Speaker 1: Hey guys.
Speaker 2: Before we get into the episode, a quick note. We're
Speaker 2: looking for news stories of betrayal for our weekly Betrayal series,
Speaker 2: which returns in August. If you've experienced betrayal and feel
Speaker 2: ready to share your story, now is a great time
Speaker 2: to reach out. Email us at Betrayal Pod at gmail
Speaker 2: dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: He would come in before he worked out and said hi,
Speaker 3: but the only reason he was there was so that
Speaker 3: everyone could say, well, he was there working out, but
Speaker 3: he was there for the sole purpose to take a
Speaker 3: shower after his lunchtime activities.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, Season four, episode six,
Speaker 2: Circling the Drain. In the last episode of Betrayal, you
Speaker 2: heard Caroline describe her final meeting with Joel in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two. They met to discuss issues surrounding their impending divorce.
Speaker 2: The location was a coffee shop they had frequented when
Speaker 2: they were a couple. After more than two months at
Speaker 2: an inpatient rehab, Joel looked like a different person. Gone
Speaker 2: was the clean cut cop she had lived with for
Speaker 2: more than twenty years. Caroline barely recognized him. His cell
Speaker 2: phone panged relentlessly during their meeting with messages from dating apps.
Speaker 2: Joel's behavior hadn't changed, he just didn't need to hide
Speaker 2: it anymore. As far as Caroline was concerned, the relationship
Speaker 2: was beyond repair. And as you heard in previous episodes,
Speaker 2: their son had already made up his mind too. But
Speaker 2: Caroline wanted Nicole, their daughter, to make her own decision
Speaker 2: about a relationship with her.
Speaker 4: Father if she wanted to try to have a relationship
Speaker 4: with him, and he was open to that, I wanted
Speaker 4: that for her.
Speaker 2: At the time, Nicole was the only one in their
Speaker 2: family still grappling with weather to have a relationship with Joel.
Speaker 5: When that first happened, I just couldn't believe the depth
Speaker 5: of the lies that he told us or integrate all
Speaker 5: of his actions just as one person and as him.
Speaker 2: Nicole was entering her senior year of high school and
Speaker 2: it was just her and Caroline at home.
Speaker 4: In September, Labor Day weekend, our daughter and I decided
Speaker 4: that we were going to get away for the weekend,
Speaker 4: and we were going to go visit my best friend
Speaker 4: who lives in New Mexico. And as we're on our drive,
Speaker 4: it's about a six hour drive. This text comes through
Speaker 4: and it's from Joel and it's probably two to three
Speaker 4: screens long.
Speaker 2: He'd sent it to both Caroline and Nicole in a
Speaker 2: group chat.
Speaker 4: And it just says, I just want you guys to
Speaker 4: know I love you more than anything in the world.
Speaker 4: I think about your mother and you guys every day.
Speaker 4: I regret my stupid actions. I hope that we can
Speaker 4: be a family. And our daughter was just devastated by
Speaker 4: this text.
Speaker 2: Joel was saying he wanted to be a family, but
Speaker 2: his actions showed otherwise.
Speaker 6: And so I tried calling him and he did it respond.
Speaker 4: And then she goes to call him again, and this
Speaker 4: time you could tell he put her to voicemail, and
Speaker 4: so I said, maybe he's at work.
Speaker 2: Caroline just couldn't bear to see Nicole in so much pain.
Speaker 4: She wants to connect with him and he doesn't answer.
Speaker 1: Nicole was holding out hope.
Speaker 6: He still holds this sort of grassp on me.
Speaker 2: Nicole and Caroline arrived in New Mexico for a much
Speaker 2: needed visit with Caroline's best friend, Deborah. We met her
Speaker 2: in an earlier episode, and Deborah could see Nicole was hurting.
Speaker 7: I felt like she really struggled because she was a
Speaker 7: daddy's girl. She was trying to weigh out do I
Speaker 7: want to still have a relationship with my dad.
Speaker 4: The next day, my best friend, her husband, me, my
Speaker 4: daughter were facetiming with my son who is in college
Speaker 4: on the East Coast, and we start just reminiscing and
Speaker 4: going down memory lane, and my son says, oh, I
Speaker 4: remember this picture. I got to pull this picture up.
Speaker 4: He's real silent, and then all of a sudden, he says, Mama,
Speaker 4: could you take me off speakerphone and just talk to me?
Speaker 4: And so I said, well, what's going on? And so
Speaker 4: he gets very serious and he said, please just take
Speaker 4: me off speakerphone. I just want to talk to you.
