Ex-Detective May Be Charged After Sting : Crime: Operation allegedly exposed LAPD veteran’s involvement in the trade of confidential police information.

Sheriff’s investigators are seeking criminal charges against a veteran LAPD detective whom they caught in a sting targeting private investigators who buy confidential criminal justice information from police, sources close to the case said Wednesday.

County prosecutors have been asked to file felony charges against Robert Muldrew, a robbery detective at the Devonshire station of the Los Angeles Police Department. After 26 years on the police force, Muldrew retired about 10 days after the sting, according to investigators.

Deputies searched Muldrew’s desk at Devonshire and his Chatsworth home Oct. 21. They seized evidence of what they allege is a pattern of illegal trade in confidential information by a west county private detective agency, Investigations West, according to court documents.

Two photographs that had been obtained through the Department of Motor Vehicles and sold to an informant were traced to Muldrew, according to a search warrant affidavit filed by Deputy David H. Simon in connection with the case.

The Sheriff’s Department is in charge of the case because Investigations West had operated in Calabasas and Westlake Village.

Authorities say the private investigation firm has closed. Efforts to reach its owners were unsuccessful. The district attorney’s office also declined to comment on the investigation.

“That is an outside investigation,” said Muldrew’s supervisor, Detective Mike Brandt. “We haven’t been informed of anything.”

Lt. Robert Normandy of the Devonshire Division said Muldrew had worked for the department for 26 years and that no disciplinary action had been taken against him before his retirement.

The investigation is at least the third of its kind in recent years, as the LAPD and other authorities try to crack down on the illegal sale of confidential information.

Los Angeles Police Officer Walter Ray Bentley also retired earlier this year while he was under investigation for allegedly selling information to a firm headed by former Deputy Los Angeles Police Chief Daniel Sullivan. Sullivan pleaded no contest in September to five misdemeanor counts involving illegal possession of criminal records at his company. Bentley is awaiting trial.

In the Muldrew case, sheriff’s deputies set up a sting operation after gathering evidence of what they said was a pattern of illegal activity by the Investigations West firm.

According to a search warrant affidavit, Investigations West “has demonstrated a pattern of obtaining and selling to clients private information concerning individuals, to which the PI firm is not legally entitled or which the firm is entitled to receive but is not permitted to provide to others.”

Sources said charges are also being sought against Investigations West.

According to the court records, sheriff’s deputies enlisted the aid of an Orange County private investigator, who went undercover and sought illegal information from the Investigations West firm. The informant later allegedly bought the information from Investigations West, including the driver’s license photographs, which were then traced back to Muldrew through phone records and other means, according to the affidavits.

According to the court documents, Muldrew is suspected of having committed a “felony computer crime” and violating state wire-fraud laws.

During their investigation, deputies also uncovered evidence of “related or similar investigations” into illegal information trafficking by the California Department of Motor Vehicles and Pacific Bell. Neither could be reached for comment.