Wronged Wife’s Sleuthing Might Cost 2 Officers’ Jobs

When Michelle Druyun suspected that her LAPD officer husband had strayed, she took a page from her spouse and, she said, “did some of my own detective work.”

Amassing her evidence, Druyun demanded and got a notarized letter from her husband, Scott, confessing to having sex on duty with “a stripper,” according to the letter, which was obtained by The Times. When the marriage continued to deteriorate, she gave the letter to his commanders and the department’s Internal Affairs Division.

This week, Scott Druyun resigned, and Chief William J. Bratton is reviewing the fate of his partner, Robert Villalobos, after LAPD disciplinary boards recommended that both officers be fired for having sex on duty with adult dancers.

“This case is unusual on multiple levels,” said Deputy Chief Michael Berkow, head of the Professional Standards Bureau, which includes Internal Affairs. “It is unusual for officers to commit on-duty sexual misconduct. But even more unusual when a wife has her husband confess to sexual misconduct, has it notarized, keeps it an extensive time and then turns it over to us.”

Johannes Bernardus Gering, Scott Druyun’s attorney, declined to comment.

A lawyer for Villalobos did not respond to phone calls.

Druyun, 32, a nine-year officer, and Villalobos, also 32, on the force five years, were partners at the Devonshire Division in Northridge.

An LAPD Board of Rights found Druyun guilty of sexual misconduct, domestic violence and falling asleep while overseeing a firing range. The panel said Druyun’s problems contributed to the downfall of his partner.

Villalobos showed remorse during his disciplinary hearing and was highly praised by supervisors, a separate Board of Rights said in its findings. But the panel found that his lapse in “character” was so serious that he should lose his job.

Michelle Druyun said she began to suspect that her husband had cheated in 2003 when she found a note on the family computer from an adult dancer. “This never crossed my mind until I found something on our computer by accident,” she said in a phone interview.

She confronted the 28-year-old woman, who worked at the Valley Ball, a popular Van Nuys adult club. The woman filed a police report with Scott Druyun’s Devonshire Division, alleging that Michelle Druyun had made two annoying phone calls to her.

The report, dated Nov. 28, 2003, states: “Susp called vict on two separate occasions. During the second call susp used derogatory words to describe vict and insisted vict answer specific questions.”

Michelle Druyun also demanded answers from her husband. As a condition of continuing the marriage, she required that he write the letter admitting to having oral sex with the dancer while on duty, she said.

“To say that I am sorry for my actions falls short of how I feel. No apology I could offer is strong enough for my wife, the [department] or the citizens of this city,” Scott Druyun concluded in the letter addressed to his then-captain.

“I was to hold on to it as a guarantee that I know every detail of his infidelities,” Michelle Druyun recounted in divorce papers filed this year. “And he would never again violate his vows.”

Last July, Druyun grabbed his wife and “threw her onto a bed” during a domestic violence incident at their Santa Clarita home, according to internal charges filed by the LAPD. Sheriff’s deputies then went to the home. A month later, Michelle Druyun turned over the letter to LAPD detectives and was interviewed extensively.

According to the Board of Rights charges, detectives discovered that Scott Druyun had met the dancer during an on-duty call in February 2002 at the Valley Ball, and she gave him her phone number.

They met several times, the last culminating in a sexual encounter in his patrol car, police said. The car was parked inside a gated construction site in the north San Fernando Valley, according to Berkow.

The case popped into public view through Web postings, including an anonymous missive on a site called LAPD Wife.

The posting, which Michelle Druyun later confirmed she had written, accused the Police Department of dragging its feet on disciplinary charges against her husband.

Berkow insisted that the LAPD pursued the allegations aggressively. “We’ve checked to make sure other officers aren’t involved,” he said. “We’ve talked to the stripper involved. She acknowledged the sexual conduct. There is no extortion or money involved.”

The LAPD convened a Board of Rights -- consisting of two commanding officers and a civilian -- to consider charges against Scott Druyun.

Capt. Scott Kroeber, who headed the panel, wrote in a June 15 order: “While you were not charged with absenting yourself from your assigned area or conducting personal business while on duty, it is clear that your relationship with [the adult dancer] caused you to seriously neglect your duties. By so doing ... members of the public did not have their assigned police car handling calls.”

When Druyun’s actions became known to his wife, Kroeber wrote, it made an “otherwise dysfunctional marriage that much more tumultuous.” That, he wrote, resulted in a domestic violence incident.

Those “domestic problems,” Kroeber added, took a toll on Druyun’s attendance and work performance. The problems culminated when he fell asleep while serving as safety officer on the department’s shotgun range, “a situation that could have ended tragically,” the order said.

Scott Druyun was suspended without pay in March. He resigned this week, an LAPD personnel official said.

Villalobos was Druyun’s partner in 2002. Questioned as part of the Druyun investigation, he eventually pleaded guilty to administrative charges of twice having sex on duty with a woman in July 2002. According to the LAPD, the woman is another strip club dancer.

Villalobos’ Board of Rights noted that his department record was good and that three of his supervisors had made laudatory comments about him. The panel also said it believed that he was sincere in his pledge never to repeat his behavior. But Board Chairman Charlie Beck, now an LAPD commander, wrote that the incidents “showed a serious lack in not only judgment, but worse of all, character.”

Beck concluded: “We find your conduct so egregious as to defy your ability to perform the duties of a Los Angeles police officer and to cause such potential liability that it also denies the city’s ability to keep you in such a position.”

Bratton could rule at any time on the Villalobos firing recommendation.