ROCKVILLE, Md. – A Montgomery County police officer is on the wrong side of the law. Officer Dina Hoffman faces charges of perjury and misconduct.
Hoffman was just indicted by a grand jury over a DUI case dating back to May of 2008. That’s when she claimed George Zaliev was driving drunk. Zaliev was arrested and charged with DUI.
But his attorney produced a videotape from Zaliev’s employer’s surveillance camera that shows the worker was actually asleep in the backseat of a friend’s car. His legs were hanging outside the rear passenger door when the officer found him.
He says he tried to explain that he had gotten off work two hours before and started drinking. He napped while waiting for his friend to get off work and drive them home. But Zaliev failed a field sobriety test and was arrested anyway.
At the trial this past April, the court transcript shows Hoffman repeatedly said she found Zaliev behind the wheel of the car. Once Paul Mack, Esq., produced the videotape, the officer apologized and said it had been a year and that she handles many cases everyday.
The judge immediately dismissed the case. But Zaliev’s attorney says it delayed the immigrant’s efforts to become a citizen.
Hoffman is a three-year veteran of the police department. She is now on paid administrative leave until her criminal trial. She could still face an internal affairs investigation afterward.
By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 21, 2009; 12:09 PM
A Montgomery County police officer has been indicted on charges of perjury and misconduct in office that stemmed from an earlier DUI case, authorities said Friday.
Officer Dina Hoffman had asserted in court that when she arrived at the scene of the DUI arrest in Gaithersburg on May 3, 2008, the suspect was seated in the driver’s seat of a black Lexus.
“In fact, he was not,” according to the indictment. “In truth, Dina Hoffman observed George Zaliev reclining on his back in the rear seat of the vehicle, with his legs hanging out the rear passenger side door.”
The officer, who is on administrative leave, is being prosecuted by the Howard County state’s attorney’s office. Montgomery officials turned over the case because Montgomery prosecutors might be called as witnesses in the case, according to Howard officials.
“This is a case that we took very seriously from the moment the complaint was received against Officer Hoffman,” Montgomery Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. “She will have her day in court to answer these charges.
“A police officer’s word carries a great deal of influence in court testimony,” Manger added. “The public has an expectation that anyone wearing a badge, with the responsibility of upholding the law, must uphold their integrity first and foremost. Any breach of that integrity cannot be tolerated.”
Hoffman, who has been a police officer for three years, was indicted by a Montgomery grand jury Thursday on one count of perjury, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and one count of misconduct in office, a common-law charge, according to the Howard state’s attorney office, which announced the indictment Friday. A criminal trial has been scheduled for Nov. 23, according to online court records. Hoffman’s attorney, James Shalleck, declined to comment, saying he had not seen the specific charges against her.
At the DUI trial in April, Zaliev’s attorney, Paul Mack, was able to counter Hoffman’s initial testimony by playing video footage from a security camera at a nearby business. The footage indicated that when Hoffman approached the Lexus, Zaliev was in the back seat.
“You never saw him in the front seat, correct?” Mack asked the officer.
“As the video shows, I guess I didn’t,” Hoffman said.
The officer also apologized during the trial. “It’s been over a year. I deal with a lot of these cases every day, so my apologies,” she said.
District Court Judge Dennis M. McHugh ruled Zaliev not guilty.
WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND HERE?? Tow Truck Driver Wrote Tickets Using Montgomery County Police Officer’s Book
While parking spaces reserved for guests sit empty, residents of the Fenshire Farms Town home community in Gaithersburg have to park a half mile away to avoid being ticketed or towed.
Cliff Rehder’s stepdad was nabbed.
“He had to go bail out his car and pay a couple hundred dollars for parking across the street from his house,” Rehder says.
Residents say they feel like a local towing company is stalking them, lying in wait to catch unsuspecting residents.
“They are always waiting across the street, searching every 15 minutes, ” Muzoffgur Nay says. It cost him $300 to get his towed car back.
Montgomery County Police have confirmed that one of their officers, Jennifer Phoenix, gave her ticket book to a tow truck operator at G and G towing in Rockville. That driver wrote $50 dollar tickets and the company also towed several cars.
Police Spokesman Lt. Paul Starks says Phoenix wasn’t authorized to give her ticket book to anyone.
“No, she wasn’t,” Starks says. “Internal Affairs looked into it and has taken action. We can’t discuss details since it’s a personnel matter. But she is an officer in good standing in this department. She has not resigned.”
Officer Phoenix has only been on the force four years, but this isn’t the first time she’s been accused of wrongdoing. She’s one of four Montgomery County police officers being sued by a local woman who says she was beaten and tasered while handcuffed.”
“I’ve lost so much. I’ll never been the same,” Melissa Dents told 9NEWS NOW.
In pictures taken the day after the October 2006 incident, Dent has swollen eyes, and 13 taser marks on her back and body.Her lawyer, Dennis Ettlin says they’ve filed a $6.4 million dollar civil suit against Officer Phoenix and three others.
The owner of G & G Towing, Glen Caid would not talk with 9News.
We tried to find out what happened to the tow truck driver– his boss wouldn’t talk to us.
