Deputy Accused Of Interfering In Investigation Detectives Say Dibartolo Lied, Destroyed Potential Evidence

Sheriff’s Deputy Tom DiBartolo repeatedly violated police and court orders not to interfere with his wife’s murder investigation, a police affidavit released Friday says.

Detectives say DiBartolo lied to investigators, destroyed potential evidence, returned to the scene of the crime and talked to possible witnesses before and after his arrest.

According to the affidavit, those witnesses included several of DiBartolo’s mistresses, including one with whom he had “a sexual liaison immediately following his wife’s funeral service.”

Detectives also say DiBartolo “telephoned his children from jail telling them not to talk to the police.”

Defense attorney Maryanne Moreno on Friday called the affidavit “a gossip sheet no better than the National Enquirer.” She said all of the charges are unproven.

Among the accusations are statements from two longtime friends who said the deputy told them shortly after his wife’s slaying that she was better off dead.

The couple said DiBartolo told them they should consider “Patty’s death a ‘mercy killing’ because of her medical problems.” Police did not say what those ailments were.

The couple also said Patty DiBartolo told them the deputy put a gun to her head on more than one occasion, then threatened to kill himself.

Seventeen-year-old Nick DiBartolo told detectives he had seen a suicide note and will written by his father some time before his mother’s death. His father threw the note away after his mother was killed, the teenager said.

The deputy is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife of 19 years.

Investigators say DiBartolo shot the mother of five in the back of the head with her own gun, then inflicted a superficial gunshot wound to his own abdomen in an attempted cover-up.

DiBartolo has maintained his innocence, saying he and his wife were attacked by two robbers in the South Hill’s Lincoln Park.

Moreno has said her client is determined to go to trial to clear his name.

The 18-year member of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department was arrested in January after a three-month investigation. DiBartolo, who was suspended from his job without pay, remains in jail on a $250,000 cash-only bond.

Moreno told Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly on Friday that she has been unable to confirm anything in the affidavit, which she called “extremely inflammatory.”

She said releasing it would jeopardize her client’s right to a fair trial by making it impossible to find a jury in Spokane County.

The document was prepared by detectives Roger Bays of the Spokane Police Department and Cal Walker of the Sheriff’s Department to support their request that DiBartolo be held without bail until his trial.

It was sealed on Feb. 13 at the Moreno’s request. The SpokesmanReview and KREM-2 challenged that decision.

On Friday, Rielly unsealed the document, ruling that Moreno hadn’t presented enough evidence to keep it secret.

According to the affidavit, detectives closely monitored DiBartolo’s movements in the three months after his wife’s slaying.

Speaking at his wife’s Nov. 8 funeral, DiBartolo said he could “give Patty no greater gift than to always love her and raise her children as she would want me to.”

But detectives say he continued seeing up to four women with whom he’d had extramarital affairs and “essentially abandoned his children.”

Investigators say DiBartolo visited one of mistresses nearly every day after his wife’s death. He also had his 14-year-old daughter pass messages to some of his lovers, detectives said.

One woman said she carried on an affair with DiBartolo for 10 years.

She told detectives DiBartolo said he couldn’t leave or divorce his wife because of “child support and finances.”

After his arrest, DiBartolo was ordered to have no contact with two of his mistresses. Detectives say he violated that order several times by calling the women from jail.

DiBartolo left a message on one of the woman’s answering machines, telling her: “They know about everything,” detectives say.

, DataTimes