The Rise and Fall of Police Staff Inspector Steve Izzett (Part 10

The  Rise  and  Fall  of  Police  Staff  Inspector  Steve  Izzett  (Part 1)
 

This is a very long article but it gives you some idea of how complaints against a senior police officer by fellow police offers should have been handled and weren’t and what happened to the senior police officer after the complaints were finally dealt with during a disciplinary hearing. This article is one of a two-part series.

It has been a very rare occurrence when a senior police officer faces serious charges of misconduct but that is what Staff Inspector Steve Izzett, age  47 in 2008 of the Toronto Police Service was forced to do. He had pleaded not guilty to all nine of the charges laid against him.

It is also very rare that private citizens who are not directly involved in such cases either as a witness or as a complainant attend such hearings but after being advised by the Prosecution Office at Police Headquarters that I could attend the hearing, I attended two of the hearings on April 26 and May 2, 2011. I should add that members of the public are generally permitted to watch such hearings. 

 I went to police headquarters at 40 College Street in Downtown Toronto to witness the staff Inspector’s hearing. I arrived at 9:15 in the morning of April 26, 2011 and when I got to the second floor of that very ultra-modern eight-story multi-leveled building, I walked through the winding hallways until I reached the Hearing Room.

I sat at the back of the Hearing Room and from there; it gave me a good view of the proceedings. There were only ten seats at the back in which nine spectators including newspaper reporters could sit. The tenth seat which was the closest to the door was for the court officer who was there to keep order. The Hearing Room isn’t large by any standards but it is basically set up in the same way you would see it if you walked into a standard court room.

To my left, was the table where Staff Inspector Izzett was sitting with his lawyer Leo Kinahan (a former police constable and now a lawyer who works in Newmarket) who was sitting to his right. On the opposite side of the room and to my right was the prosecutor’s table in which Brian Gover, who is an adjunct (assistant) professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School and sitting next to him was Brendan Van Niejenhuis who is also an adjunct professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he has taught Administrative Law since 2008.  Directly in front of me was another table with a microphone hookup where witnesses testify from.

Behind each of the defence and prosecution tables was another table with bank-size boxes of documents were stacked. I saw at least four bank-size boxes on the defence table. I don’t remember how many were on the prosecutors’ table. I did hear something said after that particular hearing began that all told, there were about a million documents but that conflicts with what was said at the July 19, 2010 hearing in which Izzett’s lawyer (at that time) Won Kim complained that he was deluged with 189,000 pages. He would certainly need a fair amount of time to peruse those documents. Justice Hoilett, a retired Superior Court Judge who was acting in this case as the adjudicator however dismissed Kim's request for a delay until after Labour Day (September 6) and instead gave Kim a week to conclude his preparations. Hoilett also ordered Kim to file any pre-trial motions with the prosecutor, Brian Gover. I should mention that Izzett later fired Won Kim and hired Leo Kinahan in his place.  

In between the two tables were the documents were lying, there was also  next to the centre table, a lectern where those addressing retired Superior Court Justice Keith Hoilett would stand. To the judge’s right was the court reporter and to his left was the witness box.

Directly in front of me were two chairs in which Ryder Gilliland, representing the Toronto Star sat and the chair to his right was where David Butt, the lawyer for the female complainant sat.

Behind the table where the Prosecutor’s document boxes were placed, was another desk who I believe were three plain clothes police investigators sitting.

I had hoped that the witnesses would begin testifying on the first day I was there. Alas, that didn’t happen.

David Butt, the lawyer for the female officer, asked Justice Keith Hoilett to impose a ban on the publication of her identity or anything that could identify her. The application was opposed by Ryder Gilliland, representing the Toronto Star, who argued Hoilett did not have jurisdiction to impose such a ban. Izzett’s lawyer also asked the judge to give him two or more days to study the application submitted by the lawyer for the female complainant since he only got it a few days earlier. He said he wanted to research the law with respect to that issue.

