Six police officers and a civilian crime scene technician are suspended with pay for allegedly having sex on duty in patrol cars, the Arizona Republic reports. This may have been the second sex scandal to hit Mesa police in a decade, the paper says.
Officials here have confirmed the police officers and the technician are being investigated on departmental charges of misconduct and dereliction of duty. Police spokesman Sgt. Earle Lloyd tells the Republic the department started its probe into the case six weeks ago.
The report is not likely to be finished until mid-September, Lloyd says. And police won't identify the six officers, say when each one was suspended, or reveal whether criminal charges are also being probed.
Mesa city officials say they were unaware of the probe.
According to the Republic, local television news reported the officers were allegedly having sex with each other in the back of patrol cars while on duty. Lloyd won't confirm or deny that report.
Over eight years ago, Mesa police fired three officers over another sex scandal. This one sprang from one officer keeping index cards on his wife's alleged sexual liaisons. The Republic says the couple's diary listed the names of twelve current and former Mesa police officers who had had sex with her in the 1980s. Seven officers in all either quit or were disciplined for having sex with the couple.
The couple were also arrested on charges of sexually exploiting two minors, the Republic says. An investigation showed the officer took nude photographs of a 16-year-old girl and arranged for a 14-year-old boy to have sex with his wife.
The officer, Richard Elliget, had been one of Mesa's most honoured police officers, but these charges brought him a conviction and sentence to 14 ½ years in prison, the Republic says. His wife, Laurie, pleaded guilty to child abuse, admitting she failed to stop a photo session with the teenage girl.
