Warren cop uses whistleblower law as defense

By Ed Runyan | April 20, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Warren Patrolman Jeff Hoolihan

WARREN

Patrolman Jeff Hoolihan has invoked Ohio’s whistleblower statute as his justification for giving information to a TV reporter about an investigation he worked on in 2008 that did not produce criminal charges.

Hoolihan told 21 WFMJ-TV on March 20 he investigated allegations of a Warren wastewater employee that suggested the employee had done things deserving of punishment, but the city had done nothing about it.

His statements led to an internal-affairs investigation earlier this year by Sgt. Jeff Cole of Hoolihan’s comments. Cole has not completed that investigation, Cole said Tuesday.

Cole released documents related to the investigation Tuesday after a public records request from WFMJ and The Vindicator.

Among the documents was a memo from Hoolihan in which he said he had investigated the city’s wastewater department, along with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in 2008 regarding alleged EPA violations at the city’s wastewater facility on South Main Avenue.

“During a search warrant at the facility, numerous pornography photos were found inside a folder located inside the desk drawer” of an employee, Hoolihan said.

An analysis done by BCI of several computers indicated that the employee’s computer had various kinds of pornography on them, Hoolihan said.

The employee was not placed on administrative leave while the investigation was undertaken, Hoolihan said.

In June 2009, Hoolihan was transferred from the detective bureau to patrol duties and was asked to turn over his files on the computer investigation, which he did, Hoolihan said.

In early March 2011, Hoolihan received an anonymous phone call from someone indicating that the computer investigation had been closed without any action being taken.

An email from Police Chief Tim Bowers on March 24, 2011, released on Tuesday said the chief wanted Hoolihan’s conduct related to the WFMJ interview to be investigated and that Bowers had been advised by the commander of the investigative bureau that the computer investigation was still ongoing.

A letter to from Hoolihan’s attorney, Samuel F. Bluedorn, to the Ohio attorney general’s office, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Cleveland, cited the Ohio whistleblower statute as the reason for his disclosure of the computer investigation.

The whistleblower statute says a government employee who has discovered that his supervisor or appointing authority has failed to act on violation of state or federal law “may report it to a prosecuting attorney, director of law, village solicitor, or similar chief legal officer of a municipal corporation” or an agency such as the ethics commission.

Any employee doing this is protected from being punished for such conduct, the statute says.