A former Pacific Grove police commander has pleaded guilty to charges that he steered a possible crime victim to his private investigation firm, then merely pretended to look into her case after accepting $10,000, authorities said Wednesday.

John Nyunt, 51, admitted Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose that he hadn’t investigated the woman’s complaint that she was the victim of electronic surveillance and stalking after referring her to his private firm.

Nyunt also pretended to provide the woman with security in the form of off-duty police officers, authorities said. The woman paid Nyunt and a second investigator $10,000 “for their purported services,” federal prosecutors said.

Nyunt told another Pacific Grove police officer not to conduct an official investigation of the woman’s complaint and instead to give any evidence that she provided to Nyunt, authorities said.

“When the victim could make no further payments for the services of the investigative agency, Nyunt told her falsely that the police department and the FBI would continue to investigate her complaint,” prosecutors said.

Nyunt admitted that he gave his accomplice his departmental password and access to a commercial law-enforcement database without authorization. The accomplice, who wasn’t named, presented herself falsely as an authorized user of the commercial database and obtained financial and personal information belonging to various people.

Nyunt retired from the Pacific Grove force last year as the investigation into him began.

At a hearing last month in Monterey County Superior Court, Nyunt was sentenced to three years in prison. He pleaded guilty to one count of dissuading a person from reporting a crime by threats of violence, one count of being an accessory after the fact to theft and burglary and one count of being an accomplice to the burglary of a business, all felonies.

Nyunt was also charged in a separate federal case and pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud. He is to be sentenced in that case on Sept. 2.

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