Earlier Arrest Record Disclosed

Sheriff’s Detective Michael Stanewich, slain last week while attempting an armed robbery, had once been arrested for impersonating a police officer, but the information wasn’t known until after he had completed job probation, San Diego Sheriff Jim Roache confirmed Tuesday.

Hours after the funeral of Stanewich--fatally shot by another deputy in the midst of beating an Encinitas homeowner--the Sheriff’s Department reluctantly released the latest disparaging news about the 10 1/2-year veteran.

“This thing keeps taking more bizarre, strange twists,” Roache said. “Obviously I was quite surprised when the latest information came to our attention.”

Stanewich was arrested by San Diego police and booked into jail in 1980, exactly one month before he was hired as a sheriff’s deputy, but was never charged by the city attorney’s office, Roache said. Officials had completed a background investigation two months before Stanewich’s arrest.

In the interim, department officials did not discover the arrest, nor did Stanewich disclose the information.

Roache said the department did not find out about the arrest until April, 1983. By then, he said, Stanewich had completed probation and “no administrative recourse or disciplinary action was legally possible,” Roache said.

At the time the arrest was noticed, Roache was a lieutenant in charge of personnel, but he said he was never informed about the incident until a reporter inquired Monday night.

“In retrospect, it doesn’t make any difference,” the sheriff said. “This could not have been used legally against (Stanewich) because he was never charged with a crime, and there was no indication that this was a recurring problem in his performance.”

More recently, Stanewich received an administrative reprimand for conducting an unauthorized surveillance of a house.

Although Roache believes that no action could have been taken against Stanewich at the time that his 1980 arrest was discovered, Police Chief Bob Burgreen said Tuesday his department has fired one or two officers who lied on job applications.

“A false application is cause for termination, even if it’s discovered at a later date,” he said. “But I’m sure the Sheriff’s Department’s background checks are as thorough as ours.”

Burgreen and other members of the Police Department did not recall the arrest, and Roache would provide few details, citing a state law limiting disclosure of personnel records.

Sheriff’s officials said privately Tuesday that they were distressed to have released information about the arrest the day of Stanewich’s funeral, which Roache attended, but had no choice after several newspapers asked for confirmation of the incident.

Meanwhile, Roache asked his 1,349-member department Tuesday to “hold our heads high because there is no doubt we can weather this storm” caused by Stanewich’s death while committing a crime.

On a videotape he distributed throughout the department, Roache addressed the Stanewich incident and the death of Mark Neyman, a correctional deputy killed Sunday in a motorcycle accident. Correctional Deputy Tom Carrell was jailed on charges of manslaughter and drunk driving in that accident.

“Make no mistake,” said the grim-faced sheriff. “These were two very separate and unconnected events. . . . Despite what happened last week, I know you will all keep faith with our common purpose as deputy sheriffs of San Diego County.”

In the case of Stanewich, Roache warned against “unwarranted speculation, theorizing and second-guessing” in the midst of the investigation.

Responding to criticism by beating victim Donald Van Ort and his attorney that the department has bungled the investigation and that the case warrants an outside probe by federal authorities, Roache said: “Those who would suggest that we cannot conduct our business do not know our business.”

He commended those in his department who have worked on the Stanewich investigation and said his office had recently received a letter from someone who complimented officers for handling “the last few days with grace, dignity and compassion.”

However, others were not so kind.

One woman called the department Tuesday to complain about Roache’s presence at Stanewich’s funeral after he said deputies who attended would be ordered not to wear uniforms and that no official department recognition of Stanewich would be sanctioned.

In the case of Neyman, who died Sunday when the motorcycle reportedly being driven by Carrell veered out of control in Fallbrook, Roache expressed remorse.

“A promising young man, who would have turned 25 in just one week, has been lost,” he said. “Another young man will live forever with the glaring memory of that night and how needless and senseless their actions were. Let those be the true and only lessons we remember.”