“It’s kind of scary,” resident Amanda Mettler says. I assume people are paying those tickets, since that’s what law abiding citizens do. They have to look into this.”
There is some good news. Police say anyone who paid one of the bogus tickets will get their money back.
County police apologize after officer lends ticket book to tow-truck driver
Tower issued tickets in Gaithersburg neighborhood
Montgomery County Police are voiding parking tickets and apologizing to residents of the Fernshire Farms neighborhood in Gaithersburg after a four-year officer gave her book of parking tickets to a tow-truck driver who issued them last month.
Residents who received tickets say the tow-truck driver identified himself as a police officer working on behalf of their homeowners association.
After a private meeting of the HOA, residents who attended said police told them the tow truck driver has been fired and the police officer has tendered her resignation.
A “limited number” of tickets were issued to vehicles in Fernshire Farms, a 342-townhome community near Quince Orchard Road and Great Seneca Highway, said Lt. Paul Starks, director of the department’s media division.
After an internal investigation, the officer and tow-truck driver are not expected to face criminal charges, he said. On Tuesday, police spokesman Cpl. Stephen Galloza confirmed that the officer was Jennifer Phoenix, a four-year county officer at the 6th District station in Gaithersburg. She could not be reached.
“This is a community where there are some legitimate parking issues,” Starks said. “This officer made some poor decisions. While we do encourage officers to work with the community, there was poor decision-making on the part of this officer … Whatever, if any, personnel action that would be taking place has taken place.”
An officer from the 6th District station apologized to residents at the Fernshire Farms HOA meeting Monday and confirmed that the man who issued the tickets has been fired from the towing company, said Larry Seeger, president of the Fernshire Farms Homeowners Association.
After The Gazette expressed interest in attending Monday’s meeting, the HOA board closed the meeting to non-homeowners on “advice from counsel and property management,” Seeger said.
Several residents leaving the meeting said that police told them that the officer had submitted her resignation, effective July 5. Galloza declined to discuss personnel matters Tuesday.
Phoenix is one of four county officers named in a $6.4 million civil lawsuit filed in federal court by a Montgomery Village woman, who alleges that the officers beat, kicked and stunned her with Tasers in her living room in 2006 after she had been handcuffed.
That lawsuit is in discovery stages in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.
Two of the $50 parking tickets were issued to the Kawczynski family, residents of Beacon Hill Terrace for nearly 20 years.
Mark Kawczynski got his ticket May 8. Four days later, his son Nick Kawczynski — who had parked over the curb while he loaded his Buick LeSabre for the drive back to the University of South Carolina — was cited shortly after 8 a.m. May 12.
In both cases, Mark and Nancy Kawczynski said, the man identified himself as a Montgomery County police officer.
Both times the man said he was “acting on behalf of the HOA,” they said. And both tickets that he issued are signed with the surname “Phoenix.”
County parking tickets say that the signature is made “under penalty of perjury.” Starks said that the internal investigation “did not rise to that” level.
The investigation also focused on the person who issued the tickets, whom residents said police later determined was a driver for G&G Towing of Rockville.
“That matter was looked into by our Internal Affairs. They’re not moving forward at this point with criminal charges,” Galloza said.
Glen Caid, G&G’s owner, did not return calls from The Gazette.
Fernshire Farm’s property manager, Sandra Ewing of Vanguard Management Associates Inc. of Germantown, had no comment.
The Kawczynskis and other Fernshire residents interviewed Monday night said the ticketing is a case of suburban cul-de-sac parking woes gone haywire.
They traced it back to the HOA’s decision four years ago to only allow guests to park in 21 spaces on Beacon Hill Terrace, one of dozens of cul-de-sacs near Quince Orchard High School.
“Who knows what the motive was. How ridiculous,” Nancy Kawczynski said.
“I was disgusted,” said Paul Mack, Zaliev’s attorney. “She testified numerous times when she first arrived that he was in the driver’s seat with the engine running.”
But videotape from a nearby camera showed a different story. Zaliev was in the back seat lying down. You can see his feet hanging out the passenger-side rear door, when Officer Hoffman arrives. And that’s not all, said Mack.
“There was a least 10 or 20 instances where her testimony was not the same as the video,” he said.
That was a huge problem according to Mack, who said Officer Hoffman told arriving backup police officers and medical technicians that she’d ordered Zaliev to sit in the back seat, after removing him from the driver’s seat and taking the keys from the ignition.
“I lost a lot of sleep over this,” Mack said. “It was really difficult to comprehend why he got arrested when he didn’t do anything legally wrong.”
Mack worried that without the video, and only Hoffman’s testimony, his client could have been convicted.
“The judge clearly found that her testimony was not supported by the video,” Mack said.
The judge immediately found Zaliev not guilty.
Hoffman is the subject of a internal affairs probe into whether she perjured herself, a police spokesperson said. She remains on the job.
A Montgomery County Police officer faces a perjury investigation after she testified in April that she found a man arrested for driving under the influence behind the wheel of a parked car. A recording from a security camera showed he was in the back seat, lying down, with his feet out the open passenger side door when she approached him.
