Ex-cop arrested on felony charge
He kept job after 2021 arrest despite similar alcohol-related case
One of the East Contra Costa police officers indicted by the FBI last year has run afoul of the law again, after cops allegedly found him passed out drunk behind the wheel of a running car — and then he threatened to hurt them.
It isn't his first allegedly alcohol-involved crime, multiple law enforcement sources said this week. Brauli Rodriguez-Jalapa, a former East Bay lawman, earlier was suspected of being intoxicated in Brentwood.
But he kept his police job, those sources said, because Brentwood police refused to make the arresting officers available to internal affairs investigators, hindering their ability to dig into his alleged impropriety.
The potential red flag came two years before Rodriguez-Jalapa was charged with wire fraud as part of an alleged scheme to illegally obtain incentive pay offered to police officers by paying someone to take online college courses in his name.
And it all happened well ahead of the Feb. 10 felony DUI incident, where he allegedly threatened the officers in Clayton. He was arrested on suspicion of threatening harm against peace officers, a felony, and of a misdemeanor DUI charge.
Rodriguez-Jalapa worked for Pittsburg police briefly in 2017, but spent most of his 10-year career with the Oakland Housing Authority Police.
Rodriguez-Jalapa's Feb. 10 arrest was not enough to land him in jail, but he did have to explain himself to U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu at a hearing in Oakland on Tuesday.
Following the recommendation of pretrial services and federal prosecutors — and with no objection from Rodriguez-Jalapa's lawyer — Ryu imposed new man
datory conditions for Rodriguez-Jalapa but is allowing him to remain out of custody.
“What happened that night is extremely concerning, Mr. Rodriguez-Jalapa, on so many levels,” Ryu said. “That you were essentially unconscious with the car running, and of course what happened in that interaction. This could have had a very different ending for you and for the officers that were involved.”
Many details of Rodriguez-Jalapa's Feb. 10 arrest have not yet been made public.
According to court records, police Officers Tanner Vice and Tim Marchut pulled Rodriguez-Jalapa over, somewhere in Clayton. It is unclear where the arrest took place, or whether the officers were called to the area or happened upon him while on patrol.
At some point after waking up, Rodriguez-Jalapa allegedly became belligerent and threatened the officers. Police found prescription painkillers in the vehicle, but his lawyer, Adam Pennella, said they were legally prescribed medicine stemming from a work-related injury. Rodriguez-Jalapa told his pretrial services officer he doesn't use the drugs when he's drinking, according to court records.
The four conditions Ryu imposed include abstention from alcohol, submission to drug tests, mandatory enrollment in substance abuse and mental health treatment and a stay-away order forbidding him from contacting Vice and Marchut, the alleged victims of the threats.
The Contra Costa District Attorney's Office said it has not yet received reports from Clayton police, but will make a determination of whether to file charges when it does.
In court, Pennella said he couldn't confirm or deny several key details from the police report because Rodriguez-Jalapa has a “large gap” in his memory from that night. But Pennella said Rodriguez-Jalapa was released from custody the same day of his arrest, a Saturday, and contacted a chemical dependency therapist to get “restarted” in a program.
“Back in 2021, I believe, he enrolled in that program because he was having a whole host of issues he couldn't explain, as well as self-medication with alcohol,” Pennella said. Through the program, added Pennella, Rodriguez-Jalapa discovered he has depression and “severe PTSD,” which Pennella attributed to Rodriguez-Jalapa's work as an undercover cop in Oakland.
“He continues to suffer from a whole host of symptoms,” Pennella said, including night terrors.
Pennella didn't specify what happened in 2021 that led to Rodriguez-Jalapa's enrollment, but multiple law enforcement sources and police records say he was arrested July 17 of that year, at a Best Western motel in Brentwood, after driving up there and reportedly showing signs of intoxication. As in his most recent arrest, he was released from custody fairly quickly.
Brentwood Capt. Walt O'Grodnick, said he could “confirm our records indicate our agency prepared a detailed 21-page report related to an incident in July 2021 and this same report was released to the law enforcement agency conducting the IA.
“It is common practice for our agency to fully cooperate with any agency conducting an internal affairs investigation,” O'Grodnick said.
The Oakland Housing Authority launched an internal probe into the incident, which found Rodriguez-Jalapa had violated department policy, according to multiple law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. Investigators attempted to interview some of the four arresting Brentwood officers, who refused to speak with them. They then contacted a police captain, who claimed he was not able to compel to officers to give statements to the OHA investigators, the sources said.
Rodriguez-Jalapa remained employed at the OHA, and still was working there in early 2022, when the FBI and Contra Costa district attorney launched a major investigation into alleged crimes by former Antioch and Pittsburg cops, including Rodriguez-Jalapa.
After an 18-month investigation, in August 2023, 10 former Antioch and Pittsburg officers were rounded up and brought to court. Rodriguez-Jalapa faced wire fraud and conspiracy charges along with six other former Pittsburg and Antioch police employees. The indictment alleges the seven defendants schemed together by paying a woman — known as “Individual 1” in court papers — to take college classes for them online, so they could receive incentive pay offered by both cities to officers who earn college degrees.
As part of the scheme, Rodriguez-Jalapa allegedly paid $12,130 in tuition to a university, then requested reimbursement from the Oakland Housing Authority police department, “based on the fraudulent coursework of Individual-1 for him,” the indictment says.
He faces up to 20 years in federal prison if he is convicted.
Before closing Tuesday's hearing and imposing new conditions, Ryu had some parting words for Rodriguez-Jalapa.
“I do understand from reading the report that you have a history that you need some help on,” the judge said. “I'm heartened to hear that you have recognized that and that's something you want to address, but in the meantime, given the risks that you pose, I am going to add those new conditions.”