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YPD probe of traffic stop completed
By Joe Gorman
Internal Affairs Case 14-95
Document
Investigation into the Internal Affairs case 14-95 regarding the violation of departmental rules and regulations by Youngstown officers.
YOUNGSTOWN
Four Youngstown Police Department officers were disciplined for their role in helping the brother of a lieutenant get out of a charge of driving under the influence, and an Internal Affairs report is recommending the brother be charged anyway.
On Monday, the police department released its probe of the Nov. 28 traffic stop in which 54-year-old Joseph Slattery was pulled over for running a red light and was suspected of drunken driving but never given a citation.
Slattery is the brother of Lt. Gerard Slattery, who heads the vice squad and was given a 10-day unpaid suspension for his role in intervening in the stop.
Also disciplined were Lt. John Kelty, who was given a five-day unpaid suspension and demoted two ranks to patrolman; Officer Thomas Wisener, who pulled over Joseph Slattery and was given a 15-day suspension; and Officer Assad Chaibi, who administered a blood-alcohol test on Joseph Slattery but later threw away the evidence ticket that came out of the machine. Chaibi had four hours of compensatory time taken from him.
Additionally, investigators were able to find the test results from the machine that show Slattery registered a blood-alcohol content of 0.136. The legal limit for drunken driving in Ohio is 0.08. The report said it is recommended that Joseph Slattery be charged with DUI.
Joseph Slattery had an open can of beer in his hand when he was pulled over. During the stop, Wisener can be heard on dispatch tapes asking for a tow truck and for an officer who was certified to operate the machine that tests blood-alcohol content to meet him at the police station. Later, Chaibi could be heard radioing in that he was en route with one person to the station.
A logbook for the blood-alcohol machine — commonly referred to as a BAC machine — has Joseph Slattery’s name in it but has no notation as to what the reading on the machine was.
The police report of the incident includes none of these events. Instead, a report was done saying that Joseph Slattery received a citation for having an open container and his car was released to a licensed driver.
That led to several sources within the department giving The Vindicator accounts of what happened Nov. 28 that proved to be remarkably accurate.
The Internal Affairs report said that after Joseph Slattery was taken to the police station for his test, he called his brother, who was off duty, to pick him up. Gerard Slattery then asked who was giving his brother a citation and was told it was Wisener. He then called Kelty, who was the officer on duty, and voiced his displeasure with Wisener. He later yelled at another officer who allowed the car to be towed. The report said Gerard Slattery went to the tow yard and picked up his brother’s car without paying the tow fee.
The report recommended that Gerard Slattery pay the $136 fee to the towing company.
Gerard Slattery was found guilty of violating departmental rules of conduct unbecoming, abuse of position and improper conduct of a supervisor.
Wisener told investigators that Kelty told him to charge Joseph Slattery only with an open-container violation. Although Wisener told Kelty he did not believe being related to someone should get a person out of a DUI citation, he did not charge him with DUI because Wisener thought he was receiving an order. He then wrote a false police report about the incident without being instructed to, the report said, because he felt nervous and that he had to document what Kelty told him to do. He also admitted to investigators he could have written an accurate report but did not.
Wisener also gave Joseph Slattery a DUI citation, which he signed, but was later thrown away. Wisener was found guilty of violating departmental rules of dishonesty, conduct unbecoming, failure of good behavior, issuing a false police report and improperly processing property and evidence.
The report said Kelty asked another supervisor to delete the towed-car report for Joseph Slattery without telling him why, called the tow yard and told them to release the car to Gerard Slattery and also checked how the call was logged into the city’s computer. His account differed from Wisener’s, and the two were ordered to take a polygraph. Wisener passed and Kelty flunked when asked the questions if he ordered Wisener not to charge Joseph Slattery with DUI and to give him citations only for open container and running a red light.
Kelty was found guilty of dishonesty, conduct unbecoming, failure of good behavior, neglect of duty and improper conduct by a supervisor.
Chaibi, who gave the blood-alcohol test, put the evidence in a shred bin when he asked Kelty what he should do with it and received no response. The bin is locked and emptied every few days to be shredded, and had not been emptied before the investigation. Chaibi was found guilty of conduct unbecoming, failure of good behavior, failure to process evidence correctly and filing a false report.
Youngstown Police Chief Robin Lees said he did not suspend Slatterly with pay during the investigation because “there didn’t seem to be conduct that would have prohibited him from performing his regular duties.”
“I am not inclined to pay people not to come to work,” he said.
Mayor John McNally said Monday that he believes the investigation was handled fairly.
“I thought Internal Affairs did what they were supposed to do to investigate the allegations. They interviewed all the individuals who were involved,” he said. “I think [Lees] and Internal Affairs handled this matter as [they] were supposed to be handled.”
Kelty has been in trouble several times before, and the last time, in June of 2012, he was suspended for three days for improperly joining the motorcade of Vice President Joe Biden during a visit to the area. He was warned by then Chief Rod Foley that he would be fired if he was in trouble again.
Lt. Brian Butler, head of Internal Affairs, said Monday that Kelty was not able to be fired because of the collective bargaining agreement with the union representing ranking officers, which states that any conduct more than two years old cannot be used against him. He was demoted to level 12 as a patrolman, which is the highest step level for a patrolman.
Typically, in a case such as Joseph Slattery’s, instead of jail for a charge of driving under the influence, he would have received a citation and a court date and would not have been taken to jail. His car would have been towed and a sober driver called to take him home. His license would have been suspended, but after a period of time he would be able to get it back.