OAKLAND, CA - June 25: Oakland Housing Authority Police Department crest. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group)
OAKLAND — The far-reaching FBI probe into Antioch and Pittsburg officers has expanded to Oakland, where a housing authority cop is under investigation for alleged crimes that include drug use and taking part in a college-degree scheme to earn pay bumps, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
Oakland Housing Authority Officer Brauli Rodriguez-Jalapa, a former Pittsburg police officer, was placed on paid administrative leave last year, when the FBI and Contra Costa District Attorney started investigating more than a dozen current and former East Contra Costa officers for a range of alleged crimes.
He remains on leave pending the outcome of the probe, an attorney for the Oakland Housing Authority confirmed this week.
The revelations about Rodriguez-Jalapa’s alleged involvement raises questions about just how much the scandal will bleed into neighboring Alameda County, where several of the impugned officers had worked before moving to East Contra Costa. Thus far, prosecutors in federal court and Contra Costa County have dismissed dozens of criminal charges and convictions that relied on the testimony of officers who the court views as no longer trustworthy.
In early 2022, Contra Costa’s presiding judge signed a search warrant authorizing the FBI to seize Rodriguez-Jalapa’s cellphone in connection with the probe, according to court records. Rodriguez-Jalapa’s attorney could not be reached for comment.
Public records show that Rodriguez-Jalapa joined the Oakland Housing Authority’s police department in 2014. It is a small force of about 35 tasked with policing areas and buildings controlled by the public housing authority and assisting the Oakland Police Department as needed.
In October 2017, Rodriguez-Jalapa left the Housing Authority to join the Pittsburg police force. But just seven months later, he left the department and returned to his previous employer.
Now, he is the latest officer identified by this news organization as under FBI investigation, a probe sources have said began after allegations of cops conspiring to fraudulently obtain college degrees to collect pay bumps and quickly snowballed as investigators uncovered evidence of other potential crimes.
Multiple law enforcement sources with firsthand knowledge of the ongoing investigation said Rodriguez-Jalapa is suspected of alleged drug use and distribution. He is also under investigation for allegedly participating in the degree fraud scheme, along with a number of East Contra Costa officers who allegedly had a third-party person take exams in their names at an online university.
Two implicated Pittsburg officers, Patrick Berhan and Ernesto Mejia, both wrote personal checks to the city of Pittsburg for $25,000 and $9,459 respectively, offering to avoid the “perception” they’d unlawfully acquired incentive pay but admitting to no wrongdoing. They left the department after the allegations came to light.
Others, including several Antioch officers, are under investigation for suspected civil rights violations, some involving K9 attacks. The other alleged crimes include falsifying reports, accepting bribes to quash traffic tickets and involvement in criminal conspiracies. One former Pittsburg officer, Armando Montalvo, has been charged with illegal possession and sale of assault rifles.
In March 2022, the FBI obtained search warrants to seize cellphones belonging to 16 East Contra Costa officers. It was from these phones that authorities eventually discovered dozens of officers sending and receiving racist, homophobic and sexist text messages, including texts containing the N-word and making light of injuring Black people during arrests.
Originally published at Nate Gartrell