Four Honolulu police officers, charged with falsifying DUI arrest reports so that officers who weren’t present would qualify for possible overtime, have pleaded no contest and have the chance to clear the charges from their criminal records.
Duke Zoller and Aaron A. Bernal, both sergeants, and officers Christoper and Patrick Bugarin were members of what used to be called the Selective Enforcement Unit, which conducted nighttime DUI checkpoints. It’s now called the Night Enforcement Unit.
All four were scheduled to stand trial on charges of tampering with a government record and being an accomplice in state court Monday.
However, during a trial status conference Tuesday, they pleaded no contest in a deal with the prosecutor.
Circuit Judge Edward Kubo granted all four officers deferrals of their pleas. If they stay out of trouble for the length of their deferral periods, Kubo will drop the charges, and the officers can have them erased from their records. The deferral period is six months for Zoller and Bernal, and three months for the Bugarin brothers.
Kubo also fined Zoller and Bernal $800 each and fined the Bugarin brothers $500 each.
Two other former officers of the unit, Leighton Kato and Michael R. Krekel, were found not guilty in separate trials in May 2011.
A seventh former member of the unit, Brian Morris, pleaded guilty to one tampering charge in March 2011 and agreed to cooperate with the state in exchange for the prosecutor’s promise to drop a second charge. However, he withdrew from his cooperation agreement in March 2012 and pleaded no contest to the second charge.
Honolulu District Judge Leslie Hayashi granted Morris a one-year deferral of his guilty and no-contest pleas and fined him $500. Because she started the deferral period when Morris pleaded guilty to the first charge, she immediately dismissed both charges because the one-year period had passed.
The seven officers were accused of a practice known as "piggybacking," putting the names of as many officers on an arrest report as possible to increase the likelihood that all would be subpoenaed should the defendant challenge his arrest and charge. If they were called to court, they would be on overtime.
The city prosecutor’s office said it was forced to dismiss more than 200 DUI cases because of the allegations that the officers falsified reports.
Zoller pleaded no contest to an accomplice charge for giving another officer a false report to submit in January 2010 that said Bernal was present for a DUI arrest even though he was in Las Vegas at the time.
Bernal pleaded no contest to two accomplice charges. One was for another January 2010 report that was submitted for his benefit while he was still in Las Vegas. The other was for instructing Morris to falsify a report in August 2009.
Christopher Bugarin pleaded no contest to a tampering charge for submitting another January 2010 report that said Bernal was present for an arrest while he was still in Nevada.
Patrick Bugarin pleaded no contest to tampering for submitting a report in November 2009 that claimed Zoller was present for an arrest while Zoller was on vacation.