Although he should have been given the documents with respect to the Application much sooner then when he received them, I don’t see how any decision on that issue submitted by the woman’s lawyer and the position of the lawyer for the Toronto Star who argued that her name should be published, was any of his or his client’s business. Whether or not her name would be published would not have any bearing on her evidence or the decision of the judge with respect to his innocence or guilt. I was thinking at the time that it was merely a means of Izzett’s lawyer stalling the proceedings even longer. The decision of the judge to order that the name of the female complainant would have to remain undisclosed had to be obvious to anyone familiar with the law as it relates to the custom of the courts not to disclose names of female sexual victims.

Hoilett ordered the proceedings be held in secret until he made a ruling. The next day (April 27) the tribunal was opened to the public after the judgeruled that the identity of the female complainant was to remain secret. That was the right decision to make. Publishing her name would serve no useful purpose to anyone.

Now before I go any further, let me give you some information with respect to Staff Inspector Steve Izzett.

As a staff Inspector, he was being paid $134,306 plus other benefits annually. The rank immediately above him would be that of Superintendant. Above that is the rank of Staff Superintendant and above that is the rank of deputy chief (there are several) and above that is the rank of the chief of police. At the time of his suspension, he was in line to be promoted to the rank of superintendent.

After a career mostly in Scarborough, (which is part of Toronto) Izzett was on the Emergency Task Force and then he worked in the Central Fraud Squad. Izzett was sent to that squad as a constable at headquarters in the early 1990s without any fraud investigation experience. He ran amok while in the squad and according to some of his fellow investigators, it caused them to ponder as to why he was sent to the squad in the first place with him being so inept as an investigator.

Here is an example of this police officer’s stupidity. He charged the late Paul Tuz (the president of the Toronto Better Business Bureau) of two counts of fraud. Some of his fellow officers told Izzett that he had no case against Tuz but this neophyte in fraud investigation ignored them. The case ended up in court in 1998 and during the preliminary hearing (where a judge decides whether or not the case should go to trial) the judge discharged the defendant  of the charges against him and he also chastised the Crown (prosecutor) for bringing the charges into court in the first place. The judge was convinced of Tuz’s innocence after hearing the testimony of a forensic accountant who said in court that there was no evidence that Tuz had committed a fraud. It was brought to my attention later that Izzett attempted to dissuade the forensic accountant from sticking to his original conclusion that Tuz didn’t commit a fraud. I don't know if he really did this but if he did, he could have been in very serious trouble because  it is a crime in Canada to attempt to dissuade a witness from giving proper evidence. 

Back in the 1980s, I investigated six cases of fraud at the request of the head office of Canada Trust (a bank in Canada) and in each case I investigated, I prepared the brief for the Crown and in each of those six cases, the defendants were found guilty. Investigating fraud is a complicated exercise in investigative work and should not be done by neophytes.  In 1988, I was the guest speaker at the Forest City Credit Conference in London and my speech dealt with how banks should avoid fraudsters obtaining loans and bank credit cards. Despite this background, I don't necessarily consider myself an expert at fraud investigation. 

One day, while still in the fraud squad, Izzett went to a fellow investigator’s computer while the other investigator was on his break and typed a message in the other detective’s name—the message being that the other detective was volunteering to march in the March Past when in fact, the detective hadn’t volunteered nor wished too to participate in that march.  

The March Past occurs during the Annual Police Games and is something many officers don’t wish to get involved with as it ties of their time when they could be doing something else. However, if officers don’t volunteer for the March Past, they can be assigned to the event as one of the marchers.

When the victimized detective try to get out of participating in the March Past by explaining that he hadn’t typed in the offer to participate in the March Past, he was told that since the offer came from his computer, he had to march in the event.

