Officer kills self after sex arrest

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Officer kills self after sex arrest

By Michael Turnbell, Sun-Sentinel, Posted December 29 2001

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COOPER CITY -- A Miami-Dade policeman described by a co-worker as an “outstanding officer” killed himself Friday night, just hours after he was charged with using the Internet to solicit sex from a detective posing as a minor, police said.

Dieter Gurbatow, 49, was found dead by officers about 6:30 p.m. behind the Countryside Shoppes on South Flamingo Road in Cooper City. His body was discovered in the driver’s seat of his white 1987 Monte Carlo with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, said Cooper City Police Capt. Marvin Stoner.

Gurbatow was charged Friday with three counts of transmitting harmful material to a child and one count of soliciting a minor for sex. He allegedly contacted an undercover West Palm Beach detective after she planted a profile in an online chat room.

He was taken into custody on a sealed warrant Friday morning and released on $4,500 bail in the afternoon. A short time after his release, Gurbatow proclaimed his innocence outside his Pembroke Pines townhouse Friday afternoon, saying he feared how the children he teaches would take the news.

Gurbatow worked in the department’s community affairs division and was in charge of a drug prevention program called DARE, an acronym for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. He taught the program’s anti-drug classes to students in several Miami-Dade schools.

“I love my DARE kids,” Gurbatow said. “They booked me like a common criminal…I’m an outstanding officer. I’m embarrassed. I’m shocked.”

Fearing Gurbatow might be suicidal, his girlfriend called the Miami-Dade Police Department. Carlos Alvarez, director of the department, said officers were in the process of looking for Gurbatow when he was found dead.

Alvarez said Gurbatow’s personnel file with the Miami-Dade Police was filled with 75 commendations from his 16-year career, high-scoring evaluations and no recent disciplinary actions.

Police said Gurbatow allegedly sent pornographic material to a West Palm Beach detective. After a monthlong exchange of messages, detectives from Law Enforcement Against Child Harm, an interagency police task force including the Miami-Dade Police, said they had enough to secure a warrant against Gurbatow.

Gurbatow vehemently denied the allegations and said it was the person on the other side of the computer screen who first contacted him, and when he found out that the person was a minor, he said he wrote back that he wanted nothing to do with the supposed teen.

Michael Turnbell can be reached at mturnbell@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4155.

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