Costa Mesa, Calif. officer Robert Josett pleaded guilty to misusing police databases to track mistress, wife, and rivals

On April 14, 2026, former Costa Mesa, California police officer Robert Jay Josett, 35, pleaded guilty in Orange County to one misdemeanor count each of unauthorized computer access and fraud, annoying and repeated phone calls, and contempt of court, admitting he had used confidential law-enforcement databases to track a woman he was having an affair with, her romantic interests, and his own wife. Between June and December 2023, Josett made 13 inquiries in the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS) unrelated to his job, targeting his mistress, a man she was dating, and his wife. He separately accessed the Costa Mesa Police Department's Flock license-plate-reader system to locate his mistress's vehicle and the vehicles of her romantic interests so he could follow them, and continued illegally accessing Flock in June 2024 — after he had already been placed on administrative leave in December 2023 — to find the Torrance address of his mistress's new boyfriend.

Beginning in April 2024, after his mistress ended their relationship, Josett contacted her thousands of times by text, phone call, and social media over nine months, at times more than 100 times in a single day, threatened to release explicit photos of her, and called her and her new boyfriend as many as 58 times a day while repeatedly driving by her home. On June 28, 2024, he was served with an emergency protective order and given notice of his termination from the Costa Mesa Police Department; he then drove by her home again in violation of the order and was arrested the same day.

Josett was sentenced to three years of informal probation and ordered to complete a 52-week domestic-violence program, and wore a court-ordered GPS ankle monitor for nine months after his arrest. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement that "no one should have to live in fear of being tracked through law enforcement databases by someone with a badge and a gun," and that an officer who "crosses the line from enforcing the law to committing crimes" will be prosecuted. Josett's conduct was reported to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), which governs law-enforcement licensing statewide, and his certification review remains pending.