St. Louis cop charged with burglarizing home while drunk pleads guilty of lesser charge

ST. LOUIS • A St. Louis police officer who was arrested in July 2012 for burglarizing a home while he was drunk and off-duty has pleaded guilty to a trespass charge.Andrew Perez, 30, pleaded guilty this week to the misdemeanor. He was given a suspended imposition of sentence and ordered to be on probation for two years. Perez was originally charged with burglary, a felony. But his defense team negotiated a deal with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office for the lesser charge.

On July 15, 2012, a Sunday, a resident of the Clifton Heights neighborhood awoke about 3:30 a.m. to find a stranger in the house, emptying a purse. The victim told police that he, his girlfriend and his three children were sleeping at home in the 6200 block of Bowman Avenue when he heard a noise, found the man and forced him to leave. Police arrested a drunk and disoriented Perez down the street and later learned that he was an off-duty police officer. He was suspended from the force without pay and charged the next day with burglary.