It is a criminal offence to use a computer belonging to someone else if it is used to cause problems of any kind to the owner of the computer. If Izzett had done what he was accused of doing, he would have committed a criminal offence when he used the other investigator’s computer in the manner in which he was accused of doing by creating data in the computer that was not his to create and send. 

When another complaint by one of the other detectives about this abusive action on Izzett’s part was brought to the head of the section within the squad, he was told that Izzette was under the protection of someone higher up and for this reason; no one could do anything to him. Izzett actually boasted of having an 'uncle' who looked out for him.” (a term meaning a senior police officer) I know who the ‘uncle’ was but I won’t mention his name other than to say that he was up very high in the hierarchy of the Toronto Police Service.  

When Izzett was a constable in the Emergency Task Force (SWAT team) he was so inept, he had to be taken under the wing of a senior officer.

Izzett quickly rose through the ranks, passing his staff-sergeant's exam two years after his promotion to sergeant. As anyone can see, passing exams doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is capable of leadership. He then went to 14 Division, then to the Courts Bureau. He eventually took over the Intelligence Unit as a staff Inspector.

I am convinced that in many instances, the stupider a police officer is, the faster he rises in the ranks, dragging his stupidity with him as baggage.  As to be expected, Izzett brought his baggage with him when he entered the Intelligence Unit.

That unit deals with organized crime, hate crimes, biker gangs and terrorism. He served as head of the Intelligence Division from December 2005 to September 2008—two years and eight months before the investigation into his behaviour began in September 2008.

What is rather disconcerting is that his immediate supervisor, Staff Superintendent, Rick Gauthier (who oversaw the intelligence division as well as eight other detective units) admitted later that he had concerns that Steve Izzett’s abrasive” personality would make him less than ideal to run the force’s secretive Intelligence Division. But despite that initial reticence, Gauthier became so impressed with Izzett’s “work ethic” and “management track record” that he recommended Izzett be bumped up in rank from staff inspector to superintendent. That recommendation  turned out to be an enormous blunder on Gauthier’s part.

The Intelligence Unit seemed to have been a dysfunctional workplace mired in political infighting and plunging morale under the command of Staff Inspector Steve Izzett according to the testimony of Gauthier who took the stand on May 3 at Izzett’s police disciplinary hearing.  He said at the hearing that in 2008, Izzett and Inspector Gordon Sneddon, (a 31-year-veteran who was appointed second officer in charge of the secret intelligence-gathering bureau in December 2007) were at war with one another or engaged in what Gauthier called “a clash of personalities.”

That conflicts with Gauthier’s testimony when he said, “Steve did a lot to improve accountability of the unit.” It was that reputation, Kinahan (Izzett’s lawyer) said, that led former police chief, Julian Fantino to turn to Izzett when allegations of police corruption surfaced previously. Izzett became head of the newly created ‘Inspections Unit,’ a job that sent him looking for internal messes that unfairly made him few friends within the rank and file. “It solidified Izzett’s reputation as a hard-driven taskmaster not afraid to ‘tear the place apart,’ Kinahan said parroting Gauthier’s earlier statement. Unfortunately, going into any police unit with the purpose in mind of tearing it apart like a pit bull is what made Izzett appear as a despot to those working under him. 

Izzett’s lawyer said to Gauthier at the hearing, “And again it was Izzett to whom Canada’s largest municipal force turned in 2005 to act as the new sheriff in town of the Intelligence unit, then dysfunctional and plagued with personnel issues.

Gauthier, however, disagreed with Kinahan’s characterization of Intelligence as a mess, but acknowledged there were some difficulties in the unit which has the largest budget of any investigatory bureau under his command.

Sneddon was also Gauthier’s former homicide partner and when they were driving together to a bi-monthly meeting at intelligence headquarters on August 19, 2008, he began confiding to him about morale problems under Izzett. Snedden testified at the hearing on a later day that he wasn’t there long before detective sergeants began complaining to him about Izzett, whose management style had been compared to that of a “pit bull.” Sneddon said he warned Staff Superintendent Rick Gauthier that a “good group” of officers, frustrated by Izzett’s loud, direct and challenging workplace demeanor, was a “house of cards ready to topple."

