Ticket-Dismissal Incidents May Violate the Law

A top California law enforcement official said Monday that he is “astounded� by allegations of ticket-fixing by the San Diego Police Department and added that the practice isn’t widespread in other law enforcement agencies around the state.

Steve White, chief assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, said “it just doesn’t happen� that other police departments dismiss parking and traffic tickets for the media, friends and relatives.

“I know chiefs of police,� said White. “I know district attorneys. I know law enforcement agencies throughout the state and I do not believe . . . that they dismiss tickets.

“It’s a cliche about cops, perhaps in other states and other times,� White said about the ticket-fixing. “But not in California and certainly not in modern times.�

A monthlong investigation by The Times found that San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender and his top assistants last year dismissed thousands of parking citations in violations of the department’s own policies, including tickets given to Kolender’s wife and Assistant Police Chief Bob Burgreen’s daughter.

The Times also found that the department dismissed at least 30 traffic tickets since January, 1985.

Those findings follow on the heels of allegations made against Kolender by a former uniformed officer in his office that she was dispatched to perform personal errands--taking his children to the dentist, picking up wedding gifts and San Diego Charger tickets for friends--during working hours in 1980 and 1981. The charges, some of which Kolender has admitted to, were contained in a diary kept by the officer and submitted in a report to the city Civil Service Commission on Thursday.

In response to the allegations, Kolender said last week in a prepared statement, “The fact of the matter is we have done some things that have been more or less a way of life in law enforcement within this city and elsewhere.�

White on Monday said his office had contacted the city attorney’s and district attorney’s offices to determine the status of any investigations into the allegations.

“The allegations are of obstruction of justice and misappropriation of public funds--both extraordinarily serious allegations,� White said in a telephone interview from his Sacramento office. “I really am astounded, if this is true.�

City officials are probing the charges, but Dist. Atty. Edwin L. Miller Jr. said he has not begun an inquiry. “I haven’t given it any attention at this point,� Miller said.

White declined to discuss the allegations against Kolender and his department in detail, but said that state laws against obstruction of justice, a felony, could apply to any police agency where the dismissal of tickets is based on favoritism.

“There is a substantial difference between dismissing a ticket because it turns out the offense for which it was issued was not committed . . . and a circumstance where the basis for setting the ticket aside is a relationship between the police department and the individual.�

When asked to elaborate, White said: “If the radar (to track speeding motorists) is not working, that’s one thing. But if the radar is working and you give a ticket to a friend, you can’t do that--you can’t set that aside.�

About charges that Kolender used a city employee to run personal errands, White declined to discuss specifics.

But he added that a state law against misappropriating public funds, also a felony, prohibits an official from using a public employee to perform personal business, which is considered tantamount to “taking� money from taxpayers.

“If someone is paid to be a police officer and he is mowing your lawn at home, then the public is paying to mow your lawn,� he said.