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Owen (WQOW) - We
have new information on the investigation into a former central Wisconsin police chief.
Owen Police Chief Randy Poirier
agreed to resign last month after an investigation by detectives from another
police department. We filed an open
records request to see those investigative reports, which we received Saturday.
The reports indicate Poirier was
involved in sexual misconduct in public.
It happened while he was off-duty, during the city's Indian Summer Festival
in September. Numerous witnesses told investigators
they saw Poirier and a woman who was not his wife engaged in inappropriate
sexual contact in public. Five different
incidents allegedly happened throughout the evening, some of them witnessed by
a group of high school students who said they were sitting only 25-feet away.
Detectives say Poirier admitted some of the behavior, but said he was not aware
that students were nearby. The witnesses also said the chief and the woman were
both very intoxicated. Investigators say
Poirier admitted he drove home drunk that night, and that he had done so on
other occasions as well.
The investigation also showed that
some adult pornography had been accessed on Poirier's computer at the police
department. And detectives say he illegally downloaded music files which were
copyrighted. Investigators tried to delve deeper into his computer, but say an
encryption program had been used that allows a person to conceal data and makes
it nearly impossible to ever recover. Police say the allegations of sexual conduct
in public could be considered a criminal act, but at least at this point, no
charges have been filed.
