Police officer accused of forgery
Published 5:00 pm Saturday, June 7, 2014
ST. PAUL — A St. Paul police officer faces three forgery-related charges for allegedly using someone else’s identity to funnel money to a gang member who was imprisoned for attempted murder, authorities said Friday.
Ruby Diaz, a 38-year-old school resource officer at Humboldt High School, has been placed on administrative leave, police Chief Tom Smith said. Authorities discovered Diaz had a relationship with the inmate while police were following up on a shooting investigation, and they traced deposits into his prison account back to Diaz’s work computer and her credit cards, according to a criminal complaint.
Smith described the inmate, Ramone Smaller, as “a very violent individual.” He is in the state prison in St. Cloud after pleading guilty last December to third-degree attempted murder. On Friday, he was charged with 10 new firearms and assault counts related to shootings last October that authorities said were gang-related.
In one of those shootings, authorities allege, more than two dozen rounds were fired into a house where two senior citizens lived. The criminal complaint says one of the women is the grandmother of a man in a rival gang.
“Innocent community members were caught in the crossfire,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said. “These crimes were the result of a petty gang feud between rival gangs. … My hope is that today’s charges will bring some modicum of peace to our community.”