A former San Diego police sergeant who stalked his ex-girlfriend over a period of several months must serve a year in a work furlough program.
Mariusz Czas, 43, who worked for the San Diego Police Department for 18 years and was assigned to the SDPD Traffic Division, pleaded guilty in September to a felony stalking charge.
The court ordered Czas on Thursday to report to the furlough program in January. He also received three years’ probation.
Prosecutors say Czas used police databases to track down the victim and her new boyfriend, who have since married and moved out of state.
Court papers from a restraining order the victim obtained against Czas last year state that after their relationship ended, he conducted a traffic stop on her. He then asked why she was leaving him.
She also began receiving text messages from unknown numbers demanding money and threatening to post nude photos of her on pornographic websites or send the pictures to her contacts, according to court papers.
She stated she believed Czas was behind those texts, though he claimed to her that he was also a victim of the same “hacker” and would contact investigators to look into it.
A review of Czas’ searches on police databases showed that he conducted records checks to obtain the ex-girlfriend’s license plate number and her new boyfriend’s address and other personal information, according to court documents.
After the woman reported Czas’ behavior to police, the department shifted him to a desk assignment that required no contact with the public. He was arrest in February, according to an SDPD spokesman.
Deputy District Attorney Amy Colby read a statement in court written by the victim, who attended Czas’ sentencing hearing remotely.
“Over the past year, I’ve lived in crippling fear,” said the victim, who wrote she had suffered from daily nightmares, concerned over being watched and followed. She said text messages and calls from unknown numbers sent her into moments of panic, as she feared the “hacker,” who she now knows was Czas.
“You used the power of your badge to assist you in your sick and twisted `hacking’ fantasy,” she wrote.
Colby said that once confronted about the stalking, Czas “rushed to delete evidence of his crimes,” prompting another detective’s efforts over the course of months “to retrace the defendant’s digital footprint.”
Czas’ attorney, Dan Greene, urged San Diego Superior Court Judge Daniel Link to take Czas’ entire life and career into account and not solely weigh his client’s worst actions against him.
Greene said Czas accepted responsibility early by entering his guilty plea and was remorseful.
In a brief statement to the court, Czas told the judge, “I am extremely embarrassed by this whole situation and the pain I caused to (the victim). This will follow me for the rest of my life.”
Link credited Czas for serving the community well over the course of a “storied career.” He said though that he had to consider that “this woman was terrorized,” as well as “the suffering that (she) had to endure” in sentencing the sergeant.
“While I do feel that Mr. Czas is very sorry now, I do think in the moment, he was caught up to the point where he couldn’t stop the terrorizing until higher-ups and detectives finally brought him to task,” Link said.
– City News Service
