A detective and his informant

Avelino Tamala began his law enforcement career as a transportation officer with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in 1985, when he was 22. Most people called him “Al.”

He moved up quickly within MCSO, working first as a detention officer, then patrol officer. By 1990, he had risen to the rank of detective within the agency’s narcotics division.

Tamala’s superiors considered him a hard-working, effective lawman who kept to himself and produced results.

“He was the guy doing it all,” said Sgt. Richard Rosky, Tamala’s then-lieutenant. “He was one of my best detectives at the time.”

Cazares told Tamala about his friend, Anna Reyes, who was in jail but wanted to cooperate with law enforcement in exchange for a reduction to her sentence or charges. Tamala met with Reyes in 1993, and she told him about her family – the Somozas – and their heavy involvement in the Mexican drug trade.

Darren Stockwell said years later that he remembered seeing Tamala visit Reyes in jail in 1991, but MCSO supervisors said they weren’t aware of any visits. Investigators acknowledged there were conflicting accounts regarding when Tamala and Reyes first met.

Still, the information Reyes gave Tamala in 1993 resulted in arrests and sizable drug seizures, which proved to Tamala’s superiors that Reyes might be more useful out of custody.

Capt. Steve Werner led the Special Investigations Division at the time and oversaw Reyes’ release from jail. Their agreement stipulated that Reyes would work as an informant for MCSO, as well as several local, state and federal agencies.

MCSO records detail Werner’s arrangement, which addressed one notable characteristic of Reyes that he thought could lead to problems.

“Werner said that [Reyes] had a reputation of becoming sexually involved with officers and that she was considered by many to be very attractive,” records state. “To avoid problems of this nature Werner ordered that two officers be assigned to [Reyes] at all times.”

A second detective, Gary Eggert, was assigned to work with Reyes and Tamala. But Eggert quickly became frustrated by the arrangement, because most of the tips Reyes provided fell flat.

One of those instances took place in October 1994, after Reyes told detectives about a sale of 200 pounds of marijuana. They arranged an undercover deal and made an arrest, but the drugs they seized came in 140 pounds light. Reyes later told Tamala she had “skimmed” the load and sold the rest herself. At the time, the payout would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars.

“Everybody in the office, I think, was expecting some, you know, us to bring down the Colombians or something,” Eggert said at the time. “And it just wasn’t happening.”

The results were warning signs to Eggert. He started noticing Reyes and Tamala were becoming close.

“I just kind of felt uncomfortable about the situation and I didn’t … if something happened bad, I didn’t want to be a part of it,” Eggert said. “You have a sixth sense that hey, you know, stay clear of something. And this could be something bad.”

Eggert went to Rosky, Tamala’s then-lieutenant, asking to be reassigned and told him about Tamala’s slipping performance and closeness with Reyes.

Rosky questioned Tamala about Reyes, but Tamala assured him nothing was happening between them. Other co-workers eventually started speculating about Tamala’s relationship with his informant. It became an “office joke,” according to records.

In 1995, the sheriff’s office opened an internal affairs investigation. The resulting report accused Tamala of “fraternizing” with Reyes.

Tamala admitted to investigators that since September 1994, just months after Reyes became an informant, he’d been periodically living with her.

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Werner, the investigation’s division captain, brought Tamala into his office and gave him a direct order to end the relationship. Tamala refused, so Werner asked for his badge and resignation.

In a subsequent letter to the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board advocating that Tamala never again be hired into law enforcement, Werner wrote, “The tragedy of this affair lies in the fact of his blatant, uncaring attitude and lack of remorse which was displayed to Sergeant Rosky and myself at the time when I accepted his resignation.”

An office secretary, Rosanna Galindo, lamented Tamala’s downward spiral, telling internal affairs investigators, “I just think it’s kind of sad what happened to him, because he’s a real nice guy. And I don’t know, you know, what’s going to happen to him.

“I guess love can make you do anything.”