Speaker 4: And so I excuse myself and I said, is everything okay?
Speaker 4: And he said no.
Speaker 2: Their son told Caroline that she needed to look at
Speaker 2: their shared family photovault. Joel was still uploading pictures.
Speaker 1: To the cloud.
Speaker 4: When I pull it up, there is just picture after
Speaker 4: picture of women on a beach who you can clearly
Speaker 4: tell they have no idea how they're being photographed.
Speaker 2: Immediately, Caroline went to Deborah and showed her what her
Speaker 2: son had seen.
Speaker 8: It's just pictures of girls in their bikinis. Some of
Speaker 8: them are zoomed in on their butts or their crotch.
Speaker 8: You know that the women don't know because they're either
Speaker 8: laying down and their face is on the opposite end,
Speaker 8: or you know, he's behind them when they're walking.
Speaker 7: There was one girl I remember she was walking with
Speaker 7: her boyfriend. She was hand in hand with a boy
Speaker 7: and he was taking pictures of her butt.
Speaker 2: Joel had gone to the beach and secretly photographed women.
Speaker 2: He zoomed in on parts of their bodies, all while
Speaker 2: telling his family he was committed to change.
Speaker 4: And I am mortified, mortified that my son is seeing this.
Speaker 4: His frantic responds to me, is you got to delete this.
Speaker 4: Get it off of here, Get it off of this.
Speaker 4: And I go to call Joel and he doesn't answer,
Speaker 4: and then I'm trying to figure out how to get
Speaker 4: a hold of him, and I'm texting him what I'm seeing.
Speaker 2: The photos were right there in the vault for the
Speaker 2: entire family to access. Joel was indulging himself with no
Speaker 2: thought about the fact that his kids could see these pictures.
Speaker 2: And there weren't just photos of women. There was also
Speaker 2: a photo of Joel out at a bar in California.
Speaker 2: By his side is a fellow CSPD officer, a buddy
Speaker 2: who must have come out to visit. In the photo,
Speaker 2: they were out at a bar, smiling and holding up beers,
Speaker 2: having fun.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, his family was falling apart.
Speaker 4: I mean, it just appears that he treated this npatient
Speaker 4: rehab facility as a glorified frat house, not as a
Speaker 4: therapeutic opportunity.
Speaker 6: This was just kind of a retreat for him, a
Speaker 6: little vacation away from Colorado and the mess that he created.
Speaker 2: Joel finally responded to Caroline's text, saying he didn't realize
Speaker 2: he was still sharing the digital photo vault.
Speaker 4: We had extremely minimal contact, but after I found out
Speaker 4: about the pictures, I told him we can't even share
Speaker 4: a phone account together. It was almost i uncle. I
Speaker 4: thought to myself, you're not even safe to have a
Speaker 4: Netflix account with that next day, I went out and
Speaker 4: I put the kids and I on a separate phone plan.
Speaker 1: She acted quickly.
Speaker 2: All she wanted was to shield the kids from these images.
Speaker 4: I was so frantic. I am at my best friend's home.
Speaker 4: I'm not even home, and my immediate concern was to
Speaker 4: make sure that we are completely separate from him.
Speaker 2: So she asked Joel to delete the shared account, and
Speaker 2: he did, but in the rush, Caroline didn't save all
Speaker 2: the old family photos.
Speaker 4: Which I mean sounds a little cheesy, but you know now,
Speaker 4: I don't have the kid's baby pictures or video of
Speaker 4: my dad's celebration of life. All of that was on
Speaker 4: our shared account. There is just no way I could
Speaker 4: chance the kids and I continuously seeing these types of
Speaker 4: pictures and images that he tod.
Speaker 2: And just being able to view those photos felt like
Speaker 2: a liability. Before she separated their phones and photos, Caroline
Speaker 2: noticed something else in Joel's cloud pictures.
Speaker 4: There's one woman repeatedly then pictures very recently.
Speaker 2: It looked like Joel was already in a new relationship.
Speaker 2: Caroline texted him to ask who the woman was.
Speaker 4: He says that he met someone while he was in rehab.
Speaker 4: She lived in Puerto Rico and they had decided to meet.
Speaker 2: Caroline thought back to the text she and Nicole received
Speaker 2: a few days earlier while they were driving to New Mexico,
Speaker 2: when he said he'd do anything to repair their relationship.
