CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The hunt for information on a suspected mistress exposed a love affair between two Cleveland cops and sent one to jail for illegally obtaining records from a police database.

Officers Samuel Feldman and Andrea Viccaro, partners on the job, decided to look into what they believed was an affair that Viccaro's husband was having. Turns out, Viccaro's husband was not being unfaithful. It is Feldman and Viccaro who are an item.

The officers each received 10-day suspensions last month because Feldman accessed confidential information from the database on a woman they spotted with Viccaro's husband. Information from police databases is to be used only for law enforcement purposes.

Before the suspensions, Feldman and Viccaro each pleaded no contest to charges of unauthorized use of property in Cleveland Municipal Court. Viccaro received a suspended 30-day jail sentence. A judge sentenced Feldman to 120 days in jail but suspended 116 days. He served the four days in the city workhouse.

The criminal investigation of their actions started after a woman -- a State Highway Patrol trooper at the Ashland County post -- suspected someone found confidential information about her from a police database.

Cleveland released the investigative file this week. Police records from the Internal Affairs Unit and sources tell the following story:

Feldman, 41, and Viccaro, 35, knew nothing about the suspected other woman -- except that Viccaro heard her husband, Stephen Halabica, talking to a woman on the phone.

The patrol officers essentially transformed themselves into undercover detectives the next day as each took personal time off, and teamed to follow Halabica from his Cleveland home to Brunswick. They saw him invite a woman into his pickup truck at a restaurant parking lot, then followed as Halabica drove to downtown Cleveland. The tail ended when they lost the truck in traffic.

Feldman took Viccaro home, but returned to Brunswick to get the license plate of the woman's Chevy Malibu that was still in the restaurant lot.

Feldman plugged the license plate into a police database and conducted 13 searches on his personal computer. He printed pictures of the woman and gave the material to Viccaro.

Armed with the information, Viccaro confronted her husband about his date with a blonde woman named "Penelope." Viccaro told her husband she had spotted the two on downtown surveillance cameras.

But the story confused Halabica. He knew the woman only as "Penny."

Halabica called Penny Beaty and asked about the name Penelope. Beaty demanded to know how Halabica knew the name. She said Penelope is only listed on her driver's license and on certain records. Halabica told Beaty that his wife had mentioned it.

Halabica and Beaty suspected that Viccaro or Feldman had followed them and had run the license plate through a database. Beaty filed a complaint with Cleveland investigators.

"I was shocked that he asked me that because I don't go by that name," Beaty told investigators. "When Steve told me about this conversation with Andrea, I immediately knew that she had to have run the plates of my car."

The Internal Affairs reports say Beaty and Halabica were not lovers. They met through a mutual friend. Beaty didn't know the Cleveland area, and Halabica volunteered to drive her downtown for a comedy show.

During early interviews with investigators, Viccaro and Feldman said they wanted the information on the Malibu because Viccaro had noticed a suspicious car on her street and feared for her family's safety.

Feldman told investigators he believed he was acting properly by looking out for his partner.

"I acknowledge that I should have informed a supervisor before I took any action. We weren't trying to discover the identity of his girlfriend, if he had one," the Internal Affairs report quoted Feldman.

Viccaro's statement said, "I regret that I didn't go to a supervisor first, but at the time we acted in a manner that we thought was for law enforcement purposes."

Internal Affairs didn't buy it.

Neither officer mentioned the suspicious vehicle until they needed an excuse for running the plate, said a report written by Sgt. Charles DePenti.

"The suspicious vehicle was clearly a ruse to conceal the true nature of the [computer] queries completed by Feldman," DePenti wrote.

After the investigation began, Feldman filed for divorce from his wife.

Viccaro and Feldman joined the Cleveland force in October 2006. Eventually, during the internal investigation, they acknowledged they were romantically involved.

The two met while attending the Cleveland police academy. They became partners in the 3rd Police District. They now work out of the 4th District. Feldman had worked more than seven years with the Columbus Police Department and the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

Feldman and Viccaro pleaded no contest in their January Municipal Court appearance in front of Judge Michael Ryan. He found them guilty, and also ordered them to complete an ethics class and serve probation for one year. He banned them from being partners again.

Police spokesman Sgt. Sammy Morris said police take oaths to uphold the laws and must follow a code of ethics.

"They messed up," he said.

Neither Feldman nor Viccaro could be reached for comment.