An arbitrator reversed the firing of a Portland police officer after finding the bureau couldn't prove that he sexually assaulted a woman who complained that she may have been drugged and was "incapable of consent'' during a party at his home near Vancouver.

The arbitrator cited the lack of medical evidence or other evidence in the complaint against Officer Alfonso Valadez Jr., who returned to patrol work in early April.

The city released the arbitrator's ruling Monday after the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office ordered it be made public following a successful appeal by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The woman's name was redacted.

She had made the allegation against Valadez a day after his October 2015 birthday party, saying he had sex with her after she passed out in a guest room in his house during the celebration. Valadez said the sex was consensual.

Documents:

Arbitrator's ruling

Arbitrator's Clarification Letter

Arbitrator's Amended Award

The case is one of several involving discipline against Valadez. He's now under a separate investigation for chasing a hit-and-run suspect the wrong way on Interstate 84 last month, which led to a fatal crash and the suspect's death.

In the off-duty party case, then-Police Chief Mike Marshman initially returned Valadez to active duty in 2016, but then reversed his decision in February 2017 and fired him. The police union appealed on Valadez's behalf.

The arbitrator, David W. Stiteler, ruled on March 2 that that the city didn't have "just cause'' to fire Valadez but did have cause to suspend him for 40 hours without pay because of his unprofessional conduct.

Stiteler's ruling reveals that there was no medical evidence in the case because the Clark County Sheriff's Office didn't send the woman's sexual assault kit for processing at a crime lab, and didn't heed her request to have her blood and urine samples tested to determine if she was drugged.

The Sheriff's Office decided "there was no point'' in processing the kit because it wouldn't have helped determine if the sexual contact was consensual, Stiteler's summary said. It's unclear why her blood or urine wasn't tested. The hospital informed her a forensic lab needed to do the testing of the blood and urine samples, according to the arbitrator's order.

The Clark County District Attorney's office declined to prosecute, finding insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a sexual assault had occurred.

The woman told investigators that she wasn't drunk and may have been drugged, but Stiteler said there was no evidence to support it.

According to the arbitration order, the woman contends she was passed out on a bed after vomiting in a bathroom. Valadez came into the room to close the windows because police had come to the house at least twice after getting noise complaints about the party.

Valadez told her to open her mouth, she did and he shoved his penis inside, according to the arbitrator's summary of her account. He left and returned a second time, this time putting his penis into her mouth and vagina, she told investigators.

"She tried to tell him to stop but couldn't say anything,'' according to the summary. The woman also testified during the arbitration hearing.

According to Valadez, the woman initiated the sexual contact when he entered the room by grabbing his crotch. They kissed the first time he entered the room, and when he returned, they kissed, groped and, at her invitation, briefly had sex, he said.

The woman left his home the next morning, and after work, went to a hospital to have a sexual assault forensic exam.

Months before Valadez's birthday party, he had pressed the woman to have an affair or a threesome with his wife, according to the arbitrator's ruling. The woman, who had been engaged to another police officer, had met Valadez and his wife at social events before 2013.

Once the woman broke off the engagement that year, she continued to socialize with Valadez and his wife. Valadez and the woman sometimes flirted, and Valadez's wife and the woman sometimes referred to each other as "sister wives.'' Valadez called the woman his "future ex-wife,'' according to testimony before the arbitrator.

Valadez asked the woman to send him sexually explicit photos he saw on her phone, and she did, the arbitrator noted. Valadez shared one of the pictures with at least one other officer, the summary said.

In August 2015, Valadez met the woman for lunch and raised the idea then of an affair or threesome, but she rejected his offers, the arbitrator's summary said. After lunch, the woman said Valadez put her hand on his crotch while they were sitting in her car and tricked her into kissing him on the lips. Valadez said it was all consensual, according to the arbitrator.

Valadez and his wife both invited the woman to the birthday party. She had several drinks , including a couple of glasses of punch, a shot or two of tequila and a drink she mixed herself over the course of the party. Around 1 a.m., she went upstairs, feeling ill. She went to use the bathroom and vomited, according to the arbitrator.

Clark County Detective Craig Marler, the lead investigator, interviewed 11 witnesses, including Valadez and the woman who filed the complaint. Marler noted that the woman had made claims in the past about possibly being drugged or sexually assaulted by other people.

He found Valadez and the woman both forthright, but determined Valadez was more credible because he was more forthcoming, and the woman hadn't disclosed some information that put her in a bad light, the arbitrator wrote.

Portland police did an internal investigation. Valadez's commander, Dave Hendrie, found Valadez engaged in unprofessional conduct but not sexual assault and recommended a 40-hour suspension without pay.

The case went before the Police Review Board, which unanimously found that it couldn't sustain the sexual assault allegation because of the conflicting accounts. The board voted 4-1 to sustain a second allegation of unprofessional conduct, with Constantin Severe, director of the Independent Police Review, the sole member opposed.

Marshman initially agreed with the board's findings on both allegations, and the Police Bureau reinstated Valadez to his patrol job. But in late November 2016, Marshman reversed himself, sustaining the sexual assault allegation. He fired Valadez in February 2017 after a hearing.

Marshman told the arbitrator that he hadn't been chief long when he first took up the case and rushed through the file, but it troubled him and he took another look.

In defending the firing to the arbitrator, the city said it found the woman's account more credible, noting she went to the hospital to have a forensic exam and reported it to authorities.

Valadez never asked the woman if she was able to consent to sexual contact, even though others at the party knew she was impaired, city attorneys argued. Sending sexually explicit photos to him doesn't rise to consent to have sex, the city attorney argued.

It didn't matter that Valadez didn't face prosecution, the city lawyers said, because disciplinary matters have a lower standard of proof, one of "clear and convincing evidence.''

"Police officers must not use the power of their position for personal advantage'' – it reflects poorly on the city and undermines the public's trust, the city argued.

Anil Karia, a lawyer for the Portland Police Association, said the city never proved either of the two allegations. There was no evidence that the off-duty sex wasn't consensual, he said, and cited inconsistencies in the woman's account.

Karia further argued that Oregon law doesn't require verbal consent for sex to be consensual.

The arbitrator sided with Karia. "Without some persuasive evidence of non-consent, there was no reasonable basis for Marshman to reject all the prior conclusions,'' Stiteler said in the ruling.

At the same time, Stiteler said Valadez showed "extremely poor judgement,'' that night. Though Valadez's actions were "immature, selfish, reckless, thoughtless, even stupid,'' it couldn't be proven that he raped the woman, he found.

Karia also represented Valadez in Clark County court earlier this year, objecting to The Oregonian/Oregonlive's request for the release of the Sheriff's Office criminal investigative records. A judge has not yet ruled on the request.

Valadez previously received a reprimand for making a video starring himself as a self-proclaimed tough "SOB" cop, which included video surveillance images from a criminal inquiry that he posted on his personal YouTube page in 2013.

-- Maxine Bernstein

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