Speaker 4: And so the truth is revealed that he sends this
Speaker 4: text begging the kids and I that he wants to
Speaker 4: be a family again and he's so sorry. But the
Speaker 4: fact of the matter is he was sending it all
Speaker 4: he was already with a female he met online, and
Speaker 4: so it just kind of became this awareness in that
Speaker 4: moment for everyone, but specifically our daughter, that whenever he
Speaker 4: reached out really trying and wanting to be a part
Speaker 4: of our lives, it was always a way to mast
Speaker 4: and disguise the fact that he was doing just the
Speaker 4: opposite of what he was saying.
Speaker 2: Nicole noticed the same pattern.
Speaker 6: He reaches out, sends my brother and I a text
Speaker 6: message when he knows that we're going to find out
Speaker 6: something pretty soon.
Speaker 2: Dawn is a friend of Caroline's and was also her
Speaker 2: divorce attorney. She mentioned earlier in the series that she
Speaker 2: doesn't usually represent friends, but she made an exception for
Speaker 2: Caroline out of concern.
Speaker 1: For the kids, who she knew well.
Speaker 2: Don saw the impact of Joel's absence on Nicole.
Speaker 9: To see Nicole really struggle to not see her dad
Speaker 9: or have that relationship anymore, it was just so jarring
Speaker 9: to her. She still desired that relationship, but Joel really
Speaker 9: just pulled completely away.
Speaker 2: Jen Forrester and her husband Tom are among Caroline's closest friends.
Speaker 2: Jen also was disappointed that Joel didn't try harder.
Speaker 10: The fact that he kind of just gave up was
Speaker 10: really surprising. He hasn't tried to repair the relationship, and frankly,
Speaker 10: as a parent, why would you give up? I would
Speaker 10: never give up on my kids. I would say I'm
Speaker 10: still here for you, I still love you, I will
Speaker 10: always be here for you.
Speaker 6: How can you know that your child is out there
Speaker 6: and not want to be around your child or like
Speaker 6: know what's happening with them.
Speaker 2: Nicole thought Joel would at the very least try to
Speaker 2: connect for the big moments, the milestones.
Speaker 4: And everything that Joel did. One of the hardest days
Speaker 4: was her graduation. You know, I left that morning because
Speaker 4: I wanted to get a lay necklace for her to wear.
Speaker 4: I wanted to get her favorite coffee and have it
Speaker 4: waiting for her when she woke up. And when I
Speaker 4: came home, she was already up and there was this
Speaker 4: envelope taped to our front door, and her little face,
Speaker 4: Oh god, it just kills me. She just had this
Speaker 4: desperation in her face, like she just was hoping for
Speaker 4: it and she said, oh, my gosh, is that from
Speaker 4: my dad.
Speaker 2: On the morning of Nichole's high school graduation, Caroline found
Speaker 2: her daughter staring at an envelope that had been left
Speaker 2: on their front door.
Speaker 4: She just had this desperation in her face, like she
Speaker 4: just was hoping for it. And she said, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 4: is that from my dad? And I said, I don't know.
Speaker 4: And when I handed it to her and she saw
Speaker 4: that it was signed by our neighbors, God, it was
Speaker 4: one of the worst things to ever see.
Speaker 11: It was horrible.
Speaker 4: You just saw her completely deflate this day that she
Speaker 4: had just worked so hard to celebrate. She just didn't
Speaker 4: recover from that day. You just saw her with this
Speaker 4: solemn expression and just flated. Every time she opened the
Speaker 4: door just a little bit, another lie would come up,
Speaker 4: you know. On her graduation. That night, she wanted to
Speaker 4: go out to some parties with some of her friends,
Speaker 4: and before she left, she said, I'm going to text
Speaker 4: my dad and I said, okay, that's completely your decision.
Speaker 4: I wanted her to continue that contact, and she sent
Speaker 4: just the most simplistic text and just said I graduated today,
Speaker 4: that's it. And he took a while to respond and
Speaker 4: then eventually said, oh, I know, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 4: But minutes later I get this rage text from him
Speaker 4: blaming me for not reminding him. And you just saw
Speaker 4: her pining after just this hope, like just be different.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just Nicole who was in pain. Caroline's friends
Speaker 2: watched her suffering too. Joel wasn't around anymore, but every
Speaker 2: few weeks a new secret was revealed. Here's Caroline's friend Jen.
Speaker 10: There was an incident where Caroline had gotten a text
Speaker 10: message from someone. This person had basically told her about
Speaker 10: a friend of Caroline's who had been intimately involved with Joel,
Speaker 10: and that was a rough day. You'd see her start
Speaker 10: to heal, she relaxed, you'd see her start to move forward,
Speaker 10: and then something else would happen. And this was one
Speaker 10: of those instances, like it's not just taking two steps
Speaker 10: forward and one step back. Every time something came up,
Speaker 10: it just ripped the band aid off again.
