Anacortes Officer Charged In Theft

Anacortes Assistant Police Chief Dave Mead was charged with first-degree theft in Skagit County Superior Court today on suspicion of using a $15,000 drug-buying fund to pay off his personal debts, according to documents prepared for court filing.

The 46-year-old police officer will enter a plea Nov. 12, said his attorney, Steve Skelton.

Mead lied to investigators and to the police chief earlier this year, claiming he had given $8,000 from the fund to a drug informant in an ongoing investigation, said Whatcom County Prosecuting Attorney David McEachran in an affidavit to be filed in court today.

Mead also showed a state auditor $7,000 in cash, claiming it represented the remainder of the drug-buy fund, said McEachran, a special prosecutor in the case for Skagit County.

McEachran said authorities subsequently learned Mead had borrowed the $7,000 from a developer the day before the auditor arrived at his home to count the money.

Mead admitted to an investigator in August that he had spent $5,000 of the drug-fund money to cover personal expenses, the affidavit said.

Then in September, just before taking an FBI polygraph exam, Mead admitted "he had taken all of the money from the fund and had used almost all of it for his personal use," the affidavit said.

Skelton said his client could have faced as much as five years in prison had the U.S. attorney carried out a threat to charge him under a federal public-corruption law. Under the state charges filed today, he faces a maximum of 90 days in jail, as a first-time offender, under sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors said, however, that Mead could face a longer sentence because of the alleged violation of a public trust.

Mead, who has been with the department since 1969, served as acting chief on several occasions, including one time when the city's often-embattled Police Chief Tony Lippe was fired by the mayor.

Mead, in charge of day-to-day operations, had full control of the drug-buy fund, keeping it in his office and in a briefcase at home, according to Lippe.

Mead was such a free spender that some fellow officers said they thought he was independently wealthy.

But the affidavit filed in court today said, "Mead accounted for this theft due to the fact that he had gotten into severe financial problems following a divorce and was heavily in debt."

Mead continues to receive his $4,000-a-month city salary as sick pay, pending his expected disability retirement in February, according to city officials. The mayor cannot fire him without going through a lengthy and expensive civil-service hearing.