By Crescenzo Vellucci
The Vanguard Sacramento Bureau
SACRAMENTO, CA – A fired City of Sacramento police officer this week here in Sacramento County Superior Court took a judge-negotiated plea deal—called an “affront to justice” by the Sacramento County District Attorney—that reduced a possible four-year sentence in prison to just probation.
According to information provided by the DA’s office, Alexa Palubicki entered a no contest plea to felony charges of filing a false police report in July of 2020 in the arrest of a Black motorist. Before this week she was facing three years and eight months in prison, with a $10,000 fine.
If Palubicki, however, stays out of trouble for a year the charges will be reduced to misdemeanors and she’ll face only probation, the court said.
The Sacramento DA objected to the plea bargain offered by the judge.
District Attorney Thien Ho said in a statement, “Any time a police officer falsifies a police report, it is an affront to justice and taken very seriously. As prosecutors, we must proceed only on cases where the evidence is trustworthy and legally obtained. We have the solemn duty to ensure that justice and fairness remain the touchstone of our criminal justice system.”
“The Sacramento District Attorney’s Office conducted an internal case audit to identify cases we had filed in which she participated. Pending cases in which her participation was material and necessary for prosecution were dismissed. In other cases where Palubicki participated in some manner but was not a necessary witness for trial, we notified the defense of this investigation consistent with our ethical obligations,” according to a DA Office statement.
“The court-suggested resolution was that Ms. Palubicki enter a 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,” Judge Shauna Franklin said.
“Specifically, Ms. Palubicki, it would be that you not engage in any criminal conduct between now and the sentencing date,” the judge added, noting the fired cop can’t possess firearms or ammunition.
“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 accused of providing false reports about the July 11, 2020, arrest of a motorist parked near Discovery Park.
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.”
The fired officer is accused of asking another officer to claim she saw the car turn without signaling, and the driver was under the influence, according to a story in The Bee. When a search of the man’s car turned up a loaded handgun he was arrested, charged with two felonies.
But the DA dismissed the case weeks later.
According to a story in The Bee, “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 said it gathered “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. 
