West Linn Sgt. Tony Reeves, the lead investigator who pursued questionable theft charges against Portland’s Michael Fesser in 2017, received a written reprimand for using profane and derogatory language in text messages with Fesser’s boss and failing to document items he seized from Fesser after his arrest, according to newly released records.

But West Linn’s internal police investigation found no evidence that Reeves violated the department’s policy prohibiting “discrimination, oppression or favoritism.’’

The city of West Linn released the records Thursday in response to a public records request.

The release comes three weeks after the city paid out $600,000 to settle a wrongful arrest lawsuit Fesser filed against West Linn police, public apologies by West Linn’s mayor and police chief to Fesser and the initiation of federal, state and local investigations into potential civil rights violations by police in the case.

Document: West Linn’s Internal Affairs investigation of Sgt. Tony Reeves (Warning: Report contains graphic language)

In June 2018, West Linn initiated an internal investigation after receiving Fesser’s notice of intent to sue the West Linn police. Three months earlier, Reeves had been promoted from detective to sergeant.

Fesser’s litigation revealed that West Linn police pursued his arrest in Portland as a favor to a friend of former Chief Terry Timeus: Eric Benson, a West Linn resident, was Fesser’s boss at A&B Towing Co. in Southeast Portland.

Benson sought Fesser’s arrest after Fesser repeatedly complained of racial harassment on the job. Benson and his company paid out $415,000 to Fesser to settle a separate racial discrimination and retaliation suit.

Acting in response to Fesser’s tort claim, current West Linn Police Chief Terry Kruger assigned Capt. Neil Hennelly to manage an internal investigation of Reeves.

Hennelly, however, was identified as one of the police supervisors who oversaw Reeves and Reeves’ determination that probable cause existed to arrest Fesser as he left work at A&B Towing on Feb. 25, 2017, according to West Linn documents.

Hennelly managed the internal inquiry while acting police Lt. Oddis Rollins conducted it.

Rollins found no evidence that Reeves violated the department’s discrimination policy. He did find that Reeves violated department policy by using obscene language on the job, noting Reeves used the “F’’ word 12 separate times within 10 minutes in a text exchange with Benson. He also found Reeves failed to properly account for items seized from Fesser during his arrest.

Reeves, for example, never documented that he had taken Fesser’s cellphone during his arrest.

Reeves, in the internal investigation as previously reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, said he never sent any text message or had any conversation with Benson that was explicitly racist or homophobic, but those claims were contradicted by text messages obtained through the civil litigation.

Reeves did admit to the West Linn police investigator that he sent one text to Benson with a derogatory word in it referring to a woman’s genitalia, but said he was only parroting Timeus’ language, according to the West Linn internal affairs report.

Reeves told the investigator that he relayed to Timeus during his surveillance of Fesser on Feb. 25, 2017, that Benson was getting apprehensive about Fesser’s arrest.

Reeves said Timeus wrote something back in a text to the effect of, “Tell him to quit being a (expletive)” so Reeves said he did just that in a follow-up text to Benson.

Reeves admitted he seized Fesser’s cellphone and that his initial plan was to hold it while he applied for a search warrant for it and its contents. But he never did apply for a search warrant for the phone, he said.

He also seized folders from Fesser with car auction information, a legal document between Fesser and his lawyer, Paul Buchanan, and other business documents from Fesser’s SUV, including a car’s title with $500 attached to it.

Reeves didn’t complete a property custody form for any of the seized items and didn’t secure Fesser’s cellphone in the police evidence division as required, the investigation showed.

Reeves, in his deposition in Fesser’s suit, admitted he deleted the text messages with Benson from his phone, saying he did so because he thought the case was over.

On July 18, 2018, Rollins, the West Linn investigator, obtained a thumb drive that held about 80 pages of text messages between Benson and Reeves before, during and after Fesser’s arrest. The thumb drive was from senior claims consultant Jon Stouffer, who works for West Linn’s insurer, City County Insurance Services.

The text messages were retrieved from Benson’s phone as part of Fesser’s civil suit against his former boss.

The investigator noted that he observed multiple texts that “could easily be considered lewd, obscene, inappropriate and unprofessional’’ between Reeves and Benson. In one, Reeves used a derogatory slang term for a sexual act.

Detective Michael Boyd, who by then had left the West Linn police and was working for Molalla police, was also interviewed as part of the internal inquiry. He said he was simply acting as a “cover officer’’ on the night of Fesser’s arrest.

He said he didn’t perform any active investigation during the case, except for doing surveillance of Fesser at A&B Towing’s car auction and helping make the arrest. He said he didn’t write any reports in the case.

Asked if he was aware of the text messages that Reeves exchanged with Benson, Boyd said he thought Reeves made some “off-hand’’ comments as he was texting but Boyd said he couldn’t remember what was shared and never saw any inappropriate text messages. Boyd no longer works for Molalla police.

While Rollins didn’t find Reeves violated policy in his handling of Fesser’s money seized upon arrest, the captain did but didn’t include that violation as part of any discipline.

Hennelly wrote he was “troubled by the cavalier manner’’ in which Reeves handled Fesser’s cash, saying he should have counted the money in front of Fesser and documented it to protect police from false accusations of theft.

There was nothing in the internal investigation that revealed Benson’s personal ties to the former West Linn chief or how the inquiry got underway.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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