ORO VALLEY COP INDICTED IN DRUG MONEY SCAM

An Oro Valley police officer arrested yesterday invented informants and
reported imaginary drug buys to pocket about $3,000 in narcotics squad
funds, an indictment alleges. Sgt. James Redzinak, 33, was arrested about
9:30 a.m. after a Maricopa County grand jury Wednesday handed up a 32-count
indictment against the 11-year police veteran. The charges include one count
each of conspiracy, theft and fraudulent schemes and artifices, as well as
29 counts of forgery.

Redzinak was arrested by agents from the Metropolitan Area Narcotics
Trafficking Interdiction Squads, said Pima County sheriff's Lt. Ron Benson,
who is assigned to MANTIS. The charges stem from when Redzinak was assigned
to MANTIS as an undercover officer from June 1, 1993, to June 1, 1996.
MANTIS officials claim Redzinak pocketed money by making up informants and
drug buys, then falsifying reports to cover his tracks, Benson said.
Redzinak also is accused of pocketing money from his expense account that he
claimed to spend on bar tabs, Benson said. The charges involve a total of
about $3,000, he said.

Redzinak was booked into the Pima County Jail yesterday morning, but was
released on his own recognizance later that day at his 2 p.m. arraignment.
He could not be reached for comment.

While on MANTIS, Redzinak was partnered with former Pima County sheriff's
Deputy Jesus Celaya. Celaya was indicted in May 1998 on 18 counts alleging
conspiracy, theft, possession and sale of marijuana and cocaine and
tampering with evidence. Celaya accepted a plea agreement May 21 in which
he pleaded guilty to two felony drug charges in exchange for prosecutors
dropping the other 16 counts, as well as two other cases, said Pati Urias,
public information officer for the Arizona Attorney General's Office.
Celaya's sentencing date has not been set and he is free on a $20,000 bond,
Urias said.

During the investigation of Celaya, statements he and Redzinak made about
certain cases did not mesh. Investigators looked further, and ``that's when
we started uncovering these various cases that were fraudulent,'' Benson
said. In a 1996 interview with sheriff's investigators about Celaya,
Redzinak admitted to losing evidence in ``a couple'' of cases, according to
Pima County Sheriff's Department records. He attributed those losses to
``putting the wrong case number on a piece of paper.'' Investigators have
spent the last year poring through hundreds of Redzinak's case reports,
activity logs and expense sheets, Benson said. Investigators believe
Redzinak and Celaya were aware of each other's wrongdoing, Benson said.

Yesterday, Redzinak was suspended without pay from his duties as a patrol
and SWAT sergeant for the Oro Valley Police Department, said Becky Mendez,
an Oro Valley police spokeswoman. The department will conduct an internal
investigation of the allegations, she said. His arrest shocked the
approximately 60 officer department, Mendez said, adding that Redzinak was
well-regarded among the close-knit department. Oro Valley officers contacted
yesterday said they were given instructions by the department not to talk
about Redzinak.

Benson said Redzinak's indictment will not affect any criminal cases.
``These are things he invented as another source of income,'' he said,
noting that undercover officers cannot perform off-duty jobs. Mendez said
that Redzinak, who is married and has two children, supplemented his $47,258
salary by working off-duty jobs for the Tucson Mall since being reassigned
to the department in 1996.

The Celaya and Redzinak investigations prompted MANTIS officials to monitor
their officers more closely. ``The kinds of things they did could not occur
now,'' Benson said. Now there is more supervision in the field, he said.
Officers are not allowed to go out by themselves ``so we don't just have two
people claiming to meet somebody,'' he said. MANTIS now uses a fully
automated reporting system, instead of the paper reports used when Celaya
and Redzinak worked there. Supervisors also now review all closed cases and
determine why arrests were not made. ``Cases were being left open and later
closed without arrests, even though . . . money had been spent on those
cases,'' said Tucson police Capt. Kermit Miller, who is assigned to MANTIS.
``That should have raised a red flag.'' ``I'm angry and I'm embarrassed,''
said Miller, who supervised Celaya and Redzinak for about six months. A
MANTIS assignment offers more temptations than patrol, Miller said. ``They
have expense accounts, they have money in their pocket . . . they have
freedom. They are not in uniform.'' But, ``people with real solid values
normally don't commit crimes. They are able to resist temptation,'' he said.

Arizona Daily Star reporter Inger Sandal contributed to this story.