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Sgt. Dan Cardinal (right) resigned from the Washington County Sheriff's Office last week after he was named in an unsigned letter alleging misconduct.

(Oregonian file photograph )

A Washington County sheriff's sergeant has resigned while under investigation, state officials confirmed Thursday.

Sgt. Dan Cardinal, 40, left the office last Friday, according to the state's Department of Public Safety Standards and Training.

He had been placed on administrative leave after the Sheriff's Office received an unsigned letter alleging widespread sexual harassment and on-duty sexual encounters in the agency.

Sheriff's officials have refused to comment on Cardinal's resignation or why he was under investigation, but he is named in the letter.

Sgt. Bob Ray, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, would say only that the agency must wait to release potentially "stigmatizing" information about employees until after they have the opportunity for a hearing to clear their names. The agency gives employees two weeks to request or decline a hearing.

The state will review what led to Cardinal's resignation and determine whether he can keep his certification to be a police officer.

The resignation comes while the Portland Police Bureau conducts an inquiry into the multiple claims of sexual misconduct included in the letter, which came to the sheriff's office and The Oregonian/OregonLive via email on April 17.

Sheriff's officials last month asked Portland to because the letter's allegations were so serious, Ray said.

Two other deputies are on paid administrative leave. One of them also was named in the letter. It's not clear why the other is on leave. The Sheriff's Office hasn't named them.

Cardinal spent more than 15 years at the Sheriff's Office. In 2003, he was named the North American Motor Officers Association Rookie of the Year in a competition involving about 150 police officers from Oregon, Washington, Idaho and western Canada.

In 2010, as a corporal, he was involved in a high-profile shooting in Aloha. He wounded a suicidal woman after authorities say she refused to show her hands and reached for something in her pocket that turned out to be a comb. The district attorney's office ruled the shooting justified.

He most recently served as a patrol sergeant on the western side of the county, records say. He was also the supervisor of the agency's Search and Rescue and explorer program.

-- Rebecca Woolington

503-294-4049; @rwoolington