Speaker 2: As people in the community learned about Joel and caroline separation,
Speaker 2: they felt more inclined to contact Caroline with.
Speaker 1: Detail of Joel's affairs.
Speaker 2: It felt like every day she learned of new affairs
Speaker 2: that had been going on right under her nose.
Speaker 1: Sometimes for years.
Speaker 2: He had a long term affair with a hairstylist. He
Speaker 2: sent inappropriate texts to a local college professor who Caroline
Speaker 2: worked with. He'd had sex with, an insurance agent, a
Speaker 2: prison guard, a nurse. Caroline was re traumatized every single time.
Speaker 2: With each new revelation, her entire life was turned into
Speaker 2: community gossip around town, in the halls of the Colorado
Speaker 2: Springs Police Department, and even at work.
Speaker 1: Caroline's not a.
Speaker 2: Cop, but she does work in law enforcement. Her job
Speaker 2: requires her to interact with police officers all the time.
Speaker 4: They come into my place of employment and I have
Speaker 4: to pass them, I have to interact with them. I
Speaker 4: see them on elevators, I see them in the hallway. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: I've heard the snickering. There's been blatant comments said back
Speaker 4: and forth in front of me, where they know I'm
Speaker 4: an earshot.
Speaker 12: I was humiliated.
Speaker 4: To walk into work knowing that rumors were starting to
Speaker 4: fly and spread about what he had done.
Speaker 2: Caroline had to face the consequences of Joel's actions every day,
Speaker 2: and so did the kids. They continued to find out
Speaker 2: new information, and instead of letting themselves be surprised or
Speaker 2: hear it through a third party. They wanted to control
Speaker 2: how and when they heard things.
Speaker 1: Really, it was the only thing they had control over.
Speaker 1: Here's their son.
Speaker 13: I wanted to know everything, complete transparency. If someone were
Speaker 13: to say that my mom shared too much, I think
Speaker 13: that'd just be continuing this deception. I'd rather find out
Speaker 13: for my mom so we wouldn't be blindsided randomly in
Speaker 13: the community. Nobody would want. That was hurt, but it
Speaker 13: was powerful and it was needed. That was the only
Speaker 13: way to move forward.
Speaker 2: The rumors were inescapable. Caroline's friend Jen recalls a day
Speaker 2: Caroline received particularly hurtful news about Joel. She couldn't even
Speaker 2: talk to anyone about it.
Speaker 1: It was too much.
Speaker 10: I think emotionally, the anger, the hurt, the sadness all
Speaker 10: comes back. I mean she spent four days in bed
Speaker 10: reliving all of it. She basically said, don't come over.
Speaker 10: I don't want to see anybody. I cannot deal with
Speaker 10: anything right. So Tom and I dropped off dinner on
Speaker 10: her doorstep. You know, hey, we're here for you if
Speaker 10: you need us.
Speaker 2: All her grief, heartbreak, shame, and humiliation was unfair. Joel
Speaker 2: was able to leave and she left was so much
Speaker 2: destruction when all she did was love and trust her husband.
Speaker 2: All of this got me thinking about consequences justice. Really,
Speaker 2: you're going to hear different perspectives on what consequences mean
Speaker 2: throughout this episode.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to start with Caroline.
Speaker 2: What would justice feel like for her?
Speaker 1: Turns out, it's pretty simple.
Speaker 4: It would feel fantastic to be able to walk into
Speaker 4: professional meetings, to be able to walk into my own employment,
Speaker 4: to be able to be in the community and not
Speaker 4: have Copslee think can make blowjob comments next to me.
Speaker 1: She doesn't want to feel like the butt of a joke,
Speaker 1: and she wants the.
Speaker 2: Support of the people at Joel's job, people she has
Speaker 2: supported for two decades.
Speaker 4: On a very very personal note, you know the people
Speaker 4: who surrounded him at his profession. The deputy chief is
Speaker 4: my son's godfather. I have not heard one word from him,
Speaker 4: and the mix of all of this, I have not
Speaker 4: heard one word from any of the people who my
Speaker 4: kids and I were ever there for them in their
Speaker 4: time of need. Not one person has reached out to
Speaker 4: say are you and the kids okay? Not one.
Speaker 2: Joel was able to walk away from the mess without
Speaker 2: being terminated. Why because instead of being fired, he retired.
