ALFRED — Eliot’s police chief and former deputy chief gave dueling testimony in court Thursday, each accusing the other of failing to act after the deputy chief discovered that the majority of the department’s officers consistently falsified their patrol reports.
Police Chief Theodor Short testified in York County Superior Court that his former second-in-command, Lt. Kevin Cady, brought the matter to him in 2009 but never investigated after he found that GPS mapping data in police cruisers showed that four of the department’s six officers consistently were not where their reports said they were.
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“It was given to Lt. Cady to find out whether this was actually going on,” Short said. “That is where we left it.”
Cady directly contradicted his former boss, saying the department’s protocols required the chief to write a letter to each officer accused of lying in reports, before Cady could launch an internal affairs investigation. Cady contends the chief didn’t do that.
“My marching orders were to cease and desist,” Cady said, testifying immediately after Short. “It was clear he didn’t want me to do anything about it.”
The inner workings of Eliot Police Department have taken center stage in an unrelated criminal case that the department investigated in 2012.
Attorneys on one side are demanding that the department be sanctioned for refusing to turn over a report prepared by Cady in 2009 to show the falsified patrol reports. The York County District Attorney’s Office and an attorney for the town have contended that the report either doesn’t exist, was not given to the chief or otherwise doesn’t fall under the court rules.
The testimony came up during a pretrial hearing for Paul Olsen, 33, who is accused of assaulting and raping his former girlfriend at her home in Eliot.
Amy Fairfield and Patrick Gordon, who are Olsen’s attorneys, have demanded that Short turn over Cady’s report to be used as evidence in Olsen’s defense, believing it could undermine the credibility of the officers who brought the charges.
Thursday’s testimony concluded a three-session hearing before Justice John O’Neil Jr. that started last month. O’Neil said he would rule at a later date on whether he believes Cady’s report exists and whether it should have been turned over to Fairfield and Gordon for possible use in Olsen’s defense.
Short further testified Thursday that he went before the Eliot selectmen in a closed-door session to discuss Cady’s findings, and that the board declined to investigate it.
Short also forwarded memos about the alleged falsified patrol reports to the Maine Attorney General’s Office. But Brian MacMaster, director of investigations for the attorney general, testified Thursday that his office investigates only serious criminal conduct and didn’t look into the Eliot matter further.
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