A court has found that a California police officer who was a 15-year veteran on his force lied about a 2019 traffic stop in the city of Hollywood, The Sacramento Bee reported.
Los Angeles police officer Alejandro Castillo, 50, was found guilty of one felony count each of filing a false report and of perjury, according to a March 20 news release.
On Oct. 18, 2019, Castillo said he stopped a driver for making an unsafe left turn into oncoming traffic and nearly causing a car crash. He wrote in his police report that he gave the driver a sobriety test and arrested him for driving under the influence.
But after a review of Castillo’s body cam, prosecutors found that the driver had waited for all cars to pass before making the turn.
But DUI charges were never filed against the driver, causing prosecutors to raise questions about the officer’s body-camera footage. Castillo was arrested in July of 2021.
“When an officer lies in the course of their investigation it can have devastating consequences including wrongful incarceration and sometimes wrongful convictions,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement. “We cannot have the people we entrusted to take away a person’s liberty lying in their official capacity.”
Castillo faces up to four years and eight months in state prison and has been “assigned home” during an administrative investigation. He’s due to be sentenced on May 12.
