However, jurors acquitted the former officer of a charge stemming from one of the private investigator's most startling claims - that the ex-deputy also accepted cocaine to facilitate a third drunken driving arrest.
Stephen Tanabe, 50, of Alamo, appeared dejected after the jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco delivered a verdict that marks one of the final chapters in a lurid saga that has now resulted in the conviction of five former Bay Area law enforcement officers.
Two and a half years after his arrest, Tanabe, a former Danville patrol officer, turned to his family in the front row of the gallery, exhaled hard, and shook his head. He was convicted on one count of conspiracy, two counts of extortion and three counts of wire fraud, and will be sentenced in December.
Tanabe's involvement in the unseemly world of former investigator
Christopher Butler, 52, began in the mid-1990s, when both men were officers for the Antioch police force.
Tim Pori, Tanabe's attorney, maintained that Butler - the government's star witness, who testified in exchange for leniency in his own case - was a master manipulator who made a living framing people. He deemed Butler a "sociopathic narcissist" who made Tanabe his latest mark.
"This was another 'designed coincidence,' " Pori said outside court, employing a term coined by the private investigator, "where Butler took the available evidence and framed Tanabe."
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney
Hartley West portrayed Tanabe as an officer who'd sold his badge when he allegedly accepted an eighth of an ounce of cocaine and a Glock pistol from Butler to ensure the drunken driving arrests.
"His integrity was for sale," West told jurors. "And it was for sale for cheap."
Butler was the architect of "dirty DUIs," prearranged busts of men he had been hired to tarnish. Three targeted men who testified at Tanabe's trial - a Livermore winemaker, a Verizon executive, and a former software salesman - were in the midst of divorce or custody disputes with ex-wives who sought to gain an advantage.
The women, prosecutors said, paid Butler to design stings in which female "decoys" approached the men online or in bars. Or actors would pose as reporters, inviting the marks out for an "interview" over drinks.
In two stings involving Tanabe, Butler said, he arranged for his friend to park outside a Danville wine bar and arrest the victims on Butler's cue.
The sprawling scandal around Butler, which included allegations of drug dealing and prostitution, sparked an FBI corruption probe and led to the federal convictions of Bay Area police officers from four different agencies.
One defendant remains:
Mary Nolan, a divorce attorney who, according to prosecutors, hired Butler to install listening devices inside the car of a client's ex-husband.
During his testimony at the Tanabe trial, Butler said he was hired by Nolan to conduct a "dirty DUI" sting on a Clayton man, who was arrested and convicted. Nolan has pleaded not guilty.
