BUENA PARK : Officer Convicted of Theft Fired in 1990

A Buena Park police officer convicted by a jury last week of stealing almost $1,000 from a Garden Grove apartment where he and other officers had been carrying out a search warrant was fired from his job seven months ago, authorities said Monday.

John Thomas Mallos, 31, who will be sentenced today, was terminated from the Buena Park Police Department after an internal investigation, Police Chief Richard M. Tefank said. Mallos was convicted of stealing a $660 money order and $300 in cash from an apartment in July, 1989.

Mallos, who had been an officer for four years, denied taking the $300 and the money order but admitted that he did cash the money order. Mallos said he had found it near his desk at the Police Department.

Mallos was placed on paid administrative leave last April. Tefank said the department fired Mallos effective May 30, 1990, after the internal investigation concluded that the charges against him were substantiated. The department also referred the case to the district attorney’s office, which routinely investigates complaints against police officers.

Mallos was tried twice for the offense; the first trial ended in a hung jury.

Tefank described the case as “unfortunate,” saying that he has asked the department to consider it as an “isolated situation.”

“We in law enforcement have an obligation to enforce the laws, and we must also be law-abiding,” Tefank said. “The situation has affected morale in our organization, but the employees can rebound based on the fact that they do a fine job every day. The lesson from this is that we must ever be mindful that we cannot be above the law.”

Mallos faces a minimum sentence of probation and a maximum one of three years in prison when he appears in Superior Court in Santa Ana today.