MARTINEZ — Two months after his felony arrest, a former East Bay policeman has been charged with three misdemeanors for allegedly driving drunk and threatening the cops who arrested him, court records show.
These charges against Brauli Rodriguez Jalapa, a former officer with the Oakland Housing Authority and Pittsburg police departments, come while he continues to fight a federal case as part of a massive police corruption scandal involving 14 former East Contra Costa police officers. In that, Rodriguez Jalapa is charged with participating in a scheme to defraud the city of Pittsburg by paying someone to take college classes for him and receiving incentive pay for city employees who receive college degrees.
On Wednesday, the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office charged Rodriguez Jalapa with two counts of drunken driving and one count of threatening a peace officer. He was arrested last February, in Clayton, on suspicion of a misdemeanor DUI count and a felony count of threatening officers.
Authorities say that Clayton officers found Rodriguez Jalapa asleep behind the wheel, and that he was belligerent when they woke him up. At a court hearing in his federal case following the arrest, his lawyer said he immediately took steps to enroll in rehab after the arrest and felt terrible about what happened.
Rodriguez Jalapa is due in court on May 9 for an arraignment, records show. He remains out of custody while both cases are pending, having put his home in Contra Costa County up for bond in his federal case.
Rodriguez Jalapa worked for Pittsburg police briefly in 2017, but spent most of his 10-year career with the Oakland Housing Authority police. He continued to work in law enforcement after July 2021, when he was arrested in Brentwood on suspicion of being intoxicated in public and found to have violated the OHA department’s policy, multiple law enforcement sources said.
The federal case against Rodriguez Jalapa alleges he paid $12,130 in tuition to California Coast University, then requested reimbursement from the Pittsburg Police Department, “based on the fraudulent coursework” a person did for him. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.
One of his former colleagues, Patrick Berhan, has already pleaded guilty in the fraud scheme, and signed a plea deal that named Rodriguez Jalapa as one of the other participants. A former Antioch community services officer, Samantha Genoveva Peterson, has also pleaded guilty. Both continue to await sentencing.
Source: www.mercurynews.com