NEWS > 08 October 2006

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San Antonio Express - San Anto
08 October 2006

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New headache for SAPD leadersh

A month after the hasty departure of a scandalized top cop and amid pressure to replace him with another minority, Police Chief William McManus appointed a man with a past marred by allegations of sexual impropriety.
On Sept. 22, in his biggest administrative shake-up yet, McManus � limited by union rules to a pool of five candidates � promoted Deputy Chief Rudy Gonzales, a 33-year San Antonio Police Department veteran, to the department's second-highest-ranking office of assistant chief.

The promotion of Gonzales also came as McManus' boss, City Manager Sheryl Sculley, faced criticism from some current and former City Council members for her record of minority hires and promotions.

Gonzales was investigated in 2001 after a prostitute claimed he paid her for sex, according to former high-level police sources.

When asked recently about the investigation, McManus issued only a brief statement: "The allegations against (Assistant Chief) Gonzales are unfounded, vicious and mean-spirited. The allegations were investigated in 2001, and completed in 2002. (Assistant Chief) Gonzales was cleared of any administrative or criminal wrongdoing."

Sources familiar with the investigation said Gonzales, in an internal police interview, was asked whether he and the woman � who told investigators she was a prostitute � had a sexual relationship.

Gonzales, sources said, answered "yes."

The sources, who did not want to be identified because they fear retaliation from the Police Department, said the woman told investigators in a sworn statement that Gonzales "knew I was a prostitute. The whole reason I was there was to have sex and get paid for it."

Sources said Gonzales claimed in his interview that he met the woman at a Christmas party and didn't know she worked with an escort service.

Gonzales never was disciplined.

His recent promotion came after the sudden exit in August of former Assistant Chief Jerry Pittman, a 32-year veteran and decorated police hero.

Police said Pittman had consensual sex with a woman who was not his wife at a Northeast Side motel room. Alarmed hotel staffers, who discovered bloody sheets and towels in the room the next day, called police, fearing a crime had been committed.

Five days later, Pittman announced his retirement.

Many on the force credited McManus � widely regarded as recruited by Sculley to clean house in the department � as the man behind Pittman's decision to retire, and they hailed the chief as an agent of change.

Within days of the motel room incident, McManus opened an internal affairs inquiry into it to determine if any wrongdoing had occurred. The investigation was dropped when Pittman retired.

At the time, the chief said he did "not like to see this kind of publicity impact the Police Department."

Depending on the incident, a police spokesman said then, officers could face termination if they violate the code of ethics or the department's rules, which bar "unbecoming conduct."

Their code of ethics also reads, in part, "I will keep my private life unsullied as an example to all."

The allegations

McManus, when confronted with the allegations against Gonzales, declined answering specific questions, including when he became aware of them.
Sculley also declined, saying through a spokeswoman that she was deferring to McManus to "speak on behalf of the city."

For his part, Gonzales briefly spoke to reporters over the phone and said the case involving the prostitute "was investigated, that case is over ... nothing came out of that. You know, the complaint was dropped. It was dropped by her."

He later declined to meet with the San Antonio Express-News for a scheduled face-to-face interview, "(electing) not to discuss" the matter, a police spokeswoman said.

But interviews with the woman and police sources familiar with her sworn statements paint a picture of a sexual relationship between her and Gonzales that lasted several months, in which she said she was paid by others and at least once by Gonzales.

The woman said the case was dropped after she declined a lie detector test, fearing for her safety and to protect certain officers involved.

The Express-News is not identifying the woman because, over the course of several interviews, she expressed increasing fears of retaliation.

The woman, who said she no longer is a prostitute, recounted the events in two recent interviews with a reporter.

But in the final interview, in which she said she was facing mounting pressure from the man who introduced her to Gonzales, she denied Gonzales paid her and said they had a sexual relationship.

Former high-level police sources said investigations that are cleared don't necessarily mean allegations were ruled false. It also could mean a case is inconclusive.

"There was the uncertainty of whether or not (Gonzales) knew" she was a prostitute, one of the sources said. "It had gone to the (advisory action) board. The board couldn't prove whether or not he had actual knowledge."

'There to entertain'

In 2000, the woman was an admitted prostitute with clients who included doctors, lawyers and police. In June that year, she met a vice detective during the course of a sting operation targeting prostitution and fell in love, she said, initiating a yearlong relationship.
When contacted by phone, the now former vice detective declined comment.

"I don't want anything to do with that," he said. "That's a closed matter, as far as I'm concerned."

Throughout their relationship, the woman said she continued working as a prostitute � partly with an escort service but also through a South Side bar owner who introduced her to clients.

The bar owner also declined comment for this report.

Sometime between October and December 2000, the woman said the bar owner called her, telling her some friends wanted to meet her. She drove to a party and waited outside.

"I didn't even go in because I was there to entertain," she said.