Speaker 2: In an earlier episode, you heard Joel meet with his boss,
Speaker 2: Commander Jeff Strawsner. This was at the conclusion of Joel's
Speaker 2: internal affairs investigation for having sex in his police car
Speaker 2: while on duty. Strawsner found conclusively that Joel had violated
Speaker 2: five Colorado Springs Police Department policies, including departing from the
Speaker 2: truth lying he let Joel know he was going to
Speaker 2: recommend him for termination.
Speaker 4: The legislative intent is very clear that we cannot allow
Speaker 4: peace officers remain employed.
Speaker 14: When they lied during an ia investigation.
Speaker 2: Joel's career as a cop would be over. The department
Speaker 2: set another meeting for two weeks later to make it
Speaker 2: all final, but that meeting never occurred because instead of
Speaker 2: facing termination, Joel chose a path that ensured he'd never
Speaker 2: hear the words you're fired. He retired, and just like that,
Speaker 2: his work problems vanished. A letter about his pending termination
Speaker 2: was replaced by an email congratulating him on his decades
Speaker 2: of service just days after his meeting with Commander Strassner.
Speaker 1: How did this happen?
Speaker 2: Well, our team has been investigating it and the first
Speaker 2: thing we discovered is that this happens all the time. Dan,
Speaker 2: a former CSPD officer, said it's common for cops under
Speaker 2: investigation to retire.
Speaker 15: Honestly, I was surprised he didn't retire like the day
Speaker 15: this came to light. I figured if he knew that
Speaker 15: this was true and knew how it could end, I'm
Speaker 15: truly surprised that it just wasn't happened immediately.
Speaker 2: It appears that Joel waited until after the meeting with
Speaker 2: Internal Affairs and Commander Strassner, when he knew for certain
Speaker 2: they were onto him and there was no talking his
Speaker 2: way out of it. But before he officially left the CSPD,
Speaker 2: he took FMLA, or family medical leave, and went off
Speaker 2: to rehab, where his sexual escapades only continued. In taking FMLA,
Speaker 2: Joel stretched his time.
Speaker 15: I hate to say it, when some guys are circling
Speaker 15: the drain in their career and getting ready to get fired,
Speaker 15: they will drag it out as long as possible because
Speaker 15: they're collecting a paycheck and they might as well as
Speaker 15: long as they can. And it irks you when you're
Speaker 15: sitting up there knowing that we're paying somebody that is
Speaker 15: more than likely going to get fired and did some
Speaker 15: pretty bad stuff.
Speaker 2: We also found this troubling. Joel had sex in his
Speaker 2: police car on the taxpayer's dime, and his consequences amounted
Speaker 2: into an early retirement, a handshake and a.
Speaker 1: Pat on the back.
Speaker 2: We contacted Jeff Strassner about it via email. He's now
Speaker 2: the chief of another police department in Colorado. He pointed
Speaker 2: out that retirement is managed by a separate agency. Here's
Speaker 2: some of that email.
Speaker 16: As I am sure you are aware, he retired prior
Speaker 16: to discipline, and retirement is a process managed by the
Speaker 16: Colorado Fire Police Pension Association. The department has no control
Speaker 16: if someone decides to retire prior to the execution of
Speaker 16: discipline and does not have the authority to intervene in
Speaker 16: the retirement process. It is common for retirement eligible officers
Speaker 16: who see the writing on the wall to decide to
Speaker 16: retire rather than go through the termination process.
Speaker 2: The police department wasn't about to interfere with the penchin Association.
Speaker 2: They don't have the power to. It seems like once
Speaker 2: Joel chose to retire and took medical leave, he became untouchable.
Speaker 2: It turns out we weren't the first to investigate this
Speaker 2: pattern at the CSPD.
Speaker 12: I'm Carl Rose. I'm a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS.
Speaker 2: Carle reports on the criminal justice system in Colorado. I
Speaker 2: sat down with her when I was in Colorado Springs.
Speaker 2: Her team uncovered some alarming patterns among Colorado cops, which
Speaker 2: we'll get to in a moment, but first I wanted
Speaker 2: to share one case that tipped her team off to
Speaker 2: a larger problem.
Speaker 12: Alexander Canoyer was a police officer for the Colorado Springs
Speaker 12: Department and he resigned while under investigation.
Speaker 2: In twelve Canoyer was caught having a sexual relationship with
Speaker 2: the subject of a criminal investigation. He left wall under investigation,
Speaker 2: and that was perfectly legal, but he was never decertified,
Speaker 2: meaning he could still work as a cop in Colorado.
