By Lou Grieco and Mark Gokavi
Dayton Daily News
MIAMI TWP, Ohio — An administrative assistant to the Miami Twp. police chief was so concerned about a possible cover up of the deputy chief's decontamination of a naked 17-year-old girl who'd been pepper-sprayed that she made a second copy of a video of the incident, the assistant told investigators.
Police Chief Chris Krug, in his report on the decontamination of the teen, described Deputy Chief Major John DiPietro as "very nonchalant'' on July 12, the day of the incident. Krug launched an investigation after a township official asked him to look further into it a week after it happened.
These revelations and more are reflected in the 57-page internal investigation, a report by Krug and audio and video interviews done by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and released Wednesday by township officials.
The Dayton Daily News fought for weeks to gain access to the reports.
"I've been here for 20 years and I have seen so much stuff happen," said Leah O'Malley, Krug's assistant who made a second copy of the video of the incident, in an interview with investigators. "And I knew what was going to happen with that. Nothing."
About 20 minutes after DiPietro decontaminated the girl for a fourth time, he asked O'Malley for a copy of the video so he could secure it.
DiPietro's disciplinary hearing started Wednesday and will continue Nov. 26. Township trustees, who will decide his fate, have declined comment, as has Chief Krug.
DiPietro has maintained his innocence and said in a statement released Thursday by his attorney, Richard Lipowicz, that he would be vindicated. DiPietro is not facing criminal charges, but could lose his job.
Chief questions
The day of the incident, DiPietro entered Krug's office and told him that a female, who was being decontaminated, took her clothing off, Krug told investigators.
Krug prepared a document "Key Issues in Investigation From Chief Krug's Perspective," which noted that DiPietro did not reveal that he was the one doing the decontamination.
"He did not elaborate in any more detail, thus leaving the Chief with the impression that the officer doing the decontamination stopped the action of the female and that it would be documented in the arrest report," Krug wrote.
Two days later, the report said Krug received a phone call from Assistant Township Administrator Greg Rogers, who told him that administration officials had heard that people at a retirement party were discussing an incident in which DiPietro hosed down a naked girl in the sally-port, according to the report. Rogers asked Krug to investigate, Krug told investigators.
The report said that on Monday, July 16, Krug met with Rogers and Township Administrator Greg Hanahan and they elected to bring in assistant county prosecutor Doug Trout, with whom Krug met on July 17. As a result of that meeting, the report said Krug wrote to DiPietro, demanding the return of his copy of the DVD, ordering him to immediately start working on a "very detailed report" about the incident.
"You are not to allow any similar action to occur," Krug wrote to DiPietro in a letter included in the report. "In other words, you are not to have any contact with a female to decontaminate her in a manner as you did on July 12, 2012."
According to his written document, Krug next spoke to DiPietro on July 19. Krug wrote this was the first time the two had discussed the incident other than the brief comments on July 12. At that point, Krug wrote, DiPietro still had made no effort to document the incident.
That same day, the report said Krug again ordered DiPietro to turn over the DVD of the surveillance footage that O'Malley made for him. The report also said the DVD had been sitting on DiPietro's desk for six days and was never marked as evidence or put in the evidence room. Krug again ordered DiPietro to document the incident, and DiPietro gave him a memo the following day, according to Krug's report.
In his "Key Issues" document, Krug noted that "it was very obvious that the female did not just stop and pull her clothes off. There was conversation between her and Major DiPietro and gestures by Major DiPietro during the conversation. Why did he do nothing to stop her from taking her clothes off."
Krug's "Key Issues" document posed other questions: Why didn't DiPietro find some clothes for the girl? Why did he fail to disclose details of the incident? Why did he fail to submit any report?
Nonetheless, DiPietro kept working until Krug placed him on paid administrative leave Oct. 18, the day the Sheriff's Office delivered the internal investigation to the township. The hearing was delayed a couple weeks due to DiPietro going on medical leave. Trustees and DiPietro's attorney declined to say which witnesses were called during Wednesday's hearing, but more witnesses are expected to testify when the closed-door hearing resumes.
DiPietro is accused of six acts of what investigators call improper conduct, according to the report.
In the statement issued by Lipowicz, DiPietro stated he had been wrongly accused of improper conduct and that "my conduct was intended to treat this person in a respectful and humane manner ... Suffice it to say that I intend to defend myself vigorously at the continuation of this hearing on Nov. 26. At that time, I expect to be vindicated."
The decontamination occurred after the girl, a runaway, was arrested for a theft offense, police records said. Township officials asked the sheriff 's office to do a criminal investigation - which yielded no charges - and an internal affairs investigation, which is the subject of the hearing.
DiPietro's background
DiPietro survived previous scandals and suspensions from years ago. In 1993, four years into his full-time employment, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of criminal trespassing after he and another officer broke into a female police recruit's apartment, Dayton Daily News archives show. In 1996, he and two other officers were cited for improper conduct for "dating" or going to bars with a prostitute while on duty and for watching a pornographic video at police headquarters, according to an internal investigation also done by the sheriff's office at the time.
The 1996 accusations against DiPietro were a small part of a vast internal affairs investigation, also done by sheriff's office, that toppled the department's command staff. Krug, a former Dayton police internal affairs commander, was hired to clean up. In 2000, he named DiPietro the deputy chief. DiPietro's salary has risen from about $54,000 at that time to more than $84,000, according to township records.
DiPietro continued developing a polished public persona and became one of the most well-known faces of local law enforcement. He has been honored by many organizations and received dozens of letters of thanks. It's a persona that doesn't match O'Malley's characterization.
