Office of the Mayor Terry Pugh P.O. Box 537 100 North Market Street + St. Clairsville, Ohio 43950 ‘Telephone: (740) 695-1324 + Fax: (740) 695-4069 To: Officer Thomas J. Stewart From: Mayor Terry Pugh RE: Discipline Date: December 30, 2019 Officer Stewart, On Friday, December 27, 2019, a Pre-Disciplinary Hearing Conference was held before Safety/Service Director James Zucal, to address multiple allegations of breaking City employee rules within the Police Department, over the course of three (3) separate instances, in this year alone. The purpose of the Hearing was to afford you Due Process rights of notice of the charges and an opportunity to be heard on those charges. At the Hearing, you did not speak on your own behalf, but instead chose to allow an FOP Staff Representative to speak on your behalf. It was the duty of Director Zucal to listen to ‘your response and then conclude whether or not a sufficient basis for discipline existed; it was not his, uty to determine the level of discipline, if any, was to be imposed. The responsibility for the imposition of discipline falls to the Mayor. Director Zucal did find that a sufficient basis for discipline existed and you have received a copy of his report. To be entirely thorough, I have reviewed each of the incidents upon which the allegations were made, starting with the time you spent on-duty in the police station conducting personal business. You ‘engaged in personal business for at least forty-five (45) minutes before being unexpectedly caught by the Police Chief and ordered to return to patrolling the City streets. This may seem inconsequential to some, but to others, you have received wages from taxpayer funds and deprived them of the service for which they paid. Your JOB does not include organizing your personal insurance documents while on-duty. Additionally, you failed to obey a standing Directive that all officers must notify the Dispatch Center when they leave their patrol car and identify where they are. You have been disciplined at least twice before for this same offense, I can only surmise that you were trying to conceal your whereabouts for obvious reasons. In doing s0, you not only jeopardized the safety of our citizens but also your safety as an unaccounted-for officer. For the offenses alleged pertaining to this incident I conclude that you have violated the Rules specified. With regard to the second incident, you were approached by a City resident who related to you that he had just been assaulted and had his phone damaged by his assailant. The Citizen provided you with the name of his assailant, a description of his vehicle and, his last known direction of travel. You told the citizen that you would “Jook into it,” but then did absolutely nothing. You conducted no follow- up investigation, completed not a single report on the alleged crime, you did not even make a brief call record of the incident so that there was at least the briefest record of the incident, When the resident complained to the Police Chief about the incident the Chief found that you failed to note the incident in any manner and he had to direct another officer to take the report. Not only did the second officer take areport, but he was able to get criminal charges on the assailant and secure restitution for the damaged phone from the assailant via court action. I cannot express to you how disturbed I am that you would fail to take any action when a resident reports @ possible crime to you. ‘Taking reports and documenting incidents is part of your JOB and if you won't even do that, what are the citizens of this City paying you for? For the offenses alleged pertaining to this incident I conclude that you have violated the Rules specified by dereliction of duty and non-feasance of your duties as an officer. With regard to the third incident, you were assigned to work a day shift at the same time the Chief of Police was working. Four (4) hours before the end of the shift you abandoned the remainder of your shift for no apparent reason and left without informing the Police Chief, who was on-duty, or anyone else, that you were leaving early. Iam stunned that you would care so little about your fellow on-duty officers that you would not even inform them that you were going off-duty, or at least try to find someone to replace you. Because of your actions you deprived the City residents of four (4) hours of police protection, again jeopardizing the safety of our citizens and back up to a fellow officer. This is not acceplable. For the offenses alleged pertaining to this incident I conclude that you have violated the Rulles specified. To be sure I was fully informed I reacquainted myself with your disciplinary history. I found that ‘you have approximately seven (7) prior reprimands, in the past three (3) years, for such things as: not completing reports, leaving windows down in your patrol car, hiding yourself and the police cruiser out of plain site, and not filing documents with the Court in a timely manner. In 2018, you received a two (2) week suspension when you arrested a man for having drugs in his car, along with several pieces of stolen property, but failed to complete necessary reports and properly secure evidence. You failed to properly process the drug evidence resulting in the criminal charges against the individual to be dropped and you failed to follow-up on the recovered stolen property or even charge the individual with possessing the stolen items. Despite the individual committing many serious traffic violations you cited him only for DUL. This incident further documents your continued failure to complete reports or take all actions required of your position and demonstrates your continuing intent to do as little work as possible. In the interest of full disclosure the two (2) week suspension was reduced to a four (4) day suspension when you appealed the charges to an Arbitrator through the contractual srievance process. After receiving the above two (2) week suspension, you received a thirty (30) day suspension for incidents which occurred, starting in September 2018, when you responded to an intoxicated residents request that you come to her residence and confirm that her children were in no danger due to her intoxication. Instead, you watched the charade and even had personal interaction with her, while leaning ‘on the porch railing, Charges stemming from this incident included failing to file a report on the incident, failing to notify Dispatch that you were on the call and out of your patrol car, making false statements during the disciplinary interview, purposely impeding a polygraph examination to prove your truthfulness and then, for making false statements during a second polygraph examination and which you failed the test. In considering what, if any discipline should be imposed, I consider many factors. I will heavily consider your many years of service to the City. You have interpersonal skills when you choose to use them and could be a much better officer. Still, I must weigh this against your apparent refusal to abide by the rules, perform your job and, leam from your mistakes and wanting to change your behavior. I must say that of the most concem to me has been your demonstrated untruthfulness which has been confirmed with video evidence and a polygraph examination. Yes, as I said before, it is safe to say that you failed the test. Personally, you did the same with me in our conversation regarding your planned secondary employment.In conclusion, as I stated earlier, it is the responsibility of the Mayor to determine the level of discipline to be imposed. At this time the City is about to have a change of administration and Mayor- elect Thalman will begin her administration in just a few days. While it is not my nature to shirk the duties to which I am obligated, I have been requested by Mayor-elect Thalman, in a very demanding Christmas Eve phone call, to defer the imposition of discipline, if any, to her. It is my decision to honor Mayor-elect Thalman’s request and I will defer any imposition of discipline to her upon taking office. I trust that Mayor-elect Thalman will promptly address this issue and resolve the matter fairly and in the best interest of all involved and for the safety our great City. Regretfully, Terry Pugh Mayor ce: Kathryn Thalman, Mayor-Elect Mike Troullos, Acting Police Chief Jim Velas, City Council President John Mark Bukmir, Ward 3 Councilman ‘Chuck Aliff, FOP D.K. Wright, WIRF 7News Brittany Grego, WTOV9 Jennifer Compston-Strough, The Times Leader Dimitri Vassilaros, News/Radio Matt Baker, Clemans-Nelson & Associates, Inc.