Gauthier said at the hearing that Sneddon told him that Det.-Sgt. Peacock, head of the mobile support squad, was so upset by Izzett’s “management style” that he was planning on leaving the intelligence unit if his boss [Izzett] was staying on.

Gauthier also said at the tribunal, “He Peacock) said some of the other detective sergeants were not happy and I knew Staff Insp. Sneddon was having his difficulties as well.” Asked by prosecutor Brian Gover what he meant by “difficulties”, Gauthier said there were personality differences between the two. “They just weren't functioning well together.”

Yet previously in the hearing, Smith insisted he wasn’t aware of any “animus” between the two. If that is so, I am forced to wonder why he didn’t know about the animosity between those two senior officers especially when one considers Izzett later wrote a letter to the chief demanding an inquiry into Sneddon’s disloyalty for leading the “mutiny” against him. A copy of that letter should have been given to him. I should add at this juncture of this article that the Toronto Police Service has a foolish policy in which it doesn’t give its investigators their notes that have been turned in until about a day prior to them testifying in court or at a hearing. This may explain why Smith wasn’t sure of some of what he had previously written in his notes.

At the hearing,  Sneddon denied that he sabotaged Steve Izzett’s career or orchestrated a “manager mutiny” against the former staff inspector. He said at the hearing, “There was no mutiny, let’s get that clear right now.”

Smith told prosecutor Brian Gover that he interviewed about 55 officers and civilian staff members during his internal affairs probe. One former intelligence cop told him that working under Izzett was “one of the worst times in my entire police career.” Another transferred to Durham Regional Police but not before wearing a body pack to secretly record his exit interview with Izzett.

According to an investigator with internal affairs, many of these officers broke down in tears when they were interviewed about the “poisoned work environment” they had endured in the Intelligence Unit under the command of Staff Inspector Steve Izzett.

Even as an emotional parade of his underlings were describing months of hellish treatment, Izzett was still blaming others for the “mutiny within my unit.”

Izzett told investigators he had been directed by Deputy Chief Tony Warr to “clean up intelligence” when he was brought in to take charge in 2005. And that soon put him at loggerheads with Sneddon. Sending someone like Izzett into the Intelligence Unit to clean it up was a mistake on Warr’s part. 

Sending a person with the fineness of a coarse rasp to clean up a unit or department is not unlike sending a wolf through the back door of a hen house to chase the fox out of the front door.

Gauthier told the hearing he would often get an earful from Izzett complaining about his second-in-command. There were a number of recurring themes: Sneddon was “lazy and not pulling his weight and not doing enough for the Unit,” and unlike Izzett, Sneddon wasn’t working beyond his shift hours; he was taking a police car home which he was not allowed to do; and he was rebuffing Izzett’s invitations to have breakfast together and then he’d see him eating with the detective sergeants.

Three weeks after Sneddon told him about morale problems in the unit, Gauthier said he received a call from Sneddon, with a much more serious allegation: a female officer was claiming Izzett was being “disrespectful and oppressive” because she’d refused his sexual advances. Sneddon said the female officer was alleging something “the service takes very seriously,” leaving him no choice but to file the formal complaint on her behalf. He said that he was uncomfortable doing so as Izzett was his immediate supervisor. Had Sneddon not filed the formal complaint, he would have been subjected to a disciplinary hearing himself.

Several officers later brought complaints against him, including claims he bullied and abused staff. The complainants included veteran officers with many years’ experience who described that working in the Unit under Izzett was in fact working in an oppressive, poisoned environment. The complaints against Izzett was that he acted like a tyrant, blocked transfers and promotions, tried to deploy spies within the Unit to feed him information and batted off complaints by warning the complainants that he was well-connected to the top officers within the 5,500-member force.

