N.J. cop says he shouldn't be fired for sex on duty

Sergio Bichao | (Bridgewater, N.J.) Courier News

PLAINFIELD, N.J.— A police officer contends that the city should not have fired him last year after he admitted to having sex with multiple women while on duty, including inside his police car.

Former Police Officer Fernando Sanchez admitted to having sex with the same woman that another cop — former Sgt. Samuel Woody — was found guilty of coercing into stripping for him as he played with himself in a public parking lot while in uniform. Woody was convicted in December 2013 and sentenced last year to six years in prison.

Sanchez’s own illicit on-duty trysts were discovered while the Union County Prosecutor’s Office investigated the Woody case.

Sanchez lied to prosecutors by saying, “I honestly don’t think so” when he was asked whether he had had sex with the woman in his patrol car, officials said.

Months later, as the city's Police Division pursued its own internal affairs investigation, Sanchez changed his story. Officials also noted he "frequently" met with other "paramours" to have sex while on duty.

Sanchez did not testify in Woody’s trial and never was charged with any crime. But police brass filed 12 departmental and administrative charges, which an employment hearing officer upheld in June 2014. His last day was Sept. 22, 2014.

Details of Sanchez’s firing are being revealed publicly for the first time because Sanchez appealed his termination to the state Civil Service Commission, which in October issued its final decision siding with the city.

Details of police internal affairs investigations are confidential, often leaving the public with no way of knowing which officers have been accused of wrongdoing or disciplined. But Civil Service Commission proceedings are public.

Sanchez is appealing the commission’s decision, according to his former lawyer, Michael J. Mitzner of Watchung, N.J.

Sanchez had argued that the city should have instead suspended him because he stopped having sex while on duty after investigators found out. He also tried to get back pay for the months he was on unpaid suspension before his termination.

But an administrative law judge said his arguments “border on ludicrous” and were “absurd.”

Plainfield officials argued that police officers are held to a higher standard.

He “shows a lack of respect for the public, a disregard for the duties of a police officer, and lack of consideration for the civilian involved," city officials said. "Officer Sanchez thought so little of his badge that he found it acceptable to have sex in public while on duty.

The Civil Service Commission agreed that his infraction was so egregious that it did not matter that his disciplinary record was mostly clean otherwise.

The administrative law judge noted that police officers have been fired for lesser offenses.

“Certainly, if a police officer should be removed for sleeping in a police vehicle while on duty, logic dictates that a police officer must be removed for having sexual relations in a police vehicle while on duty,” Judge Leslie Z. Celentano wrote in her Sept. 14 decision.

Any penalty short of removal “would be contrary to the public interest,” she wrote, adding that Sanchez failed “to comprehend the gravity of his actions.”

Sanchez was hired as a cop in 1999 and earned more than $85,000 a year.

Follow Sergio Bichao on Twitter: @sbichao