Sheriff’s Station Shaken by Chain of Scandals : Crime: The latest incident, the shooting of a deputy-turned-bandit by another deputy, leaves Encinitas substation under a pall.

Bob Apostolos would like to believe the old adage that bad luck comes in threes--because that would mean the nightmare events involving his deputies in recent months may finally have come an end.

Apostolos is a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department captain who commands the Encinitas substation, and he’s also an Army reservist who recently returned from the Persian Gulf conflict.

Lately, the deputies Apostolos commands here at home have come under as much fire as any fighting units sent overseas. But it’s a different kind of heat--one that signals a possible loss of public confidence in the department--something that makes the 15-year law enforcement veteran hold his head like a shellshocked soldier.

First, their was the veteran deputy who last summer was charged with raping a 16-year-old girl while off duty. Then this spring, a deputy was arrested on several counts of sexual battery against women, including allegations that he fondled the breasts of a woman who he had stopped while on patrol. He is also accused of using department’s computer to gather personal information about other women.

And then all hell broke loose last week, Apostolos says. That was when narcotics officer Michael Stanewich--one of the best-liked officers at the station--committed an inexplicable armed robbery at a residence in nearby Olivenhain and was shot to death by a fellow Encinitas deputy and friend.

In the wake of the shooting has come suspicion that that the accomplice who fled before the shooting on rural Cole Ranch Road might have also have been a deputy.

That suspicion has cast a pall over the Encinitas station and its deputies as they painfully puzzle over who that accomplice could be, if indeed he was a deputy.

Sheriff’s investigators are attempting to determine if the accomplice was a deputy. So far, they say, there is no evidence to suggest that he was.

Another drubbing for the deputies at the Encinitas station has come as the result of the news conferences called by the robbery victims and their attorney to level new allegations against the department.

Many of the 95 deputies and civilians under Apostolos’ command have have sought the help of a psychologist hired to help them handle their grief and shock.

Probably no one is more shocked and saddened than the 42-year-old Apostolos, who acknowledges that the events of recent months can only fuel doubts about the integrity of all uniformed men and women who have taken a sworn oath of duty as a peace officer.

“You ask yourself, ‘Are we hiring the wrong people or maybe we’re not training them right?’ ” said the muscular Apostolos, whose hair is silver gray.

“And then there’s the thought that the officers involved didn’t really respect me. And that, if they did, this wouldn’t have happened. I keep thinking what I could have done. I have this nagging thought that there was something I could have stepped in and done to prevent all this.”

Throughout the rest of the Sheriff’s Department, deputies are breathing a collective sigh of relief at not having to face the trouble and turmoil at the Encinitas station.

“The sentiments have come from all levels of the department,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Glenn Revell. “There’s sympathy and bewilderment over what’s going on up there. People say, ‘That could be me up there, having to deal with the bad publicity involving fellow officers--and I’m glad it isn’t.’ There’s sympathy because they know it could just as well be them.”

The Encinitas substation--which patrols Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar and several inland communities--is a busy place with little opportunity for on-duty socializing. As a result, Apostolos wonders if he has gotten to know his men well enough.

With officers in Encinitas, he says, there is no Choir Practice--a term popularized by novelist and ex-police officer crime writer Joseph Wambaugh to describe how officers drink and socialize after work to blow off steam and stress from their jobs.

Instead, Apostolos said, his officers usually socialize at their homes or at the occasional office party or barbecue, such as when he returned in April from a six-month Persian Gulf stint.

But, like the slickest Hollywood versions of real-life police stories, an officer is often best known by his partner.

“Usually, an officer’s partner can recognize a change in behavior, if something is bothering you,” Apostolos said. “But the more of a loner an officer is, the harder that is to recognize. And sometimes, as supervisors, you let other things--like a new policy they may not like--explain away the reason they’re on edge or there’s a change in their personality.”

Sometimes, however, what an officer does can stun even his closest co-workers.

Patrol Deputy Gilberto Balcazar, 33, for example, was recently deputy of the month at the substation. It says so on a plaque hanging in the briefing room. This May, however, he pleaded guilty to a count of sexual battery. Authorities say he also used the department’s computer to glean information on several women.

In one case, he allegedly fondled the breasts of a woman during a patrol stop and, in another, he reputedly exposed himself to a woman after taking her to Moonlight Beach in Encinitas when he was off-duty.

Apostolos said the department is trying to police itself. In the case of both Balcazar and Deputy Ray Johnson, who has been charged in connection with the rape last summer of a 16-year-old girl, the investigations were initiated by fellow deputies.

“These cases were begun after reports came in from other officers,” he said. “And any time you attempt to police yourself, you open yourself up to criticism.”

The biggest shock, however, has come from the actions of 36-year-old Stanewich, an 11-year department veteran who was promoted to the detective last fall.

He was bright and well-liked within the department and played Santa Claus at a recent office Christmas party. He knew enough about computers to help both office secretaries and Apostolos hook up and work with their computers.

Last Wednesday, Stanewich, who was off duty and wearing a mask, thrust his way into the Olivenhain home and assaulted both Donald Van Ort, 32, and his 82-year-old grandmother, demanding that they open a locked safe containing more than $100,000 in cash.

The victims said that, during the robbery attempt, they were doused with lighter fluid and threatened with being burned to death.

Stanewich was shot to death by Deputy Gary Steadman, a fellow officer at the Encinitas station. Steadman had gone to the house as a result of a call to police made by Van Ort’s girlfriend.

Authorities say that Stanewich learned about the stash of cash after a May visit to the home of Van Ort, who is on probation for a 1989 assault charge against an ex-girlfriend.

Deputies armed with a search warrant went to the house as part of a narcotics investigation. No drugs were found.

Investigators are attempting to learn if Stanewich might have robbed other people he had met through his police work. Also being investigated is Stanewich’s relationship with Julie Malone, Van Ort’s ex-girlfriend.

Apostolos said Monday that, although many in the station who knew Stanewich personally are saddened by his death, their shock is now turning slowly to anger. “Yeah, some of us feel betrayed by Mike,” he said. “I think that I’m even starting to feel some anger.”

Like many supervisors, Apostolos is aware of the temptation faced by narcotics officers who probe an underworld of high-stakes crime that fuels opulent lifestyles far beyond the reach of modestly paid deputies.

“They’re taught about these things, but how an officer internalizes what he sees on the street is a personal thing,” Apostolos said. “That’s why we select and train veteran people with the highest regard for the law--people we can trust.”

Apostolos knows that Stanewich misplayed that trust. And, if he could, he says, he would look him straight in the eye and ask him why.

“I’d ask him, ‘Why, Mike? What the hell did you do? Why did you do this?’ And I’d say a lot of other things off the top of my head that probably can’t be printed,” Apostolos said.

Apostolos says that every officer has to live with himself.

“I know who I am, and what kind of job I have to do,” he said. “A lot of us feel responsible for this in some way. But finally the responsibility lies with Mike Stanewich.

“And that’s what’s just so hard to understand--Why did he do it?”