When he was at Intelligence, his second in command was an Inspector by the name of Mario DiTommasso. It appears that a number of people complained to Inspector Mario DiTommasso about Izzett and this came out during the investigation. DiTommasso is now a Superintendent and in charge of 14 Division but here is the kicker— he ended up facing discipline over the Izzett fiasco because he would have had a duty to properly handle conduct complaints even against a superior officer and this he did not do.

Izzett’s made efforts to conceal his tracks by wiping out the computer evidence by installing unauthorized software. Asked why he had destroyed pages of police notes recording periods of time that came under scrutiny following his suspension, Izzett's explanation was that a colleague had spilled coffee on them, rendering them useless. Yeah sure and the moon is also made of cheese.

Prosecutor Brian Gover said in the disciplinary hearing that Izzett didn’t produce two service-issued laptop computers when instructed to do so. The police executed a search warrant on his office in the unit’s secret location on October 9, 2008. While the laptops weren't initially found, investigators noted that Izzett's memo books and CDs were also missing for the years 2007 and 2008.

When Izzett finally did turn over the laptops, he explained there was some misunderstanding because he thought investigators were looking for ‘secure’ computers. That excuse reminds me of that old well-worn excuse students gave when they were explaining why they didn’t submit their essays to the teacher. “My dog ate it.”

Evidence came out at the hearing that as part of the internal investigation on Izzett, his work laptop had been examined by a forensic computer analyst and it was discovered that 29,000 files were deleted from the hard drive of Izzett’s laptop and nearly all of them were deleted the day after he was suspended. Further, his laptop’s Internet history showed that he had searched for file-wiping software. That rules out any suggestion that the deletions came about accidentally by spilt coffee. Izzett maintained that the files related only about family matters.  If you believe that 29,000 files in his laptop were all about family matters, , I have some land I want to sell you. It is in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp in Florida.

The prosecution alleged that Izzett was deleting the files and in doing so, he was making “an effort to obstruct the investigation.” He was actually charged with destroying evidence. What? A police officer obstructing an investigation by another police officer? Can that really happen in a police force? That’s a criminal offence. That alone means that Izzett is an un-indicted criminal and it would be grounds for a dismissal from the force if he was convicted under the Criminal Code and sent to jail even if only for a day.

What actually prompted the police force to suspend Izzett from active service and bring about the hearing was his abuse of a female detective sergeant in his Unit.

The detective-sergeant,  (who cannot be named) lives in York Region which is just north of Toronto. She told her supervisors that she preferred that her allegations to be handled under the Police Act instead of pursuing criminal charges in the criminal court where her presence  would be more public.

The police officer testified at the police tribunal hearing that she felt compelled to tell Izzett that she was in a lesbian relationship with another woman as a pretence to fend off the advances of her commander, (Izzett) according to an affidavit filed in advance of the hearing. I don’t blame her for stating to Izzett that she was in a same-sex relationship with another woman. That may have been of some concern to her as many police officers are homophobic bigots and she obviously didn’t want her sexual relationship with another woman to be bandied about amongst her fellow officers.

During the hearing, Izzett’s lawyer hinted that using the word ‘pretended’ in her affidavit was a lie. Perhaps it was but I don’t think it reduced her credibility as to the validity of her complaint against Izzett.

Affidavits and other documents filed with the tribunal by the prosecution in advance of the hearing allege that the female officer complained to superiors because she felt “picked on” by Izzett, after spurning his invitations to go out with him.

“Izzett asked her out repeatedly telling her that they were meant to be together. She told him she wasn’t interested but his advances continued,” according to internal police correspondence. The advances included “hugging her and saying such things as "Come on, give me a hug.” This gross conduct was done by a married man who has two children.                                                             

She said that Izzett had begun hitting on her soon after she arrived at the Intelligence Unit in March 2007. She also said that she had endured his abuse for the next eighteen months. In her testimony at the hearing, she said that Izzett began undermining her work when she spurned his advances. 

