BURBANK, Calif. (AP) – She was “the quintessential soccer mom,” ferrying three sons to games while handling the politics of this Los Angeles suburb so well that even City Hall gadflies liked her.

Stacey Murphy spearheaded city projects and, two years ago, organized a big thank-you luncheon for outside agencies that helped Burbank after a rookie police officer was killed, allegedly by street gang members.

This past week, she was arrested when police linked her to the same violent gang. Also arrested was her boyfriend, who has allegedly confessed that he knowingly sold a gun to one gang member and that the couple bought cocaine from other gang members.

Police who raided Murphy’s home said they found cocaine in a bedroom and three loaded guns in the garage, plus 900 bullets.

Neighbors and colleagues are reeling.

“I find myself thinking this has to be a nightmare, it can’t possibly be true,” said Mayor Jef Vander Borght, who has known Murphy for two decades. “It’s not good no matter what. It shakes peoples’ confidence in the people you elect as leaders.”

The woman who won more votes than any other candidate in this year’s election was released on $100,000 bail awaiting an August arraignment on expected drug possession and child endangerment charges. If convicted, she would be forced out of office.

Murphy, 47, refused to open the front door at her home Friday, referring questions to attorney Rick Santwier. “As soon as he tells me I can talk, I’ll talk,” she said.

Santwier did not return calls seeking comment.

Murphy’s neighborhood is so quiet that Ernesto Cuevas, who lives down the street, said he often leaves his front door open at night for ventilation.

When detectives raided Murphy’s home Wednesday, “of course the neighborhood was abuzz,” said Kara Connor, 27.

“Kinda makes the neighborhood seem like ‘Desperate Housewives,”‘ Connor said, referring to the hit ABC series.

Murphy once poured her energy into raising her sons Sean, Robert and Connor.

“She was the quintessential soccer mom,” Vander Borght said. “The type of mom that’s always taking kids here and there, that’s always the team mom.”

But she also had political ambitions, and soon after being elected to the City Council in 1997 she divorced her husband, former City Councilman Timothy Murphy.

“Something else filled her life,” said the mayor, an architect who described himself as a close friend of her former husband. “Politics probably gave her another outlet that made her decide to end her marriage.”

Her two oldest boys are now in college. Murphy has primary custody of 12-year-old Connor.

An open and usually warm politician, Murphy worked to complete a major bicycle path on an old rail line, campaigned for the city’s first lighted soccer field and helped complete a community theater. She listened closely to problems that residents presented at council meetings, Vander Borght said.

“Stacey’s a populist type person, liked a lot by the people,” he said. “She had this affable personality that the gadflies would like her even if she voted against them on an issue.”

She held the rotating mayor’s seat in November 2003 when two reputed members of the Vineland Boys street gang killed police officer Matthew Pavelka during a traffic stop. A detective was badly wounded and one of the suspects was killed.

Murphy gathered donations and helped organize a large buffet luncheon honoring the FBI agents and officers from the county and neighboring cities who helped catch the remaining suspect.

Murphy’s link to the gang came through Scott Schaffer, her boyfriend and one-time boss at a Los Angeles taxi company where she still works. Police said they traced an alleged gang member’s .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun to him.

Schaffer, 51, told authorities he and Murphy had used cocaine they purchased at a North Hollywood bar from men both knew to be gang members, according to a Los Angeles police affidavit.

Vander Borght and neighbors still hold out the possibility that Murphy may have been unaware of Schaffer’s activities and the drugs and guns in her home.

“I hope that maybe it’s a misunderstanding or she got mixed up with the wrong people,” said neighbor Connor.

She urged the councilwoman: “Tell us this was a mistake.”

AP-ES-07-16-05 1631EDT

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