Philadelphia police officials investigating an officer with a tattoo resembling a Nazi emblem knew he’d been accused of involvement in a white supremacist group and dismissed the allegation based on the officer’s denial, according to an internal affairs memo obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The department cleared officer Ian Lichterman of misconduct following a three-month investigation in late 2016, and he remains on the force. Lichterman has denied allegations of involvement in hate groups and told BuzzFeed News in September that his arm tattoo is a symbol of his German heritage, not a tribute to Nazis.

The 10-page internal affairs document, sent to the city’s police commissioner from the commanding officer of the internal affairs division in December, showed that investigators questioned Lichterman about allegations by a local antifa group that he was a member of a neo-Nazi organization. They also asked about his portrayal of a German soldier in at least three World War II reenactments and asked Lichterman to explain his forearm tattoo of an eagle, which looks a lot like the symbol adopted by the Nazi party during Adolf Hitler’s rise.

The investigation began after a photo of his tattoo went viral in early September 2016, leading at least one resident to file a complaint with the police department.

Lichterman was first linked to the skinhead group Blood & Honour in 2010, when an online activist group hacked into a series of white supremacist websites. Lichterman’s name, home address, and email appeared in Blood & Honour’s database, alongside the personal information of hundreds of people, including at least one other law enforcement agent: Bart Alsbrook, the Colbert, Oklahoma, interim police chief who resigned in August after local news outlets reported his alleged ties to hate groups. Alsbrook claimed that white supremacists had “hijacked” his name to make him look bad. Philadelphia police officials didn’t investigate Lichterman at that time, either because they were unaware of the database or because nobody filed a complaint about it.

When he was being questioned last year by police internal affairs following up on the tattoo complaint, Lichterman told investigators he had never heard of Blood & Honour until 2016. The memo did not give any explanation for why Lichterman’s name appeared in the Blood & Honour database, which BuzzFeed News has reviewed. There’s no indication investigators looked further into the matter after Lichterman denied involvement in the group.