When asked for a transfer, Izzett left her in limbo. When she raised the issue of her transfer on September 5, 2008, Izzett called her an ‘absentee landlord’ which she took to mean that she wasn’t pulling her share of the work in the Unit.

That’s when she then went to the second in command of the Unit, Inspector Gordon Sneddon and officially complained about Izzett’s abuse. It was after she complained to Sneddon that Izzett must have realized that he had a tiger in his hands because four days after he met with Sneddon, Izzett phoned her and asked her if she was ready to go to a new job the following November. While on the phone, he told her that he had 100% faith in her and then asked if everything was OK.

Asking her if everything was OK brings back to my mind an incident in my own life ten years ago in which a very close friend of mine sexually abused my five-year-old granddaughter and within a day, there was a warrant out for his arrest. The next day after that, he called me to ask if everything was OK with me. I knew then that he was aware that the police were looking for him and was hoping that I would at least confirm his fears of being arrested. I pretended that everything was fine. He was arrested shortly after he called me.  He spent a year in jail. Needless to say, he is persona non grata in our home.

There is no doubt in my mind that Izzett was aware that she had filed a complaint against him. The woman he sexually harassed was aware of that also and during her testimony, she said, “There was a complete change from our last meeting. I felt that he was just giving me this job because he was afraid I was going to complain.” She didn't know then that Izzett already knew about her complaint. 

Retired Staff Sgt. Tony Smith, (the former internal affairs detective who led the investigation into Izzett) had previously told Izzett during one interview, while reading from his own notes summarizing what the female officer told him, that she estimated Izzett hugged her no fewer than ten times. During the hearing on May 16, Izzett’s lawyer queried why she had testified during the hearing, that Izzett had kissed her more than once, but she told the investigators in September 2008 and January 2009 said that he had kissed her only once.

The only explanation for the discrepancy is that she didn’t keep notes about the harassment and her memories of all the events failed her to some degree. This is why it is so important that complainants should write down the events soon after they occur so that they can refer to them later if necessary.

Smith said at the hearing, “All of the personal conversation was unwanted and she told me so on numerous occasions.”

He also testified; “It gets to the point where she told the staff inspector (Izzett) that she’s in a relationship with another woman and hoped that he would leave her alone. Instead he saw this as another challenge. He also said “that’s just an experiment. You’re going to be with me,” according to transcripts of the interview with Izzett shown as evidence.

During the hearing on May 12, the complainant said that she felt so pressured by former staff inspector Izzett’s persistent and unwanted advances that she had no other choice but to tell him she was in a same-sex relationship. She said that she thought at first telling Izzett that she was seeing someone else but not specifying the gender while thinking that would be enough to convince him she wasn’t interested in a relationship with Izzett. Obviously, it wasn’t enough to deter Izzett at all.

She testified that despite her statement deterring the staff Inspector, he then replied with respect to her statement to him, “Who is he? I make more money. I’ll beat him up.” That led her to tell Izzett that “he was not a he but a she.” After she said that at the hearing, she then added; “It was difficult for me, being a very private person.” as she was fighting to hold back tears and reaching for a tissue.

She testified that Izzett’s initial response to her gay revelation was that he “was okay with that.”

I should point out to my readers than many straight men have had sex with lesbians when the lesbians were ‘willing’ to have sex with them and some were and still are. You notice that the key word in that last sentence is the word ‘willing’. The complainant was not willing to have sex with Izzett. Further, if she did, she and he could be dismissed as what had happened when a female non-com and a general in the Canadian army had sex together. Their careers in the armed forces were history. 

She further said that he wanted more details about her life and sexual orientation. In her testimony, she said, “He was very curious.” Then she said that he asked, ‘How it is you’re with a woman?” He also told her that that relationship wouldn’t last. She said to the judge, “It was offensive. Izzett just dismissed it as another obstacle.”

