Officer Will Be Charged in Drug Tip-Off Case

San Diego prosecutors intend to file charges next week against an El Cajon police officer who was arrested by his own department Saturday for allegedly passing confidential information from police drug investigations to local narcotics dealers, a deputy district attorney said Wednesday.

Officer Charles Barranco, 29, will be arraigned March 22 in El Cajon Municipal Court on charges stemming from a police sting operation in which he allegedly made a telephone call to warn two cocaine dealers at a Horizon Hills residence of an impending search, Deputy Dist. Atty. Allan Preckel said.

Barranco made the call Saturday within 10 minutes after being told that a search warrant had been issued for the house, Police Chief Darwin Sinclair said. The search had already occurred and officers were at the house waiting for the call, which was taped, Sinclair said.

Barranco had made calls warning drug dealers of searches previously, Sinclair said, but he declined to elaborate on those calls.

The arrest concluded a year of in-house police investigations during which Barranco was suspected of drug use, association with known drug dealers and release of information on pending investigations, Sinclair said.

“We became concerned in late 1983 when we received information from other sources that he (Barranco) was involved with narcotics,” Sinclair said.

But there is no indication that Barranco was part of a network of narcotics dealers, the chief said.

Barranco, a three-year veteran of the El Cajon force, was suspended without pay after his arrest, Sinclair said. The question of whether Barranco will be fired will not be decided until “the criminal process has taken its course,” Sinclair said.

Barranco was booked Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy, being an accessory to a felony and interfering with police officers, Sinclair said. He was released a few hours later after posing a $4,500 bail, jail records show.

Dan Krinsky, Barranco’s defense attorney, said there is no evidence that his client was part of a conspiracy.

“The police (department) is perhaps overstating the case,” Krinsky said. “If this really happened, I suspect that this was an old friendship, not a big organized thing, and he was only trying to help out a friend.”