Moments after resigning as a Portland police officer Friday, Jeromie L. Palaoro pleaded guilty to first-degree official misconduct after a woman said he responded to her domestic assault complaint and then visited her hotel room and coerced her into unwanted sexual contact.

Multnomah County prosecutors said the official misconduct charge was narrowly related to Palaoro's decision to contact the woman after clearing the police call late on July Fourth and offering to come to her hotel room after he finished his shift.

At roughly 1:30 a.m. on July 5, Palaoro sent a text to the woman that read, "Probably not appropriate for me to say, but I could come see you, or call if you would like. I'm a good listener. Usually haha.''

The District Attorney's Office had insufficient evidence to prove that any criminal sexual conduct occurred during the seven hours that Palaoro spent in the woman's hotel room, starting at 3:35 a.m., Deputy District Attorney Christopher Ramras wrote in a legal analysis of the case.

Instead, he characterized Palaoro's actions as trying to arrange a "date-like meeting'' with a domestic assault victim and noted that the woman's credibility would be challenged in this case.

Palaoro, 44, and a seven-year bureau member, was ordered to serve a year and a half on bench probation and lose his state police certification. He also was ordered to resign from the Police Bureau.

Statement read by Jeromie Palaoro's attorney Michael Staropoli

Palaoro's attorney, Michael Staropoli, said his client "accepts full responsibility for his conduct,'' but "adamantly denies and refutes'' the account of what occurred by the woman involved. Staropoli contends the woman was not truthful with investigators and gave conflicting accounts of what occurred to her own attorney.

"Again, none of this absolves Mr. Palaoro of responsibility for his own conduct,'' Staropoli said.

Palaoro never gave detectives a statement, asserting his Fifth Amendment right not to speak, the prosecutor said. "We do not have Officer Palaoro's account of what happened in this incident,'' Ramras wrote in an office memo.

Barbara Long, representing the woman, Roni "Rylee Jo'' Reid of Las Vegas, said she supported the plea deal "under the circumstances.''

"I guess she's not a perfect person," Long said of her client, "but you don't have to be a perfect person to be a victim of a crime.''

The encounter occurred late July 4 and early July 5.

Reid, 45, filed a notice of intent to sue the city on July 9, and spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive about the encounter last year. The Oregonian/OregonLive typically doesn't name alleged victims in such cases, but Reid agreed to be identified.

Palaoro was one of three officers who responded to Southeast 86th Avenue and Bybee Street on the night of July 4 after Reid called 911, according to Reid and her attorneys. She was crying and hysterical, and complained that her boyfriend had grabbed her by the neck and slammed her to the ground during a dispute in the nearby home of her boyfriend's mother, Reid said in an interview.

Palaoro was the first officer to respond, listened to her account of what happened and asked about her boyfriend, she said. When the officer asked her what she did, Reid said she told him, "I'm a relationship and intimacy coach who specializes in tantric sex, and I help people with their sexual needs."

Police called a cab for her that night to return to her room at the Marriott Residence Inn in the Pearl District. Reid had been in town visiting with her boyfriend and his son.

Reid said she was surprised to get a phone message from Palaoro, followed by multiple text messages. He wanted her to call him and she did. He told her that he believed her account of what occurred and wanted to help her.

According to prosecutors, Palaoro cleared the domestic call at 10:19 p.m., and called Reid at 10:57 p.m. and left a voice mail for her to call him. They started exchanging text messages at 11:24 p.m. and Palaoro eventually offered to come see her.

Reid said she didn't want to take him away from anything but didn't mind company.

At 1:40 a.m, he replied by text, "I would like to be your company,'' and said he could be out of uniform and leave by 2 a.m. He was delayed because there had been a shooting, and he arrived at her hotel around 3:35 a.m.

While at the front desk, Reid talked to a clerk and security guard, and said she told them a police officer was coming to see her. The investigation, however, indicated Reid told the security guard that a "producer'' was coming to see her for an HBO reality show, according to Ramras' memo.

"The only evidence of what occurred during the time he was in her room comes from Ms. Reid,'' Ramras' memo said.

Among other things, the memo noted that she initially gave police a wrong name and birth date, cited her erratic behavior with the man involved in the domestic dispute and mentioned "her apparent attention-seeking by talking to complete strangers about her work as a sex therapist.''

Prosecutors pointed out that Reid met the officer in the hotel lobby and allowed him to come into her hotel room. The District Attorney's Office didn't consider it a threat when Palaoro, who arrived off-duty in civilian clothes, removed his gun from his backpack and placed it on a stand by the television in her hotel room.

"He specifically asked her if the gun made her uncomfortable and she did not respond,'' the memo says. "It seems logical that one would take a gun out of backpack to ensure its visibility rather than leave it hidden in a backpack where it could be accidentally triggered.''

Reid said in an interview last year that she was threatened by the gun's presence: "I was like, 'Oh my God,' I was scared. I was like, Who was I supposed to call? I'm in a room, with an officer who has a gun out, who keeps saying he's the one who is going to write my side of the domestic assault report. ... My concern was to keep him happy and not make him mad."

Reid told police that they sat on a couch in her room and talked for a while, and at some point, Palaoro asked her why she had told him about her job as a sex coach. Palaoro then stood up and told her that she was going to give him a massage. He stripped naked and got on the bed.

She asked him to lie on his back, covered him with the bedding and massaged his back, legs and arms, she said.

When she was done, he took a shower. Afterward, he sat beside her on the edge of the bed with a towel around him and told her he was attracted to her. He asked her to "come here'' and she responded, "I'm right here.'' Palaoro pulled down her tank top and attempted to kiss her breasts, and put his hand on her genitals over her clothing, and attempted to remove her yoga pants, Ramras' memo said.

Reid told Palaoro to stop, saying she was in love with another man, according to the prosecutor's memo. Palaoro then stopped and asked her not to tell anyone what had happened, Ramras wrote.

He left the hotel around 10 a.m. July 5. Within 10 minutes, Palaoro texted Reid, thanking her for the massage.

The next day, Reid went to the Police Bureau's forensic evidence division to get photos taken of bruises from her domestic incident. While there, she informed police that Officer Palaoro had wanted to come to her hotel for a "date" and had acted unprofessional.

"Ms. Reid's own account of events does not articulate criminal sexual behavior, but it does articulate unprofessional behavior that rises to the level of official misconduct,'' Ramras concluded in his memo.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian