Interim Police Chief Anthony Treviño could do without the drama.

Especially now.

It started in 2010, when Treviño’s ex-wife — Analisa Diaz, a San Antonio police officer — began dating George Chavez, also a San Antonio police officer.

Five years later, Treviño is still living with the fallout from that law-enforcement love triangle: most notably, allegations in a federal lawsuit against the city that Treviño tampered with witnesses in an internal affairs investigation.

This week, City Manager Sheryl Sculley is expected to pick the city’s next police chief from a slate of four finalists: Malik Aziz, a deputy chief in Dallas; Albert Salinas, a retired deputy chief from Las Vegas; Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor; and Treviño, who has worked for SAPD since 1993.

Treviño declined to comment for this column, citing the lawsuit. Trevino in his deposition denied retaliating or discriminating against Chavez.

In a recent deposition, he acknowledged he was trying to reconcile with Analisa around the time she began dating George Chavez. At the time, both Analisa and George Chavez were instructors at the San Antonio Police Academy, and Treviño was a deputy police chief.

That’s when the discrimination, harassment and retaliation began, according to Analisa and George Chavez, who are now married, in separate civil lawsuits. The latter perceived Treviño’s attempts to reconcile with Analisa as “unwelcome sexual harassment,” and he complained about it to Treviño and other superiors, according to the lawsuit.

“Rather than seeing the harassment resolved and stopped as requested by Chavez, however, Chavez became a victim of retaliation, assault, harassment and intimidation because of his complaints about and opposition to the harassment and retaliation,” the lawsuit claims. “It came to the point that Deputy Chief Treviño and then Chief William McManus interfered with the investigations and grievances … and in an act of retaliation, demoted Chavez from his position at the academy because of his complaints and grievances.”

Last month, a judge dismissed the claims by Analisa Chavez, who recently was promoted to detective.

Chavez was transfered from the police academy in 2013. In a memo, Capt. James Flavin, commander of the academy at the time, explained his reasons for ordering it.

“Officer Chavez is apparently incapable or unwilling to control his emotions, anger and speech, especially when considering the cadets,” wrote Flavin, who is now head of internal affairs. He added that Chavez believed in “a conspiracy directed by Deputy Chief Treviño to create a hostile work environment for him.”

In 2012, the tension between the two officers spilled into public view at a San Antonio Missions baseball game. Walking past each other, Chavez and Treviño collided; Chavez alleged that Treviño shoved him, while Treviño claimed that Chavez “bumped into me.”

Chavez took his complaint to Internal Affairs, which opened an investigation.

At the time, former SAPD Sgt. Martin Tobin was an Internal Affairs investigator. In July, he stated in an affidavit that “Tony Treviño was not in IA’s chain of command but he interjected his directives regarding Chavez’s case. … Even though Treviño was the Chief of Staff (to McManus), he had a moral and ethical obligation to recuse himself from involvement in the case … but he did not.”

Tobin added, “It was clear to me that Treviño had influence over witnesses and their testimony in the investigation process.”

Tobin, now in New York, did not return a call for comment.

On Wednesday, I forwarded a question to the city manager’s office: Has Sculley looked into the claim that Treviño improperly influenced an internal affairs investigation?

In an emailed statement, Sculley responded, “The San Antonio Police Department’s internal affairs investigation concluded that George Chavez’s 2012 complaints were unfounded. Mr. Chavez has since made similar allegations in a federal lawsuit, and we await the ruling from the court.”

That doesn’t answer my question about the alleged witness tampering.

A messy domestic dispute has little to no bearing on whether Treviño is qualified to lead the police department. In selecting the city’s next police chief, however, Sculley should examine the claim by Tobin.

bchasnoff@express-news.net