Questions arise as assault probe drags on

YAKIMA, Wash. -- How long does it take to finish a criminal investigation? In the case of a Yakima police officer accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her home, 10 months and counting.

The officer has been on paid administrative leave since January, but prosecutors have yet to make a charging decision in the case. City officials, meanwhile, say they are waiting for prosecutors to make a move before starting an internal investigation.

The slow pace of the case is frustrating to the woman's attorney, Bill Pickett, who accuses city officials and Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Hagarty of deliberately dragging their feet.

Hagarty is up for re-election, and Pickett questions whether the prosecutor has been sitting on the case for months because of it and doesn't want to upset his biggest boosters, police.

"City officials want it to disappear. Hagarty wants it to disappear," Pickett said. "It's just been a big dog-and-pony show."

An attorney for the Yakima Police Patrolman's Association, the union that represents rank-and-file police officers, criticized the city for waiting so long to begin an internal investigation and said even routine discipline cases are getting too bogged down.

"They won't turn over the report, but we know enough of the basic facts to know it's not all that complicated," said Jim Cline, a Seattle lawyer who represents the union. "A case like this shouldn't have taken longer than two or three weeks, two months at the most.

"It just seems like it's a black hole over there."

City officials, while careful not to blame Hagarty, say that it makes sense to wait until a criminal case is completed in order to protect the rights of the officer should disciplinary action be warranted.

Hagarty, meanwhile, cited the need to be "cautious, because an officer is involved," but bristled at the suggestion such caution has anything to do with politics.

"I take offense to that," he said. "I'm not going to withhold something because he is a cop. The bottom line is, this investigation needed more work and we're working on it."

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The allegations stem from a traffic stop on 40th Avenue early on the morning of Jan. 3.

Police arrested the man behind the wheel for drunken driving and took him downtown for booking. The driver's 27-year-old fiancee was a passenger in the car. Pickett says she was too intoxicated to drive and was given a ride home by one of the officers at the scene.

According to Pickett, phone records show the officer then called his client several times over the course of his shift. Pickett says she called back at one point, but only to inquire about the status of her fiancé.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, city officials familiar with the case confirm the basic sequence of events as related by Pickett. What happened next, however, remains unclear.

According to Pickett, the officer returned to the woman's home near Eisenhower High School immediately after his shift ended. Pickett said the officer, now in street clothes, was not invited to come back and entered the residence without knocking.

"She looks up and he's standing in her home," Pickett said. "He starts kissing her. She pushes his face, pushes him off. He puts his hands under her dress, tries to fondle her. She just starts shoving him and pushed him out the door.

"He left his baseball cap behind."

When the woman notified authorities, the officer was quickly placed on paid administrative leave and has remained there ever since. As with similar cases, he is confined to his home during his regular work shift.

The Yakima Herald-Republic is not identifying the officer, because he has not been charged with a crime, nor the woman, who is a reported victim of a sexual assault.

As is standard in such complaints, an outside agency, the State Patrol, was asked by the Yakima Police Department to conduct an investigation.

The officer's attorney, Ulvar Klein, declined to comment on the case. Sources familiar with the case say the officer has not given State Patrol detectives a statement. He has been with the city for 21/2 years.

Charges, if filed, could range from felonies, such as attempted rape and residential burglary, to misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors such as trespassing or official misconduct.

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It is an explosive complaint and one likely to derail an officer's career, especially if it leads to a conviction and the conviction includes a firearms restriction. Even without charges, an internal investigation could result in termination.

The complaint itself, however, sounds fairly straight forward. Pickett said he doesn't understand why prosecutors haven't already filed charges.

"If she couldn't drive the car home, then he knew she was intoxicated, he knew she was impaired and he knew her fiancé wasn't home," says Pickett. "That's absolutely unacceptable behavior for a police officer, and it's a no- brainer for the prosecutor."

The State Patrol's investigation was finished by late March, according to Pickett as well as independent sources familiar with it.

However, a request by the Herald-Republic for the report in August was denied by the city on the grounds that the case was still open. A repeat request for the report last month was met with a similar denial.

Under the state Public Records Act, records from completed investigations generally must be disclosed upon request. Hagarty says veteran deputy prosecutor Patti Powers has been handling the case and that his office has twice asked for additional investigation. He didn't say when.

"Every case is unique, every case is particular to itself," Hagarty said. "When you have an officer involved, I think there is a little more scrutiny to it. ... I know they want to press on it, (but) we are just not going to be pressed. It's not the kind of case that is a yea or nay."

Pickett doesn't buy it, and says Hagarty's reputation for working the law enforcement community -- for example, Hagarty makes it a point to personally prosecute assaults on officers -- and the looming election Nov. 2 is the most likely explanation for the delay. Hagarty faces Democrat David Lees, the chief legal officer for the Yakama Nation who garnered slightly less than 25 percent of the vote against Hagarty's 75 percent in the August primary.

"Politics should have no bearing at all on whether you should process a case or not," Pickett said, adding, "If this were you or me, charges would have been filed by now."

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Cline, the lawyer for the police officers union, says he also can't understand what's taking so long, but his ire is focused more on City Hall than Hagarty.

Cline says the city is not required to wait for prosecutors to make their move before starting an internal investigation, and he complained that the delay is unfair to the officer, the police department and taxpayers.

He said internal investigations are beginning to take longer and longer to complete. For example, a sergeant was recently on paid leave for nine months before he was eventually cleared of assault and dishonesty allegations and returned to duty. A sexual misconduct case involving a high-ranking commander took four months, and the commander was confined to his house all day when he normally would have been at work.

While on paid leave, the three officers received a total of about $200,000 in wages and benefits.

Cline said the union has filed a grievance over the delay, and said the duration of internal investigations is getting to be such a problem that the union has made it the subject of contract negotiations.

"Officers need to be cleared or disciplined," he said.

City officials were reluctant to talk about the case specifically, citing the need for employee confidentiality.

Assistant City Manager Dave Zabell said waiting for a criminal investigation to be completed preserves the officer's rights against self-incrimination and gives the city a clear understanding of the facts before starting its own internal discipline case.

"It's better for everybody if the criminal case goes first," he said, stressing his comments were generic in nature.

Asked if he and other city officials are frustrated with the amount of time it's taken Hagarty to make a charging decision in the present case, Zabell initially declined comment, then changed his mind.

Said Zabell, "What I will say is that I appreciate the county prosecutor is making sure he has all the information he needs before he makes a decision. ... because it's a serious allegation."

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 509-577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com