She testified that Izzett did something that was odd. While the two of them were talking, Izzett gave her his [old] detective sergeant’s badge, something he said was really important to him, [along with] his favourite T-shirt, and a letter he copied onto her USB drive called The Great Nature Nurture Debate.

The letter stated in part: “My concern is when the moral, social and ethical side of your brain kick in after this 2-month long New Years Eve stupor has subsided — where will you be?” That is unmitigated hogwash from a fool.

Prosecutor Brendan van Niejenhuis asked. “How did you take that?”

“It was “offensive,” she replied, adding, “obviously it wasn’t a drunken New Year Eve stupor,” referring to the fact she is still with the same woman.

The detective added that her impression at that time was that “he thinks he can control my sexual orientation and change who I was.” She also interpreted the letter in the USB drive  to mean that Izzett believed, “I was not gay and I’d figure that out and I’d be with him and he’d wait for me.”

If in fact he told her that he would wait for her, I am forced to ask this rhetorical question, “Was he going to abandon his own wife and kids?”

Previously to the complainant giving her testimony, Izzett’s lawyer had asked the investigating detective [Smith] why he didn’t challenge her after learning that she was in a same-sex relationship with another woman. Izzett’s lawyer was hinting that had she admitted that she was in a same-sex relationship with another woman, it would affect her credibility. Well, it didn’t.

I hardly think such a relationship would have an affect on anyone’s credibility. In any case, Smith replied that he didn’t think it was part of the investigation to delve into her sexual habits and in my opinion, he was quite right to come to that conclusion.  

Smith said that the complainant had told him of  Izzett's letter, a copy of which had been filed in support of the prosecution’s case. The 16-page document included various explanations for homosexuality cobbled together “from recent secular professional literature.”

Attached, he’d written a long, rambling missive about how he’d give her time to explore her sexuality.  He said, “It won’t be that easy to get me out of your mind as I know that something very powerful is going on here.” The final paragraph read, “You have ‘awakened the giant within’. I will exhibit patience and understanding as I know that the object of my desire is worthy and deserving of this.” I don't think his mind was  in good working condition at that time. This was one of those times when his brain and his fingers were not in sinc. 

I find his reference of the ‘giant being awakened within’ rather strange indeed. When Japan had attacked the United States, Admiral Yamamoto told the officers under him that Japan had just  awaken a sleeping giant. Well it would appear that Izzett had also awakened a giant and she wasn’t sleeping. And just as the American giant went after the nation that had attacked them, the complainant ‘giant’ went after the gnat that was abusing her. The Americans later hunted for Yamamoto and when they learned where his plane was, they shot it down and his plane went down in flames and he died in the crash. The complainant in the Izzett case had enough and she too was angry. It is safe to say that she decided to fire her accusations at her abuser. This was tantamount to making his career going down in flames; which it did.   

I also find his statement in which he said that "the object of his desire is worthy and deserving" rather ludicrous considering the fact that when Izzett admitted to the investigators investigating him about his statement to the complainant whom he had a crush on as being a worthy person. He said this despite the fact that he also said that the complainant had phoned him repeatedly, and that it was he who scorned her advances, after she expressed having “strong feelings and she wasn’t be able to keep her hands off me." He also said that he told her “I don’t wanna compromise my position as your boss and I would not cheat on my wife.” If you believe that rubbish, I have some jewels to sell you. They are in the Tower of London. 

Did Izzett really think that his explanation with respect to his association with the woman was really believable? Well, if you believe that the moon is made of cheese, that Pope Benedict XVI was really a Muslim in disguise and that chickens really have teeth, then I suppose his statement may seem believable to you even if the vast majority of us look at his statement with a jaundiced eye. Of course, that isn’t the first time a cop has lied, is it?  

