VALLEY CITY, ND – (NewsDakota.com) No criminal charges are pending against anyone following an internal affairs investigation concerning allegations made against former police Lt. David Swenson.
Police Chief Fred Thompson said a female who use to live in Valley City contacted him earlier this year and told the chief that she had engaged in multiple consensual sexual relations with Swenson in the Valley City police department’s evidence vault and while in patrol cars.
Swenson resigned from his position on July 7th of 2016 after he was placed on administrative leave by Chief Thompson shortly after the allegations were made against Swenson.
Thompson said no criminal offense was reported by and no criminal conduct was discovered during the investigation and he repeated that several times during the October 5th news conference.
Later in the news conference Thompson said any evidence against a police officer having consensual sexual relations on duty could result in the immediate termination of that officer. He said we take these allegations seriously and that’s why we started the investigation immediately.
Thompson said the reason the investigation took so long was because the woman and Swenson decided not to cooperate. He said he and other city officials decided to complete the investigation and release it.
During the news conference Thompson talked about another accusation against Swenson made earlier this year by a Valley City man who accused Swenson of double dipping while he worked as a city police officer and served as the Community Service Officer.
That man Thompson was referring to was Robert Drake, who appeared during the news conference to address Thompson’s comments.
Valley City Police Chief Fred Thompson gives the media an example of how he determined no evidence was tampered with in the Evidence Vault were the accusation of the alleged incident occurred between Swenson and the woman.
Additional details of the investigation available on the news release listed below: