LAYTON — Nearly four months after a Layton police sergeant accused an 18-year-old Subway employee of slipping something into his drink, it is still unknown what actually left the officer unfocused and impaired to the point that he believed he had been drugged, a department spokesman confirmed Friday.

With a possible lawsuit pending from the family of Tanis Ukena — the young man who was later cleared of any wrongdoing — police aren't releasing any additional information about the now closed investigation, including the name of the officer.

Layton Police Lt. Travis Lyman confirmed Friday that the long list of tests and medical evaluations never identified what happened to the officer on Aug. 8. After consuming part of a sandwich and sipping some of the drink he got from Ukena at the Subway drive-thru, 1142 E. state Route 193, the sergeant reported that he felt intoxicated.

Initial testing indicated there was meth and THC in the officer's drink, police said. But state crime lab investigators who conducted additional tests never detected any illegal substances in the drink, and the case against Ukena was eventually dismissed without any criminal charges being filed.

The officer was cleared to return to work a few days later and he continues to work for the department, Lyman confirmed.

In police reports obtained under Utah's Government Records Access and Management Act, the officer — whose name was redacted from the records — described purchasing his meal and believing his drink had a "chemical" taste. He said he began to feel physical effects associated with drug intoxication. As he drove back to the police station, the officer said his body was slow to respond to his thoughts, including needing to lift his foot and apply the car's brake at a red light.

While sitting in an office at the police station, his drink from the Subway still in his hand, the officer was ordered to leave the beverage behind to be tested and seek medical attention, a report states.

While he was being taken in for medical testing, the officer said he felt a tingling sensation in his body and his thoughts were confused, according to police reports.

In an interview the next morning, the officer said that within two or three minutes of drinking from the Subway cup, he began to feel strange, his vision became hypersensitive and would "zoom in on everything," and his head began to spin, according to a report.

The officer also described a warm sensation inside his body, tingling, and said his heartbeat accelerated as if he had consumed an energy drink. He said he felt a knot in his stomach and started losing feeling in his left arm.

The interviewing detective also indicated in the report that, while driving the officer to the hospital the day before, he had compared the sensations he was feeling to an experience experimenting with marijuana in high school, and to the effects of Lortab that he was once prescribed for a work-related injury.

Initial blood and urine tests did not show evidence of drugs, according to the report, which medical staff said may have been because the officer's body might not have had time to metabolize whatever he had consumed.

Further testing of samples from both the officer and Ukena did not show any evidence of drugs, according to the report.

A quick-check Marquis test, a spot test kit that can be purchased over the counter in some forms, was used to test a sample from the drink and it showed evidence of methamphetamine, amphetamine or ecstasy, a police report says.

A test on another sample using an ion scanner indicated there was methamphetamine in the drink. An additional sample, which tested negative in two readings, indicated narcotics were present after a third test, according to the report.

Yet testing by the state crime lab did not detect any controlled substances in the drink at all.

At the time of Ukena's arrest, police also pointed to surveillance footage that they say showed Ukena spending an inordinate amount of time preparing the officer's drink.

The video shows Ukena begin to fill the drink, then move away from the fountain as it fills. He returns briefly and "does something with the drink," then moves to the food prep area where he "grabs something" out of sight from the camera, a report states. The store manager told police Ukena appeared to reach toward an area where napkins are kept.

After returning again to the drink fountain, surveillance footage shows Ukena spent 18 seconds with the drink, including reaching for a lid or a straw, before throwing an unidentified object in the trash and delivering the drink, with the rest of the officer's order, to the drive-thru window.

After viewing the surveillance footage, the Subway manager and store owner both told police they believed Ukena had overfilled the drink and stepped away from it in order to grab a napkin, then lingered over the drink in order to dry the cup before handing it to the officer, according to the report.

In a press conference last month, Ukena and his parents spoke about the instant and intense fallout that spread online after his arrest, including death threats and calls for him to face attempted murder charges.

The family, through attorney Robert Sykes, has submitted a letter indicating they may sue the city and its police department if a financial settlement isn't reached out of court. Neither side specified how much the family is seeking in damages, and Sykes did not release a copy of the letter.

"We're trying to resolve it if we can. I don't know that we'll be able to, but we're hopeful," Sykes said. "It did this young man a lot of damage. You know, he'll be looking for a job in 15 years and someone gets on the internet, they'll find this stuff."

Sykes sent the letter to the city of Layton on Oct. 25, he said. A mediation meeting is scheduled for next week where Sykes hopes the issue can be resolved with no need to proceed with the lawsuit.

Gary Crane, Layton's city attorney, said Friday the city has not yet decided whether it will settle with the Ukena family or dismiss the offer. Crane emphasized that the situation was unfortunate on all sides, but the city maintains that based on evidence at the time, police had appropriate probable cause to arrest Ukena and book him into jail.

"The city is always concerned about the lives that are touched by these situations. On the one hand, there was on officer who was totally incapacitated," Crane said. "On the other side, you have a young man who was investigated."

Crane said the city and its police department are pleased to see that Ukena is doing well, including reports that he is now serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an assignment that had been put on hold after Ukena was arrested.

Sykes, however, said the police investigation never added up from the beginning. The surveillance videos, Sykes said, show no evidence of wrongdoing.

"To me, that's just kind of an excuse for bad police conduct," Sykes said. "You watch those security cameras and there's just no indication that anything happened."

In conversations with attorney Randy Richards, who represented Ukena after his arrest, Sykes said he was told the initial drug testing used on the officer's drink are "notoriously inaccurate and give a lot of false positives."