2 Gilbert cops quit jobs amid drug allegations

When Gilbert officer Konnie Bonini went to supervisors in January, she said she only wanted to get a fellow officer help.

But after revealing she knew an officer who drank before work and abused muscle relaxers without a prescription, she was involved in a two-month criminal investigation that implicated her and officer James Clark, eventually leading both to resign, records recently released to the Tribune show.

Clark and Bonini had just ended a five-month relationship days before Bonini went to her supervisors. She admitted that despite her claims of watching Clark consume the pills and drink before work, she did nothing and that she once provided him with several leftover prescription pills, records show.

The investigation also revealed Clark had been driving a police car with a canceled driver’s license and had been busted in the past for sneaking prescription drugs from Mexico.

Clark, 33, and Bonini, 25, were hired by the Gilbert Police Department in 2005. They were patrol officers assigned to different beats.

Clark resigned Jan. 18, and Bonini Feb. 12.

The investigation began Jan. 11 when Bonini came forward. She detailed a story beginning in August 2007, when the two first began a relationship.

During that time, she said she saw Clark abuse the pain pill, Soma, by the “handfuls” and that he drank before work “all the time,” records show.

He would order the pills online and pick them up at a post office box, she said, adding she often was with him.

Bonini also said she provided him with hydrocodone, a powerful drug, that was left over from treatment after an accident, records show.

Detectives pressed Bonini to determine why she didn’t bring forward the information sooner and if she knew providing drugs to someone without a prescription was illegal.

She said she was blinded because Clark was someone she cared about. “I thought I could help him and I wanted to protect him,” she said to detectives.

Clark continuously denied the accusations to detectives.

But another Gilbert detective heard Clark say earlier in the month at a training exercise that he used prescription drugs and that they “didn’t do enough,” records show.

Bonini and Clark spoke several times on the phone and met after the investigation began. He attempted to convince her to cover up what she said and figure a way to get out of this, records show.

After the first interview, Bonini began offering detectives conflicting information. But after detectives confronted her with discrepancies in her statements, she confessed to lying, records show.

She later worked with police to secretly record conversations with Clark.

As part of the investigation, detectives pulled Clark’s driving record. They discovered that his license was suspended Oct. 3, 2006.

Police records did not show why his license was pulled, and officials declined to say. Federal law also prohibits the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division from publicly releasing driving records, MVD spokeswoman Cydney DeModica said.

The Gilbert Police Department does not regularly check officers’ driving records unless they are involved in a crash or if the department believes there is an issue, Gilbert police Lt. Eric Shuhandler said.

Clark was arrested for driving with a canceled license on Jan. 17, when officers doing surveillance on Clark pulled him over.

He pleaded guilty and paid a fine.

Detectives also checked Clark’s bank accounts, Internet transactions and postal records. They found information about multiple packages sent to Clark with prices and dates matching descriptions given by Bonini of pill deliveries.

But they couldn’t pin down that the packages actually contained Soma, records show.

Detectives did discover, however, that Clark was stopped by U.S. Customs agents on the California/Mexico border for attempting to bring 810 Soma pills into the country in 2004, a year before he was hired by police.

He had hidden pills underneath his car seat, stuffed them into a duffel bag, and filled several vitamin bottles with them, records show.

Federal authorities didn’t prosecute Clark, and he only paid a fine. Because he wasn’t charged, the incident wouldn’t have shown up in a background check, Shuhandler said.

Clark left town before the criminal investigation was completed. And a month after his resignation, he sent detectives an e-mail.

“I’m moving out of state this morning,” he wrote Feb. 19. “Will you please let me know through e-mail when is this investigation is wrapped up? I don’t want to find out that you came up with some bogus charge that went to warrant because I wasn’t here. Thanks.”

Police were seeking to charge Clark with drug charges and Bonini for false reporting to law enforcement.

But the Maricopa and Pinal county attorney’s offices didn’t prosecute, saying there wasn’t a reasonable likelihood of conviction, records show.

A cell phone number listed for Clark has been disconnected, and Bonini declined to comment.

Police are completing an internal investigation to determine if Clark will be eligible to work in law enforcement again. Bonini has already been denied such eligibility, records show.