Speaker 12: Then he was hired at the Cripple Creek Police Department
Speaker 12: and that's where he met Kelly Davis.
Speaker 2: Davis came into the department to report a possible crime,
Speaker 2: but then Canoy started doing exactly what he did back
Speaker 2: in Colorado Springs. He started messaging her daily and the
Speaker 2: messages became sexual.
Speaker 12: Him, being the police officer, had the power in this situation.
Speaker 2: Kelly Davis eventually reported Canoyer and he was charged with
Speaker 2: sexual misconduct.
Speaker 1: But all of this may have.
Speaker 2: Been prevented if he'd been terminated and desertified back in
Speaker 2: Colorado Springs.
Speaker 12: He had already done it another department and was caught
Speaker 12: for in a sense, being investigated, but then he left
Speaker 12: and was able to go to a different department and
Speaker 12: victimize another woman.
Speaker 2: Knoyer walked away from the CSPD and went on to
Speaker 2: another department. The heat from his first IA investigation did
Speaker 2: nothing to deter him from future misconduct. It didn't Detergil either.
Speaker 2: After he admitted to sexual harassment in twenty nineteen, he
Speaker 2: got little more than a write up, and we all
Speaker 2: know what happened next. Carly and her team wanted to
Speaker 2: understand how often officers were avoiding termination in cases like this,
Speaker 2: so they looked at something called the post database.
Speaker 12: It's a public database of the certifications of these officers,
Speaker 12: as well as certain actions against them, like resignations or terminations,
Speaker 12: or if they were under investigation. One thing that really
Speaker 12: stood out was this action that was titled resignation in
Speaker 12: lieu of termin nation and then also resignation while under investigation,
Speaker 12: we were like, oh, people can resign rather than face
Speaker 12: the consequences of an investigation.
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain PBS reported the story in April twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: At the time of their reporting, there were one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty eight cases in the database in which officers
Speaker 2: had either resigned in lieu of termination or while under investigation, and.
Speaker 12: Then about one hundred and twenty had been terminated.
Speaker 2: Instead of being held accountable, more officers took the option
Speaker 2: to walk away, and Joel was one of them. In
Speaker 2: reporting the season, we've thought a lot about early warning signs,
Speaker 2: moments when Joel's behavior could have been stopped along the way.
Speaker 2: There were people who raised the alarm on Joel, like
Speaker 2: the reporter back in twenty nineteen. Back then, Joel Kern
Speaker 2: was up for the job a public information officer at
Speaker 2: the CSPD. The reporter came forward to warn the department
Speaker 2: that Joel was a problem. While he had served in
Speaker 2: that role temporarily, he had asked her and other reporters
Speaker 2: to use what'sapp to communicate, and after some hedging during
Speaker 2: an internal affairs investigation, he eventually admitted to sexual harassment.
Speaker 14: I would say that there was a degree of flirtation
Speaker 14: going on, and then the sexual innuendo is how it
Speaker 14: would classify it.
Speaker 17: Were you trying to get more friendlier with those two,
Speaker 17: maybe hoping it might go somewhere.
Speaker 14: I think if I was honest with myself or then
Speaker 14: I would say, yeah, that would be an a curious statement.
Speaker 2: Joel was written up in took himself out of the
Speaker 2: running for the job. He wasn't suspended or demoted. To us,
Speaker 2: it felt like there wasn't much of a consequence, But
Speaker 2: not everyone agrees with that assessment.
Speaker 11: I'm well Hilson. I'm a lawyer who practices out of Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 11: I have represented law enforcement labor organizations for about forty
Speaker 11: five years.
Speaker 2: Will has worked on countless disciplinary proceedings, and when it
Speaker 2: comes to Joel's harassment case, he thinks the department did
Speaker 2: the best they could with the information they had at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: After all, Joel said all the right things.
Speaker 11: It always helps an employee to come in and tell
Speaker 11: the boss, I know I've done something wrong and I
Speaker 11: apologize for it. He did get a reprimand and he
Speaker 11: did lose what is considered in law enforcement to be
Speaker 11: a really good job. So I think that punishment is
Speaker 11: on the range of reasonable.
Speaker 2: We also wanted Will's thoughts on retiring in lieu of termination.
Speaker 2: He confirmed what Dan and Strassner told.
Speaker 11: Us that's actually quite common.