“We are aware of the allegation and will be conducting an investigation,” Montgomery County Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said Wednesday.
The Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office referred the case to the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office because county prosecutors might be questioned, said Seth Zucker, a spokesman for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.
George Zaliev, 56, of Rockville, was arrested about 7:30 p.m. May 3, 2008, for DUI at the parking lot of Sarkissian Interiors at 8537 Atlas Drive in Gaithersburg. A preliminary breath test showed a blood alcohol content of 0.15, nearly twice the legal limit.
At his Montgomery County District Court trial, Officer II Dina Hoffman testified 11 times that she found Zaliev in the front driver’s seat. She said shook him awake and he was not cooperative in doing field sobriety tests.
The security tape, reviewed by The Gazette, shows Hoffman arrived and immediately walked up to Zaliev lying in the back seat.
A message left for Hoffman was not returned immediately. A three-year veteran, she continues to work while the allegation is investigated.
After Judge Dennis A. McHugh viewed the tape, he ruled the arrest lacked probable cause. The judge found Zaliev not guilty.
“I’ve done enough of these that I know without the video, it would have been my client’s word against the officer’s, and I probably wouldn’t have won,” Mack said in an interview.
Mack came forward after receiving a transcript of the trial.
By lying in the back seat of the car, Zaliev did nothing illegal and should not have been arrested, Mack said. Case law is clear that people in the back seat of a parked vehicle are not driving under the influence.
Zaliev, an upholsterer, was waiting in his friend’s car for his friend to get off work and drive him home, Mack said.
In her testimony at the April 2 trial, Hoffman claimed she arrived and approached Zaliev on the left side of the car where he sat behind the wheel asleep. She described shaking his shoulder to wake him.
“He was just sitting in the front seat, kind of sitting there sleeping,” Hoffman testified.
At several points Mack asked the officer if she was certain Zaliev was in the front and not the back.
“Do you recall him being in the back seat on the passenger side?” Mack asked on cross examination.
“No, not when I first got there, no,” Hoffman replied.
“Are you absolutely sure?” Mack asked again.
“Yes,” Hoffman testified. “I did have him sit there while I waited for another officer to come.”
After the recording was played in the courtroom, Hoffman was asked whether she was wrong about Zaliev’s position in the car.
“Yeah, I must have been,” Hoffman testified. “My apologies. It’s been over a year. I deal with a lot of these cases every day so my apologies.”
But Hoffman then said Zaliev “must’ve admitted to me that he was driving the vehicle at some point.”
On further questioning, Hoffman testified she had not told that to either the prosecutors or to Mack before.
“You were wrong about him giving you his license while he was in the front seat?” Mack asked.
“Yes,” she said. “He gave me his license, but I guess he was in the back seat.”
If Zaliev had been convicted, he would have faced a maximum sentence of $1,000 fine and a year in jail.
“If it was determined there’s perjury in this case, this is the kind of case that would undermine the authority of police and the perception of good officers out there doing their job,” said Christopher Heffernan, chairman of the Maryland State Bar Association’s litigation committee. “This would damage the police officers who are doing a good job out there to protect us. This is disturbing to everyone who looks up to the police and relies on them to protect us from the bad guys.”
Although allegations of perjury are not uncommon, it is very rare that such cases are ever brought to trial, and Heffernan said he could not remember any that involved police officers.
Mack said he sent a copy of the transcript to Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy and County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.
Officer Investigated For Perjury After DUI Case Falls Apart: Video Undermines Trial Testimony
By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 7, 2009
A Montgomery County police officer is being investigated for possible perjury after a drunken-driving trial last month in which video surveillance footage cast doubt on her testimony.
The Police Department’s criminal investigations division is handling the case with assistance from the internal affairs unit, a police spokeswoman said last night.
Officer Dina Hoffman, a three-year member of the force, testified repeatedly at trial that when she approached a stopped Lexus last year in Gaithersburg, she found George Zaliev behind the steering wheel, according to a transcript of the trial. Zaliev was charged with driving under the influence.
But at the trial, Zaliev’s attorney, Paul Mack of Shapiro & Mack, P.A., followed Hoffman’s initial testimony with video footage from a security camera at a nearby business. The footage shows that when Hoffman approached the Lexus, Zaliev was in the back seat, according to testimony.
“You never saw him in the front seat, correct?” Mack asked the officer.
“As the video shows, I guess I didn’t,” Hoffman said.
The officer also apologized. “It’s been over a year. I deal with a lot of these cases every day, so my apologies,” she said.
District Court Judge Dennis M. McHugh immediately ruled Zaliev not guilty. “You don’t have a case,” he told prosecutors.
Hoffman could not be reached for comment last night. She remains on active duty, according to police.
Mack, the defense attorney, said that after the trial, he notified Montgomery Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and State’s Attorney John McCarthy of what he considered serious problems with Hoffman’s testimony.
Any prosecution of the case would be handled by the Howard County state’s attorney’s office. A spokesman for the Montgomery state’s attorney said the matter was referred to Howard because Montgomery prosecutors could be questioned as fact witnesses.
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