Moreno Valley official under investigation in harassment case

Upland police are investigating whether Moreno Valley City Manager Robert Gutierrez illegally accessed computer records to make harassing phone calls to an ex-girlfriend, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Police in Upland, where the ex-girlfriend lives, searched Gutierrez's office at Moreno Valley City Hall as well as his home and vehicles on May 27 for evidence in the investigation, according to a copy of the search warrant return filed last week in San Bernardino County Superior Court. They took computers, cell phones, computer files, thumb drives and disks.

Gutierrez declined to comment Wednesday.

He has worked for Moreno Valley for 3 ½ years. He lives with his wife in La Verne, west of Rancho Cucamonga.

Investigators are expected to submit the case this week to the San Bernardino County district attorney's office for review and possible filing of charges, police spokesman Sgt. Cliff Mathews said by phone Wednesday.

Possible charges include a misdemeanor violation of making annoying phone calls, a felony charge of fraudulently accessing computer data and a felony charge of unauthorized use of personal identifying information, according to an affidavit filed by Detective Steven Bartosik in support of a search warrant.

Moreno Valley Mayor Richard Stewart said a labor attorney has advised the City Council not to take any action on Gutierrez at this time. The situation could be more complicated than it seems, he said.

"Everyone is innocent until proven guilty," Stewart said by phone.

The council was scheduled to evaluate Gutierrez's performance on Tuesday. Stewart said that the evaluation was not related to the investigation and that the council will resume the evaluation in October.

The investigation began May 5 after an Upland resident, Ruby Carrillo, told police that she had been receiving constant harassing phone calls over a two-month period, Bartosik wrote in the affidavit. The caller would hang up without saying a word, he wrote.

The calls continued, averaging 10 a night, even after Carrillo changed her phone number, according to the affidavit.

Armed with a search warrant, police obtained Verizon records showing calls to Carrillo's phone number between April 27 and May 5.

Carrillo said one of the numbers belonged to her "ex-boyfriend, Robert Gutierrez," Bartosik wrote. Bartosik concluded that other calls came from "spoofed" numbers, "meaning that the originating caller had used an electronic computer based program to conceal and change their phone number to whatever number is randomly chosen," according to the affidavit.

Carrillo also complained about another hang-up call at a hotel in St. Helena, Calif., while on a getaway with a friend on May 16. A hotel clerk said the call came from outside the hotel and described the caller as an older male who called himself "Bob" and had asked to be transferred to Carrillo's room, according to the affidavit.

AT&T reported two calls were made from Gutierrez's cell phone number to the hotel around the same time, the detective wrote.

Carrillo and her friend said they had not shared any information about the trip with anyone, the affidavit said. But Carrillo used her cell phone to call the hotel and a restaurant, Bartosik wrote.

Someone may have known Carrillo called the hotel by accessing Carrillo's cell phone records, either through the Verizon Web site by a person who represented himself as Carrillo and had her Social Security number, or by gaining access to Verizon's internal, computer-based records, he wrote.

Bartosik asked a San Bernardino County judge for permission to search both Gutierrez's home and office for evidence, because the city manager had Internet and phone access in both places, according to the affidavit.

"It is believed that Gutierrez is the person who had been continuously calling Carrillo's home at all hours of the day and night, that he is the person calling her while she is on vacation and he is the one who has obtained her Verizon telephone call records for his own personal use either by using her personal information to obtain the records or he has been receiving it from another person," Bartosik wrote.

The City Council selected Gutierrez as city manager in December 2005. He had served as Pomona's assistant city manager, and city manager in La Habra Heights and La Puente.

As city manager, Gutierrez implements council policies and oversees the daily provision of city services to more than 186,300 residents. He also prepares an annual budget of about $187 million. His annual salary is about $239,970.