The woman met the bar owner and Gonzales. Then, she said, she had sex with Gonzales in the back seat of a Suburban.

The bar owner paid her, she said, and Gonzales asked to see her again. She said she gave him her phone number.

Twice after that, the woman said, she went to Gonzales' apartment and each time was paid to have sex with him.

On the first visit, in January 2001, she said she had sex with Gonzales and another man and was paid about $100, although she can't remember who paid her.

About a month later, she said, she went to Gonzales' apartment again, and the two had sex. This time, the woman said, Gonzales paid her.

Around May 2001, things turned sour between the woman and the other officer, the vice detective, she said, and they broke up.

Angry and fearing for her safety, she said she went to Internal Affairs around July to document their relationship and, along the way, disclosed several other police officers who she said had paid her for sex.

The highest-ranking officer, she said, was Gonzales.

Changes

McManus has made controversial management decisions before.
In Dayton, Ohio, where he was chief from 2002 to 2004, McManus fired a white female police major a few months into his job because she would "not be a good fit" for his command staff, his attorneys argued in her reverse discrimination appeals trial this year.

The woman, who also was a candidate for Dayton police chief, recently won the lawsuit and will receive more than $1 million in damages, according to a settlement.

Days into his term as police chief in Minneapolis in 2004, McManus placed a deputy chief and two other captains on paid leave in connection with an investigation into an officer-involved shooting. The deputy chief had competed against him for the chief's position.

All were later cleared and returned to the force.

So when McManus arrived here in April, officers braced for change.

It came in welcome doses: He fulfilled a longstanding request for new uniforms and allowed officers to wear shorts and female officers to wear their hair in ponytails. His creation of a Crime Response Unit won him accolades from officers and community leaders.

With Pittman's departure, McManus had the chance to make his first major appointment. Yet police contract rules forced him into a corner; unlike in Dayton, he couldn't recruit from outside the department.

Union officials are negotiating a new contract that, if approved, will allow the police chief to appoint captains to the position.

But at the time, McManus could choose only from his deputy chiefs, and he had 90 days to do so or the position would dissolve.

He, like his boss, Sculley, was under pressure. Pittman is black, and many wanted to see another minority in the high-ranking position.

Of McManus' five deputy chiefs, only Gonzales and Rose Mary Flammia are minorities.

Flammia is the wife of Harold Flammia, a disgraced former police union president who was imprisoned after an FBI investigation found he accepted bribes from a San Antonio law firm.

The department and a number of top police administrators, among them Assistant Chief Tyrone Powers, also face the impending release of an audit into a faulty multimillion-dollar police computer system.

About two weeks ago, McManus removed Powers from his job over the computer system, replaced him with Gonzales, and transferred Powers to oversee patrol and investigations.

A deputy chief over the computer system was transferred, and the civilian director of the program abruptly retired.

The changes signify McManus is "trying to solidify his position here," a former high-level police source said.

At a news conference where he announced his new assistant chief, McManus said few words about his choice but cited Gonzales' ability to command and work with people. Known as personable and popular among the rank and file, Gonzales was once characterized by a supervisor as "one of the finest officers in the department."

At the same news conference, Gonzales told officers, "Bigger and better things are on the horizon."

Case dropped

Five years before Gonzales' promotion, the woman's allegations initiated a yearlong Internal Affairs investigation that involved him, sources said.
The other officer, the vice detective who had a sexual relationship with the woman, was transferred amid the investigation, sources said, and then retired.

Internal Affairs investigators also deemed the allegations serious enough, sources familiar with the investigation said, that in September 2002 they said the claims necessitate a criminal investigation.

No criminal investigation against Gonzales is on file at the Bexar County district attorney's office.

Around that time, after the woman said she received repeated phone calls from some of the officers involved, she decided not to take a lie detector test, allowing the case to be dropped.

In 2004, the issue resurfaced, sources said, when two vice detectives were transferred amid allegations of their own dealings with another prostitute. The detectives denied the claims, fought the transfer, and filed a grievance, citing Gonzales' earlier alleged improprieties with a prostitute.

Unless the grievance is settled, their arguments will be heard at an Oct. 26 hearing.

Under pressure

In recent conversations with a reporter, the woman said she was scared of Gonzales and the bar owner who had introduced them.
She said the bar owner had contacted her the week of Gonzales' promotion, warning her the incident might flare up again and telling her not to discuss it.

The bar owner contacted her again, she said, the day reporters were scheduled to meet with Gonzales � one day after they had spoken to the assistant chief by phone.

Reached by telephone the same day, the woman changed part of her story.

She said Gonzales never paid her for sex; they had a relationship. She said she lied to Internal Affairs because she didn't want her vice detective boyfriend to know.

She referred further questions to her lawyer.

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Article sourced from

San Antonio Express - San Anto08 October 2006

New headache for SAPD leadersh

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San Antonio Express - San Anto
08 October 2006