"I can prove that he does stuff and he gets away with it," O'Malley told investigators. "If anyone else did that, we would be strung up and gone."
"Did that just happen?"
The incident started with a theft complaint at Plato's Closet, 8319 Springboro Pike, where a witness told police that the girl placed jeans and jewelry into a silver Victoria's Secret bag, then left without paying, according to police. She left in a green sport utility vehicle driven by a friend, Patricia Cooley, 18.
Miami Twp. Officer Tim Beatty told sheriff's investigators that he spotted the vehicle on Ohio 741 and attempted a traffic stop. Cooley stopped at the Speedway, 3000 W. Alex Bell Road, but the girl jumped out and ran. As he wrestled with the girl, who resisted arrest, Beatty told investigators that he pepper-sprayed her in the face.
"I only got her face and head," Beatty told investigators. "I had the nozzle right up close to her face."
Cooley, her nephew and the girl all were kept in a holding cell until DiPietro took the boy out and let him play elsewhere with toys O'Malley had in her office. The initial holding of all three in one room may be at odds with Ohio Revised Code 341.11, which states "a child confined pursuant to section 2151.311 of the Revised Code shall be held in a room or cell totally separate and removed by sight and sound from all adult prisoners."
The sheriff's investigation shows that the girl was decontaminated at least three times before DiPietro took her to the department's sally-port to hose her off. In a recorded interview with investigators obtained by the Dayton Daily News, the girl said the first time decontamination happened was when paramedics gave her a wipe while at the scene.
The report said video shows that the girl took off her clothes in the sally-port while DiPietro hosed her down. He gave her some small towels and took her back to a holding cell, where she was visible to employees through a glass window.
"Yes, he did stand there and watch me do all that," the girl told investigators in a recorded interview. "But I'm thinking, well, he was just trying to help me because I told him my skin was burning."
After the incident, DiPietro took O'Malley down to show her the girl through the window. The girl was "butt naked" except for where the towels, ordinarily used to wipe down cruisers, were wrapped around her. The report said video recordings showed that the girl's breasts were exposed at times.
"Did that just happen?" O'Malley thought to herself as she walked away, according to the report.
When the girl was first brought into the station, another officer pointed out to DiPietro a tattoo on the girl's lower back. DiPietro told investigators that he took a picture of that tattoo with his personal cellular phone, but the girl was at least partially clothed at the time. DiPietro also said he forwarded that photo to a female friend, but deleted it from his phone later that day.
During an interview with investigators obtained by the Day-ton Daily News, DiPietro said there was no reason to take the photo, but that it's not uncommon: "I know it happens a lot with our officers. I don't know that we have a policy on it or not, but certainly there probably needs to be a policy. It could be a policy failure on our part."
Sheriff's investigators wrote that Beatty did not believe the girl was in "obvious distress" after she was placed in the cell and "after watching the video recordings, there was no indication" that the girl was "in enough distress from the pepper spray to justify her being decontaminated for a fourth time."
DiPietro admitted he did nothing to stop the girl from disrobing and that he should have, the report said. DiPietro told investigators that he discovered the girl was a juvenile while she was showering in the sally-port.
"Major DiPietro confirmed it is not common practice for Miami Township police officers to shower nude prisoners in the sally-port," investigators wrote.
Reviewing the surveillance footage, O'Malley said she was shocked by what she had seen, adding "in all my time that has never happened."
Policy issues
Krug has declined comment on the investigation. But whatever the aftermath of the DiPietro situation, Krug has been ordered to update the policies of the police department. On July 30, Krug met with Sheriff's Captain Rob Streck, and "Chief Krug informed Captain Streck the standard operating procedures manual was extremely outdated," the sheriff's report said.
It's previously been reported that Township Trustee Mike Nolan said earlier this month that trustees ordered Krug to get the department accredited with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Officers, an organization that touts best practices and says it limits risk from lawsuits. Under Krug's predecessor, the department obtained accreditation in 1994, but Krug allowed it to lapse in 1999 and has never regained it.
The township is being sued by Lebanon grade-school teacher Pamela Argabrite, who was severely injured in a high-speed police chase of burglary suspect Anthony Barnhart on July 11, 2011. Barnhart died after law enforcement officials said the suspect was driving southbound on 741 at about 80 miles per hour when he crossed the center line and hit Argabrite's vehicle.
Argabrite's attorney, Kenneth Ignozzi, said Miami Twp. police didn't follow their own policies and procedures.
The cruisers had video cameras but there was no policy that required tapes actually be put in the machines to record, Trustee Mike Nolan said. When asked for the department's pepper-spraying policy, the township produced a memorandum from 1996.
"We obviously have some problems with policies, procedures and some of the personnel," Nolan said earlier this month.
The girl who was hosed down and her mother are represented by Jon Paul Rion who told the Dayton Daily News, "The civil matter is not going to go away," but he has not filed a lawsuit.
Dayton NAACP President Derrick Foward said he called Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer when news of the DiPietro investigations broke and he sent an NAACP representative to Wednesday's hearing.
"Our first concern was dealing with children's rights," Foward said. "(DiPietro) has been disciplined a few different times regarding women, and now you're going to hose down a (naked) juvenile woman? That's disturbing. How can an officer of the law continue to hold this kind of position acting non-professionally?," Forward continued.
In an interview in the closed criminal investigation file, O'Malley told investigators DiPietro is the public face of the department.
"He is representing what we are, what we have worked for," O'Malley told investigators, adding that there have been other times that DiPietro didn't follow procedure.
"The truth never comes out," she said. "The truth is always hidden," O'Malley told investigators.
Copyright 2012 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.
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