Speaker 2: Police officers received job protections like the ability to retire
Speaker 2: in this way that people and other professions don't. That
Speaker 2: can be a good thing. These protections prevent new leaders,
Speaker 2: like a chief or mayor, from hiring and firing randomly
Speaker 2: for political or personal reasons.
Speaker 11: We do not want a public employee punish for simply
Speaker 11: doing their job the way they should.
Speaker 2: But these protections also mean that cops like Joel get
Speaker 2: a lot of leeway. We asked Will to read the
Speaker 2: transcripts from Joel's second disciplinary hearing, the one for having
Speaker 2: sex in his police car.
Speaker 11: And a police officer reading that transcript would be thoroughly
Speaker 11: embarrassed by what they were reading and would come up
Speaker 11: with the conclusion he should be fired. I think ultimately,
Speaker 11: if he had not had this right to retire, the
Speaker 11: city of Colorado Springs would have terminated him.
Speaker 2: Former CSPD officer Dan says that for the most part,
Speaker 2: CSPD employees do serve honorably, and the department has procedures
Speaker 2: in place to eliminate any bad actors.
Speaker 15: You know, that's why you have internal affairs in those
Speaker 15: places that are there to try to weed those people
Speaker 15: out and get rid of them. And I think most
Speaker 15: officers are going to be of the opinion that the
Speaker 15: officers that are given us the black eyed need to go.
Speaker 15: I will still say to this day that the Color
Speaker 15: Springs Police Department is one of the most ethical departments
Speaker 15: you're going to find, and ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 15: officers out there are doing it right. They're doing it
Speaker 15: for the right reason.
Speaker 2: Joel ultimately lost his certification to be a but he
Speaker 2: was never criminally charged. And there are people who see
Speaker 2: Joel's low key exit as telling that it speaks to
Speaker 2: a pattern of corruption and favoritism. If you've made the
Speaker 2: right friends in leadership, you'll get a softer landing on
Speaker 2: the way out. We heard rumblings about this long before
Speaker 2: we ever set foot in Colorado, because there was somebody
Speaker 2: posting stories about it online, a whistleblower acting under the
Speaker 2: name Romy Eastridge. They had a page called the Police
Speaker 2: Officer's Whistleblower Network where they posted story after story of
Speaker 2: misconduct at the CSPD on the clock affairs, covered up crimes,
Speaker 2: and inconsistent discipline. This whistleblower has remained anonymous until now.
Speaker 2: After several conversations, she decided to break cover to participate
Speaker 2: in betrayal.
Speaker 17: I think that in order for these officers to lose
Speaker 17: a fear of speaking out, I kinda need to lead
Speaker 17: by example.
Speaker 1: That's Claudia Aldrich.
Speaker 2: Claudia has a family member who used to work at
Speaker 2: the department. Claudia's family member went through an internal affairs
Speaker 2: investigation and experienced what Claudia sees as unfair treatment. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: she kept hearing stories about other CSPD cops getting away
Speaker 2: with bad behavior, and she wanted to shine a light
Speaker 2: on the double standards within the department, so she started
Speaker 2: her whistleblower page. She says CSPD cops are too afraid
Speaker 2: to call out misconduct because of.
Speaker 1: The rules for reporting.
Speaker 17: Apparently they had to go through the chain of command
Speaker 17: to open ania on internal affairs investigation.
Speaker 2: If a cop wants to report misconduct, they typically go
Speaker 2: to their supervisor. And even if a cop reports misconduct
Speaker 2: directly to internal affairs or to another superior, bird gets
Speaker 2: around quick Claudia's sources confirmed a long standing question we
Speaker 2: had about Joel's sexual activity. Did other employees at CSPD
Speaker 2: know what Joel was doing at work? The answer is yes, absolutely,
Speaker 2: But would people report it?
Speaker 17: Who is going to want to do that because doing
Speaker 17: that puts their career on a big red spot.
Speaker 2: So instead of reporting misconduct, some officers called Claudia. In
Speaker 2: one post, Claudia cites three sources in saying, who is
Speaker 2: going to state?
Speaker 18: The obvious? From gold Hill would walk over to one
Speaker 18: of us and tell us we had to work the
Speaker 18: desk while Kerrn and her would be holed up in
Speaker 18: his office. Everyone knew what he was doing with her
Speaker 18: during those days. We all just sat and essentially kept
Speaker 18: watch in case his wife or kids showed up with
Speaker 18: his lunch. That and you could tell that even the
Speaker 18: commanders knew it.
Speaker 2: Here's a former civilian CSPD employee who worked at the
Speaker 2: same substation as Joel. We'll call her Rennie.
