St. Paul cop found guilty of ID theft charge

A Ramsey County jury has found a longtime St. Paul police officer and former gang investigator guilty of identity theft for using her best friend's information to wire money to a boyfriend who was also a felon in prison.

Ruby Diaz, 38, was found not guilty, however, of two forgery charges against her..

Jurors reached the verdicts late Friday afternoon after beginning deliberations the day before.

Diaz, of Lauderdale, was charged in June in Ramsey County District Court with two counts of aggravated forgery and one count of electronic use of false pretense to obtain identity after allegedly assuming another woman's identity and wiring $1,500 to boyfriend and inmate Ramone D. Smaller, then a 21-year-old gang member imprisoned for attempted murder.

Diaz took the witness stand on her own behalf Thursday and accused her co-workers of harassing her in the early 2000s for dating another felon. That's the reason, she testified, she used her friend Mao Lee's personal information to create an e-mail address and accounts with the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) and Western Union so she could wire the $1,500 earlier this year to Smaller.

Diaz testified that she became romantically involved with Smaller, 22, after he turned 21 last year. She first met the purported gang member when he was a 12-year-old seventh-grader at Humboldt High School and she was the school resource officer. Diaz told the court that she mentored Smaller and that he reconnected with her in 2013.

Smaller is serving six years in prison for attempted murder, and is charged with 12 felonies for violent drive-by shootings and other alleged crimes.

Diaz's attorneys, William Bulmer and Sam Savage, told jurors that she never intended to defraud anyone. Diaz used her own bank account and credit cards to wire Smaller money, and her own home address was listed as the billing address, Bulmer told jurors.

Diaz also used her own cellphone number as a back up contact, Bulmer said.

She used Lee's information as a first-glance identity to protect herself from the brutal harassment she received from co-workers in the early 2000s, Bulmer argued.

Diaz testified Thursday that co-workers followed her in unmarked cars, flashed their lights at her and refused to back her up on calls when she worked in the gang unit because she was dating a different felon in the early 2000s.

Chao Xiong • 612-270-4708