The highest ranking officers in the King City Police Department for years targeted the city’s most vulnerable residents, essentially stealing their cars for profit, District Attorney Dean Flippo said Tuesday.

In what is likely the most widespread case of official corruption in Monterey County history, six King City police officers, including the former and acting chiefs of police, were arrested on felony charges on Tuesday, four of them accused of conspiracy, embezzlement and bribery. The owner of a local tow truck company, the brother of the acting chief, was arrested in the scheme, which involved impounding the cars of mostly unlicensed drivers, then selling them when the cars’ owners were unable to pay towing and storage fees.

Prosecutor Steve Somers, who is handling the case, said he considered charging the officers with hate crimes because they targeted disadvantaged Latino residents. He concluded their actions targeted the victims because they were vulnerable, not out of racial animus.

After a six-month investigation by the District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s deputies, Salinas police and FBI agents fanned out in five teams to make simultaneous arrests shortly before 6 a.m. While each of the targets had been interviewed, Flippo said at an afternoon press conference, none had advance notice of the arrests. None resisted when confronted.

The arrested were:

Sgt. Bobby Javier Carillo, 44, of Soledad, who impounded hundreds of cars, allegedly earning a free car for every 10 to 15 he towed. He is charged with conspiracy, accepting a bribe and bribing an executive officer.

Acting Chief Bruce Miller, who allegedly received one of the cars from Carillo, knowing its source, is charged with accepting a bribe.

Brian Miller, the chief’s brother and owner of Miller’s Towing, charged with conspiracy to commit a crime and bribing an executive officer.

Former chief Dominic “Nick” Baldiviez, 49, of Bradley, who is charged with giving a city-owned car to officer Mario Alonso Mottu Sr. Both are charged with embezzlement by a public official.

Flippo said two other officers were charged with felonies discovered during the ongoing investigation that were unrelated to the bribery and embezzlement case. Officer Jaime Andrade, 36, of Soledad was charged with possession of an assault weapon and illegal storage of a firearm.

Officer Mark Allen Baker, 44, of Paso Robles, was charged with threatening violence on a local resident.

Each was booked into Monterey County Jail, where they posted bail ranging from $10,000 to $60,000. Sheriff Scott Miller said the officers were processed at the jail but never housed with the general population. The officers are on paid administrative leave.

Arraignments set

They will be arraigned Monday and March 6 in Monterey County Superior Court. Each of the felony public corruption charges carries a maximum four-year prison sentence.

On a day when Santa Cruz was mourning the deaths of detectives Butch Baker and Elizabeth Butler one year ago, Flippo said it was a sad day for his investigators and the residents of King City to have uncovered such corruption among them.

“This is not a pleasant time for any of us in law enforcement, certainly not anyone in the District Attorney’s Office,” he said. “Any time you have violations — of the (police) oath, that is difficult for us.”

Chief Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz said the office has already had to dismiss at least three criminal cases because of the lack of credibility of the accused officers. Every case they are involved with is being reviewed to determine if it can go forward without their testimony.

Flippo said King City residents long ago lost trust in their police department, which suffered from a lack of leadership for years.

Baldiviez was placed on leave after a public vote of no confidence in 2010. He later returned, but “retired” in September 2013 at the same time the District Attorney’s Office was ratcheting up its investigation. At a press conference in King City on Tuesday, City Manager Michael Powers said Baldiviez was still on the city’s payroll, being paid for overtime and compensatory time he accumulated and kept track of for 28 years.

Flippo said the investigation of the car scheme dated back six months, but his office’s focus on allegations of wrongdoing in the department dated back four years, when the community started voicing its lack of trust in the department. In 2010, Flippo’s investigators were looking into a rash of gang slayings in the city and kept coming across witnesses who were not gang-related but said they would not share with local police the evidence they had regarding the murders.

A town hall meeting where community members expressed outrage at the lack of progress in solving the gang crimes was videotaped and posted online by KSBW, Flippo said. His investigators started monitoring hundreds of comments posted to the video, some of which contained allegations that police were stealing impounded automobiles.

The district attorney said Miller’s Towing is one of four tow-truck operations that is supposed to rotate impound calls for the King City Police Department. What his investigators found, Flippo said, was that Carrillo had impounded more than 200 vehicles from March 1, 2010 to Nov. 1, 2013 and 87 percent went to Miller’s Towing.

Flippo’s office worked closely with the Department of Motor Vehicles to track the changes of ownership of the towed cars to build their body of evidence. Because of the nature of the migrant community, his office has interviewed few of the victims so far and does not know if they were pulled over for legitimate reasons.

Ana Vargas, co-chairwoman of the South County Outreach Efforts and a King City resident, said community members have complained for months in front of the City Council about Miller’s Towing and the outrageous rules they had to follow to recover their cars. She said Miller’s required owners of impounded cars to keep them there for 30 days, with charges accruing. By the time drivers could pick up their cars, they owed $2,000 to $3,000.

“The cars were not even worth that much,” Vargas said. Unable to pay, drivers would just abandon their autos.

No interpreter

About 30 residents showed up for the press conference by Powers and Mayor Robert Cullen. Many expressed shock at the allegations, others outrage. Barbara Martinez, 35, who has lived in the city for 10 years, complained that the city officials did not have an interpreter present to help explain criminal allegations that involved Spanish-speaking residents.

“I’ve always felt the Hispanic community didn’t have a voice,” she said.

Said lifelong King City resident Clayton Stephens, 35, “We’ve been paying these guys to do crooked work.”

The immediate safety needs of the community were at the forefront of both press conferences on Tuesday.

The arrested officers represent 35 percent of the city’s police force and most of its upper ranks. Flippo said several other officers are on stress or medical leave, leaving the force down 50 percent.

Miller, who spoke at Flippo’s press conference, said he offered his office’s services to King City, at least on a temporary basis. Powers and Cullen said they plan to take him up on the offer. At least through Wednesday, 31-year King City veteran Sgt. Alejandra “Alex” Tirado will serve as acting chief of police.

Cullen announced there will be a community forum the week of March 17 to allow residents to ask questions and vent their frustrations. The date, time and locations will be announced in the near future.

Powers and Cullen said they were unaware of the investigation or the officers’ alleged misconduct, learning of the arrests in a phone call Tuesday morning from Flippo.

“This is not the kind of morning anyone expected,” Powers said.

Cullen said he considers the arrests a “huge issue” but said he had no plans to resign for being unaware of the alleged misconduct and would not consider a resignation by Powers, who has been city manager for more than seven years.

Flippo said the case, and the FBI’s involvement Tuesday morning, were unrelated to an investigation of the money from a bank robbery that went missing after it was recovered by King City police officers last year.

He stressed his office’s investigation is ongoing and more charges and arrests could come. Anyone with information on the case is asked to call investigator Roy Diaz at 784-5648.

Staff writers Phillip Molnar and Claudia Melendez contributed to this report.

Virginia Hennessey can be reached at (831) 753-6751 or vhennessey@montereyherald.com