Speaker 3: He would come in before he worked out and said hi.
Speaker 3: But the only reason he was there was so that
Speaker 3: everyone could say, well, he was there working out, but
Speaker 3: he was there for the sole purpose to take a
Speaker 3: shower after his lunchtime activities.
Speaker 1: Here's Claudia again.
Speaker 17: I actually had one officer call me and said he
Speaker 17: did the same thing doing the riots.
Speaker 2: She's referring to protests in twenty twenty following the murder
Speaker 2: of George Floyd.
Speaker 17: You're telling people to go and basically face rioters while
Speaker 17: he was in some motel with someone.
Speaker 2: People knew about Joel long before Caroline ever did did
Speaker 2: they fear the consequences of reporting his misconduct?
Speaker 17: I know that Kern also had a lot of power
Speaker 17: and a lot of connections.
Speaker 2: A twenty four year veteran of the department who was
Speaker 2: also willing to sit with us for this project said
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 19: Joel Kern was one of the golden few. Kern was protected.
Speaker 2: Post on the whistleblower page alleged that Kern was also
Speaker 2: protecting himself.
Speaker 1: One says, Lieutenant Kern.
Speaker 18: Had a black book of CSPD dirty deeds that guaranteed
Speaker 18: him protection.
Speaker 2: At first, we couldn't believe this, but then we heard
Speaker 2: from employees that keeping records to protect yourself is a
Speaker 2: common practice.
Speaker 19: When you heard of an instance where a call for
Speaker 19: service might have involved maybe the mayor, city council, other officers,
Speaker 19: someone in that sort of political or high level realm. Right,
Speaker 19: the first thing you did was look up that call
Speaker 19: quickly print it out, because you were guaranteed within a
Speaker 19: couple hours that call screen was going to disappear and
Speaker 19: would not be accessible.
Speaker 2: When someone calls nine to one one, it generates a
Speaker 2: call screen. Sometimes these are referred to as a call
Speaker 2: for service. Call screens contain details like the names of
Speaker 2: the people involved, the location, the nature of the emergency,
Speaker 2: and not ites about the calls progress. This officer and
Speaker 2: others we spoke with alleged that the identification numbers of
Speaker 2: calls for service for high profile individuals would get hidden
Speaker 2: in the system.
Speaker 19: And so lots of us and I did it myself,
Speaker 19: would print out these calls for service. So in the
Speaker 19: case of some sort of retribution or retaliation, I had
Speaker 19: a file folder of all right, if that's the way
Speaker 19: we're going to play, then I have this. We all
Speaker 19: protected ourselves.
Speaker 2: So employees were keeping dirt on their superiors. Why, because
Speaker 2: they didn't trust their leadership. How can a police force
Speaker 2: function that way? The story of the callscreens surprised law
Speaker 2: enforcement attorney will Achison.
Speaker 11: You definitely have an accountability problem. If that in fact occurred. Yeah,
Speaker 11: I'm very surprised by that.
Speaker 17: These officers were fighting without anybody knowing, and nobody knows
Speaker 17: that these four cops have to go out on the
Speaker 17: street and just watch the back. But also what's the
Speaker 17: surroundings where they're in their department among their own peers.
Speaker 2: Cops knew the deal. They weren't all going to be
Speaker 2: treated fairly. It was all about who you were or
Speaker 2: who you were friends with. On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 20: There were times that he hit me. There were times
Speaker 20: that he threw me across the room in front of
Speaker 20: the kids. They get this chase against him, and unsurprisingly
Speaker 20: they decline to prosecute.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Betrayal season four.
Speaker 2: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team,
Speaker 2: email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal
Speaker 2: Pod at gmail dot com. Also, please be sure to
Speaker 2: follow us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod and me Andrea
Speaker 2: Hgunning for all Betrayal content, news and updates. One way
Speaker 2: to support the series is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts. Please rate and review Betrayal five star
Speaker 2: reviews help us know you appreciate what we do. Betrayal
Speaker 2: is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Speaker 2: Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is
Speaker 2: executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason. Betrayal is
Speaker 2: hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced
Speaker 2: by Carrie Hert, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our associate
Speaker 2: producers are Caitlin Golden and Kristin Melcury. Our iHeart team
Speaker 2: is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Story editing by Monique Leboard,
Speaker 2: Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, editing by Tanner Robbins.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to voice actors Todd Gans and Andrew Kellaway,
Speaker 2: and special thanks to Caroline and her family. Betrayal's theme
Speaker 2: is composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by mid
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