Merced police officer charged with misdemeanor domestic violence

A Merced police officer has been charged with misdemeanor battery in an alleged domestic-violence incident and placed on administrative leave, the Sun-Star has confirmed.

Officer Mark A. Fillebrown, 34, was arrested on Sept. 26 at the Merced Police Department on suspicion of inflicting corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant. He posted a $50,000 bail bond and was released from custody.

Fillebrown’s attorney, Kirk McAllister, said the matter is still in the early stages of the court process. “My client has entered a not-guilty plea and we expect a just resolution in this matter,” McAllister said in a brief telephone interview on Friday.

According to reports filed by Merced police, the victim in the case told officers that Fillebrown struck her in the face sometime in the evening of Sept. 23. She told police they both had been drinking and were lying down. She said she “pushed Fillebrown on his hip to get his attention and told him that she wanted to talk and that is when he hit her in the face.”

She described the alleged blow “more as a palm strike with his fingers bent over,” the report says.

Capt. Tom Trindad said he could not comment, citing personnel laws requiring confidentiality, but confirmed Fillebrown has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the case. “That is a standard protocol,” Trindad said of Fillebrown’s leave.

On Tuesday, Fillebrown pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor battery before Judge Paul C. Lo in Merced Superior Court. He is due back in court on Nov. 25, according to court records.

A temporary restraining order was issued Oct. 21 prohibiting Fillebrown from contacting the woman, according to court records.

The allegations were reported to the Merced police on Sept. 26. The woman told investigators she did not want to make the allegations public but said “Fillebrown would not leave (her) alone and she eventually realized that she had no other choice but to report this.” She also told police Fillebrown had left her alone since she reported the allegations, the police report says.

The woman said there were previous incidents leading up to the night of Sept. 23, saying “normally Fillebrown would slap her but this time he hit her,” the report says.

She said that problems occurred when Fillebrown would drink and that, over the past five months, “he has been getting rougher and rougher.” She went on to say “she loves him on his work days because he does not drink.”

A short time after the Sept. 23 incident, Fillebrown got into a fight with a family member of the alleged victim in the early morning hours of Sept. 24, the woman said. She told police Fillebrown had been drinking alcohol that night and she believed he was intoxicated.

Fillebrown on Sept. 26 asked investigators to photograph several bruises on his body, including “a bruise that was fading on his left side and a small bruise on his left shoulder blade.”

The report does not say how Fillebrown suffered those bruises and the reported altercation with the alleged victim’s family member is the only physical fight described in the police report.

Prosecutors with the Merced County District Attorney’s Office said evidence in the case supported only a misdemeanor charge.

If convicted, the officer faces a potential maximum sentence of one year in the county jail, according to Adam McConney, the deputy district attorney prosecuting the case.

Other allegations were investigated and described in the police report, but only the blow to the face on Sept. 23 was charged in the criminal complaint.

Fillebrown joined the Merced Police Department in June 2006 after spending two years as a private security contractor at the National Nuclear Security Administration. A Merced native, he joined the U.S. Army after high school and spent several years in the military, including a year-long stint beginning in 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq, according to Sun-Star archives.

Fillebrown left the Police Department in December 2013 but returned as a full-time officer less than a year later, according to city records.

Mike Conway, Merced city spokesman, said he did not know why Fillebrown left the department for a short time, but he said it was not unusual.

“It’s pretty common for officers to leave, for example for another job, and then to come back,” Conway said. “I don’t know what the reason was in (Fillebrown’s) case, but he obviously left the city on good terms or he wouldn’t have been hired back.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 2:52 PM with the headline "Merced police officer charged with misdemeanor domestic violence."