UPDATE: Former King City Police Chief pleads no contest to embezzlement and perjury

UPDATE 7/29/15: Former King City Police Chief Nick Baldiviez pleaded no contest Wednesday to two misdemeanor counts of embezzlement and perjury, after a jury could not reach a verdict in both charges, according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said Baldiviez made that choice to avoid a lengthy retrial. He will be sentenced September 16 and faces a maximum of two years in jail.

PREVIOUS STORY: The trial against former King City Police Chief Nick Baldiviez began Thursday with opening statements from the defense and prosecution.

Baldiviez is accused of the embezzlement of a police car back in 2010 that was intended for the city to own. On Thursday, the court also heard from the first witnesses took the stand.

The trial hinges on documents and who signed them and when. The car in question is a patrol car that was turned into a tricked-out showroom car.

In 2008, the car was donated to the King City Police Department’s explorers program. After being used in a couple of car shows, it was idle until investigators found the car in Officer Mario Mottu Sr.’s garage during the investigations into the police department. Mottu claimed he owned the car and it was signed over to him in 2010.

The prosecution presented title documents that have Baldiviez’s signature authorizing the sale of the car to Mottu. The prosecution asked Baldiviez on the witness stand in the preliminary hearing if he knew he wasn’t supposed to do that.

“Tell me if I’ve got this wrong that the transferring unit 104, the show car to Mario Mottu, personally is not something you are authorized to do? Correct,” prosecutor Steve Sommers said.

The defense said those signatures on the documents were not written by Baldiviez himself, even though he admitted to prosecutors in a prior interview that it looked like his signature and he must have signed the documents. But he doesn’t remember doing it.

The defense said they’re bringing in a hand writing expert and this is what the jury can expect to hear from her testimony.

“She’s going to tell you whose handwriting is consistent with that. I bet you can guess where I’m going. She’s looked at known handwriting exemplars of Mario Mottu,” defense attorney Brian Worthington said.

The defense said the jury has three questions to answer: Did Baldiviez sign those documents? If he did, did he know what they were being used for? Did he testify in his prelim hearing honestly to the best of his memory?

A DMV employee who dealt with Officer Mottu when he came in to transfer the vehicle in his name, testified Thursday. We were not allowed to show any witnesses on camera during trial. The DMV employee testified to the title documents in question. The pink slip document is one that authorizes the car’s title to be transferred over to Mottu.

Mottu claims he lost the pink slip, so he brought a replacement title document to the DMV in 2010. The defense argues that even though Baldiviez’s signatures are on these documents and it was Mottu who forged them and filled out the paperwork for Baldiviez.

Even though the sale of a government car to an employee seemed odd to the DMV employee she said it’s not required of her to question it. Her instructions were just to process the paperwork.

The prosecution and defense admit that the date these documents were signed allegedly by Baldiviez could be inaccurate. The dates were marked in the beginning of June 2010. But Baldiviez was on a leave of absence that whole month and didn’t come back until July.