Fired Sacramento cop accepts plea deal, avoids potential prison term in false report case

Fired Sacramento police Officer Alexa Palubicki accepted a plea deal Monday, entering no-contest pleas to felony charges of filing a false report in connection with the July 12, 2020, arrest of a motorist.

Palubicki had been scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing Monday afternoon in Sacramento Superior Court, with two police witnesses standing by to testify.

But after conversations between her lawyers, Deputy District Attorney Nick Johnson and Judge Shauna Franklin, Palubicki went into a courthouse hallway to make a phone call, then returned and agreed to a deal that could keep her out of jail and result in the charges being reduced to misdemeanors a year from now.

“We’ve had a chance to talk about it and she’s consulted with her significant other and we’re ready to go forward with the suggested resolution by the court,” Vallejo attorney Daniel Russo told the judge.

Palubicki could have faced up to three years and eight months in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000 if convicted.

Sentencing will be delayed one year

Under the terms of her deal, she will face sentencing in one year. If she has not committed any other offenses in that time, Palubicki can have the charges reduced to misdemeanors and serve only probation. If she re-offends during that time, she could face a sentence of up to three years and eight months.

Her lawyers were seeking to have her plead to misdemeanors, while Johnson was seeking to have her sentenced Monday to the felony counts with the chance of having the counts reduced to misdemeanors later.

Instead, the judge proposed the deal agreed to on Monday.

“The court suggested resolution was that Ms. Palubicki enter felony plea and that we delay sentencing for a year, and at that point the court can take into account any conduct between now and the sentencing and determine if keeping the matter a felony is appropriate or reducing it to a misdemeanor,” Franklin said. “Specifically, Ms. Palubicki, it would be that you not engage in any criminal conduct between now and the sentencing date.”

Palubicki, who was admonished that as a result of her plea she cannot possess firearms or ammunition, remained mostly silent during the hearing, politely answering the judge’s questions about whether she understood the terms of the deal.

But both Johnson and the judge noted that police officers are held to high standards that she failed to live up to.

Palubicki’s past cases investigated

Johnson said that once the false reports were discovered investigators looked into other cases in which Palubicki was involved.

“We did conduct an exhaustive investigation,” Johnson said. “We saw a number of cases we felt were questionable, but none we felt we could charge.”

Franklin told Palubicki that “the expectation of law enforcement is significantly higher than it is for the average citizen.”

“When officers commit this kind of conduct it really, fundamentally, undermines everything that we strive to do in this building and in our system of justice,” Franklin said. “It’s extremely troublesome conduct.”

Palubicki was 26 and had been with the department for three years when she was arrested in May 2021.

She was accused of providing false reports about the July 11, 2020, arrest of a motorist parked at the Jibboom Street Shell gas station near Discovery Park.

Probable cause lapse tipped off department

According to internal police documents obtained by The Bee, the case began at 12:33 a.m. when Palubicki and her partner, another female officer, spotted a 27-year-old Black man driving a gray 2020 Nissan Altima that “abruptly” pulled into the Shell station and parked across two parking spaces.

Palubicki was accused of having another officer file a report falsely stating that she saw the car turn without signaling and that she suspected the driver of driving under the influence.

A search of the man’s car turned up a loaded handgun and he was arrested and taken to jail.

The man was charged with two felony counts of carrying a concealed weapon and a misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license. But within weeks the District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case, citing “insufficient evidence.”

By then, police investigators were aware of allegations that the probable cause cited for approaching the motorist had come under question inside the department.

“There’s a lot wrong with this,” one officer told his partner as he heard details of the arrest, according to the documents. “I don’t know about this.”

Disclosure of full investigation

Police investigators searched officers’ lockers, conducted surveillance on at least two officers’ homes and placed at least two officers on administrative leave at the time.

The investigation led to Palubicki’s arrest and firing, but the full scope of the investigation still has not been released by the police department, despite a state law requiring disclosure of documents related to sustained findings of dishonesty.

The Bee obtained 100 pages of internal police documents the day of her arrest, but the department to date has released only 39 pages on the city website devoted to such disclosures. On Monday, the site noted that “review of additional records remains ongoing.”

Palubicki sued the city in March 2022 seeking a court order requiring officials to submit to arbitration over her firing. No documents have been filed in that case since May 2022.