Police Officer Gets Three-Year Probation in Head Butting : Court: City lawman pleaded no contest in agreement to end case stemming from confrontation with transient.

A San Diego police officer who pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of head butting a transient while on duty was sentenced Tuesday to three years of probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of volunteer work at a downtown senior center.

In a plea bargain agreement, the charge against Michael A. Moller, 32, was reduced from a felony to assault under the color of authority. A no-contest plea, where a defendant refuses to offer a defense, is considered to be a conviction.

Superior Court Judge William Mudd told Moller that he can use force while on duty, but cautioned him that he will be “under a microscope” at all other times.

Moller, the son of an San Diego Police Department captain, was charged with breaking the nose of 34-year-old Michael Carvajal in a parking lot at 3rd Avenue and Elm Street on March 13.

Mudd said he has “some severe reservations” that Moller actually caused the broken nose. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Luis Aragon told the judge that Carvajal is “adamant he received his broken nose from a head butt.”

Moller’s attorney, Everett Bobbitt, said that, if the case had gone to trial, he would have presented evidence that Carvajal broke his nose falling off a bench at a bus stop.

Bobbitt said Moller has already paid for his actions because he lost about $3,500 in pay after the Police Department suspended him.

Speaking for the first time about the incident, Moller apologized to the court for “this whole event” and for not completing a report on the incident.

“I violated policy by not doing a report,” he said.

The Police Department is reviewing Moller’s case and has reassigned him to a desk job. Depending on the outcome of the review, Moller could lose his job.

Before joining the force, Moller and a friend were involved in a fight with two off-duty sheriff’s deputies at a Hillcrest taco shop in 1981. The deputies, who fired their guns at Moller, were convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and served 90 days in a work furlough program.

After another altercation involving Moller, a bystander was shot to death outside a Mission Beach nightclub in 1986. A 22-year-old man was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the killing and of attempted manslaughter for attacking Moller.