During another interview, lead investigator Smith asked Izzett if he had any “romantic inclinations towards this woman.” according to the transcripts of that interview.

At first, Izzett replied: “I would say mutually that we were exploring feelings for one another before saying no.” That’s like saying that your ass was burned while sitting on a hot stove and then later saying that you didn’t sit on the stove. Try explaining away the burn on your ass after that.

Izzett acknowledged to Smith that he composed the letter, describing it as a “cut ‘n’ paste from the Internet” that he gave to the  complainant in the USB but only after she requested it. Ho hum ZZZZzzzzzzz. His constant lies are putting me into a stupor. 

Smith asked Izzett during the February 2009 interview, (which the transcript indicates) “As the unit commander of Intelligence and as her boss, do you feel that providing her with this document (the letter) is an appropriate thing to do, in your position?” Izzett responded, “I’ve said it before.  I engaged in discussion that was bad judgment on my part.” Izzett. You think?

The written and oral messages of Izzett sent and spoken to the complainant was clear evidence that as a staff inspector who was in charge of a unit in the police force and was the supervisor of the complainant in the unit is evidence that it was bad judgment on his part and that in doing so, he breached the conduct that is expected between superiors and those working for them. 

When a woman tells her supervisor that she is not interested in his advances, he should immediately back off with an apology. This Izzett didn’t do. He just continued with his improper and illegal conduct towards her as if her rebuttal meant nothing to him. 

It is beyond me as to how this man can possibly hope that what he was doing would result in him being found innocent of the charge of harassing a female employee he was supervising. His illicit conduct with her certainly is grounds alone for dismissal from the police force. CEOs of large corporations have been fired for less as have generals in armed forces.

When she was asked by Izzett’s lawyer on May 16,  as to why she waited 18 months before filing a complaint against Izzett, she replied, “I was afraid. It’s a big deal to complain in this service. I feared retribution.” His lawyer (Kinahan) hinted that she complained after she stopped receiving favourtism from Izzett. Now that is really reaching for a straw to prevent his client from going over the falls. In fact, his reach wasn’t sky high—it had extended to the furthest constellation from Earth.  

Kinahan  listed a number of details about her private life that Izzett was aware of, such as information about her family members. The complainant insisted she did not volunteer the information but was responding to persistent questions asked by “my boss” during private meetings in his office." She said, “He was very curious about my background and relationship past.”

When Kinahan asked, “Why didn’t you get up and leave?” she replied, “I didn’t want to offend him.” She should have told him to bugger off. That would have dampened his desires to have a closer relationship with her. As stupid as he is, I don't think his stupidity would go so far as to file a complaint against her for disrespect to a senior officer. That would prematurely ignite the fuse of the bomb that was shortly going to explode in his face anyway.

Kinahan also pressed the complainant about why she did not initially keep detailed notes of Izzett’s alleged “improprieties,” such as when he gave her his old police badge as a gift. “Why not? At that point, according to you, ‘he’s all over you.” She said in response that she was “uncomfortable” making note of it, because Izzett had authority to review her notebooks. She realized that she should have made her notes on her home computer. She got that right.

On the sixth day of her testimony, Kinahan commented to her that she didn’t keep notes about her interaction with Staff Superintendant Rick Gauthier when she complained to him about Izzett with except with one instance; it being when she noted calling a female colleague about discussing a ‘private matter’ with Gauthier after the complainant and Gauthier met in a restaurant at his request.

I should point out at this segment of this article that I conferred with a police source of my own and was advised that the complainant was renowned for being sloppy when it came to keeping records. It is imperative that anyone who is being harassed should be keeping records of all of their conversations to the best of their ability and such records should include persons spoken to and the place, the time and day in which the conversations are undertaken. To do otherwise is to cause others to raise the spectre that when the complainant testifies in court or at a hearing, much of what he or she says is mistaken and as such, not fully accurate.

Part 2 will be published on Monday 11^th 2013.