor accept firearms for the Police Department.

After MPC released the firearms to him, Nyunt consigned most of them, including 27 Glocks and five Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistols, according to the release. The firearms dealer then sold them over time, turning the profit — minus commission — over to Nyunt.

Nyunt later took back five Glocks and personally sold or gave them to other people, according to the release.

Thursday’s charges are long from the first for Nyunt.

The retired Pacific Grove police commander was first arrested in March for threatening to kill his ex-wife, Kristin Newell Nyunt. From there, the charges began to pile on.

In April, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office announced additional charges against Nyunt and Kristin Newell Nyunt, stemming from their business, Nyunt Consulting Investigations Services. The couple opened NCIS in 2010.

Through NCIS, the Nyunts defrauded their victims of thousands of dollars by diverting criminal complaints from the Police Department to the business, said prosecutor Steve Somers. Further, Nyunt would close investigations that implicated his ex-wife as a suspect, Somers said.

He also allowed his ex-wife access to the confidential Police Department system she used to steal numerous individuals’ identities, Somers said.

In April, Nyunt pleaded guilty to second-degree commercial burglary, threatening a witness and being an accessory after the fact in the state case. He was immediately sentenced to three years in prison.

The following month, Nyunt was charged with and pleaded guilty to wire fraud and extortion in U.S. District Court. He was scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 2, but the hearing was postponed until December.

Last week, when the charges were filed he waived his right to an indictment. He offered his plea only four days later.

Now, Nyunt is scheduled to be sentenced in both federal cases in April 2015. If the plea agreement is accepted, he’ll serve 30 months in prison instead of the maximum 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.