S. Pasadena Police Inquiry Finds Web of Misconduct

They were South Pasadena’s finest, cops in a town so quiet that the entire early morning shift once fell asleep. She was a 27-year-old manic-depressive with a fondness for police officers.

For more than a year, officers in the South Pasadena Police Department carried on affairs with Theresa Goldston, despite warnings that she was “bad news,” according to internal investigative reports obtained by The Times. Goldston drove around with one or another of her various lovers--whom she claimed numbered seven over the years--with a suspended license, and when she needed to work off some steam she was let into the department gym to beat up a dummy or onto the firing range by a police sergeant, police records show.

Police in neighboring cities knew of Goldston and her liaisons with South Pasadena cops, and Goldston even went to South Pasadena Police Chief Thomas Mahoney to talk about her love life. But it was not until a distraught Goldston fired a gun inside the police station that the department took action.

Now, hundreds of pages of documents from the department’s internal affairs investigation show that Goldston’s relationship with the South Pasadena department was more extensive than just a few simple flings with a couple of cops.

The department’s own internal investigation paints a picture of a department seduced.

Although one of Goldston’s lovers was dubbed “Tweety Bird” because of his boasts about his liaisons, and police in neighboring cities say they spotted Goldston riding in South Pasadena police cruisers, Mahoney said he was unaware of much of the activity in his 54-member department.

But others say Goldston was a fixture in the small police headquarters, and many in this tidy suburban enclave are not happy about the turn of events.

“It was just free rein,” said George Brown, a former South Pasadena reserve officer who was fired from the department in an unrelated case. “They would not sneak her in under the cloak of darkness. There’s only one way she could come into the station, and that’s through the front door.”

“The whole place is going to hell in a handbasket,” said former Mayor James Hodge Jr.

Current city officials don’t want to talk about the rowdy tales spilling from the department, especially since Goldston filed a claim against the city last month alleging that lax management led to her exploitation. Many publicly back the department, but some grumble privately about the stain on South Pasadena’s image.

“This is like a Joseph Wambaugh novel,” said one senior city official. “It is ‘The Choirboys’ revisited. This is really disgusting.”

Some residents also are appalled.

Abe Sakali, a local businessman, said: “How can we trust these people to protect us? . . . People here pay their taxes for protection. Obviously, these guys weren’t doing that.”

Mahoney said that Goldston twice complained to him that his officers were mistreating her, but that she refused to cooperate with an internal investigation until she was arrested in February in the shooting incident. Private relationships were not his business, Mahoney said, adding that no one alerted him to on-duty misconduct.

“I had nobody telling me,” he said. “No dates, no times . . . I’m not going to conduct a witch hunt.”

Former Officer Robert Mesch, 37, whose relationship with Goldston led to his dismissal, contends that the behavior was tolerated for months, and that he did not deserve to be fired for his fling.

“I was punished for once having [on-duty] sex with my ex-girlfriend,” Mesch said.

But Mahoney said that while he cannot discuss disciplinary actions against officers, he stands by his department’s handling of the affair. “I am not embarrassed,” Mahoney said. “Quite frankly, I am proud that we have set very high standards of conduct, very high standards of moral and ethical behavior.”

Mesch, in an interview, said that in his 13 years as a South Pasadena police officer, he had never before met a woman like Theresa Goldston.

According to transcripts of the internal affairs investigation, Mesch’s supervisor, Sgt. Jeremy Kitabjian, introduced the two in late 1994. By the new year they were having sex in Mesch’s private car, and once in an underground garage while Mesch was on duty, according to the investigation transcripts.

Goldston told investigators that Mesch in turn introduced her to other officers, and she ended up having sexual relationships with seven--though the only on-duty sex was with Mesch and Kitabjian, according to the internal report and Goldston’s claim against the city. (Kitabjian resigned after the internal investigation.)

Mesch says he broke off his relationship with Goldston in March 1995. Goldston then began a “Fatal Attraction” pursuit, he said. She said Mesch led her on. During that time, Goldston continued to fraternize with other officers, according to the internal investigation.

Although she was not an official volunteer at the South Pasadena police station, Goldston attended local safety fairs and sometimes went to the station to speak with other officers or learn how to shoot on the department’s firing range, she told investigators.

At a bar one night, according to the internal affairs report, Goldston showed her gun to Mesch and two other off-duty officers. She also told Mesch that she had tape-recorded their liaisons, police documents say. Mesch exploded and stomped on Goldston’s tape recorder, and a distraught Goldston went down to the department gym and beat on a training dummy, she told investigators.

In January of this year, Goldston approached Mesch at the “Pig Bowl,” an annual football game between the San Marino and South Pasadena police departments. She told investigators she brought her gun and planned to kill herself on the field at halftime. Instead, she tried to talk with Mesch, who was with his wife and daughter, but he just walked away.

In her claim against the city, Goldston, who told investigators she has been treated for manic depression, says this rejection drove her to the police station lobby two weeks later with a gun to her head, threatening to kill herself. Instead, she shot her revolver out the door and into the street.

Three weeks later, Mahoney said, Goldston called him and said she would now identify the officers who had sex with her while they were on duty. The department’s two top female officers--one of whom was an attendant at Mesch’s first wedding--began an investigation.

Mesch complains that he has been left out in the cold after stepping forward and confessing his wrongdoing--and the police union won’t pay for an attorney.

Meanwhile, Goldston, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor firearms violation, says she is planning to write a book or screenplay about her experiences, and though she feels rejected and used, she remains nostalgic about her days with the police.

“They made me feel like I was basically mayor of the city,” she said, “and I could do whatever I want.”