MacKenzie Elmer

melmer@dmreg.com

Embattled former Des Moines police officer Tarry Pote was given a suspended prison sentence and probation for stealing $22,000.

Pote was sentenced Tuesday on a first-degree theft charge after he stole $22,000 from the department's weight lifting club, according to a news release from the Polk County attorney's office. Pote turned himself in to the Polk County Jail in October 2015 after police issued warrants for his arrest on four theft charges stemming from embezzlement of the money while he was treasurer on the police gym's board of directors.

Judge William Kelly gave Pote a 10-year suspended prison sentence, two years probation, and Pote will be required to pay the money back to the department.

Pote could not be reached for comment. Des Moines Police spokesman Sgt. Paul Parizek offered no comment on the sentencing because Pote no longer works for the police department.

Pote, who joined the department in 2002, resigned in January 2015 after colleagues caught him peeping into the women's locker room at the Des Moines police gym on East 1st Street. He was not criminally charged in that incident.

In May 2014, Pote and another police sergeant were suspended for a month without pay after investigators determined he made unwanted advances and another officer behaved unprofessionally during a relationship with the same woman, a police recruit.

Pote had been a defensive driving instructor at the academy. He had no prior discipline from the department at that time.

Investigators couldn't prove Pote had made an inappropriate comment to the female police recruit during the one day of training the two had together, but then-Chief Judy Bradshaw gave Pote a 25-day suspension for violating a broad section of the department's "standard of conduct."

Pote was not allowed to teach at the academy for at least five years, officials had said. But he and the other officer continued to work while under investigation, though they were moved from their previous assignments to overnight patrol.

Bradshaw called it an "isolated incident," stressing that none of the improper conduct occurred at the law enforcement academy.