Officer Paul Pitsnogle Has to Convince a Jury

[WaTcHeR]

Officer Paul Pitsnogle

Officer Paul Pitsnogle

Officer Paul Pitsnogle

05/20/2006 - The Reno police sergeant accused of coercing a teenage girl into posing naked for his sexual pleasure during a traffic stop, told her he had accepted bribes before and suggested through his thrusting hips that a meal at Del Taco wouldn't be enough, according to police transcripts obtained by the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Reno police Officer Paul Pitsnogle, 39, was booked and released Thursday on $8,500 bail after a Washoe County grand jury indicted him on one felony count of misconduct of an officer, and one count of open or gross lewdness, a gross misdemeanor.

While the prosecutor and lawyers exchanged barbs Friday, a review of the 17-year-old girl's statements to police show that she and her friend were heading home from a concert when the incident began.

Pitsnogle's lawyer, David Houston, said the officer denies the charges, and said the girl instigated the April 3 incident to get out of a ticket. Pitsnogle has been placed on paid administrative leave, police said.

The officer, an 11-year veteran of the force, let her go because he felt sorry for her, Houston said, and that was his only mistake.

"This police officer showed some kindness -- he should have arrested her for trying to bribe him and he didn't," Houston said.

Reno lawyer Scott Freeman, who represents the girl and her family, declined to talk about the case, but said making up such a story wouldn't make sense.

"Why would she go to the police with her parents and why would she say all of this, good and bad, and give all the details that she did if it wasn't true?" Freeman asked.

Also on Friday, Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Greco blasted Houston for saying publicly that the girl was drunk and high at the time of the stop. Greco also has declined comment on the case, saying he can't release details until the grand jury transcripts are made public.

"Mr. Houston's statements are simply false," Greco said. "Sgt. Pitnogle's own personal notes on the incident show that she blew a .007 (percent blood alcohol level) on the preliminary Breathalyzer test. That's less than 1/11th of the legal limit of .08 percent." For drivers under 21, the legal limit is .02 percent.

Houston responded by saying the Breathalyzer wouldn't detect the amount of marijuana she had in her system. The girl had told police she had taken four or five "hits" before the concert.

Greco also questioned Pitsnolge's appearance in his booking photograph, which appeared in the media. At the time it was released, the Sparks Police Department issued a statement asking that any other woman who was stopped by Pitsnogle and felt that he hinted or suggested a bribe should contact the department or Secret Witness.

"I find it suspicious that Sgt. Pitsnogle has altered his appearance since the event," Greco said, referring to his beard and longer hair. "On patrol, no beards are allowed."

"At this point, we have no information indicating that there are other victims out there," Greco said. "However, the whole purpose of the press release was to determine if there were other victims out there. And it's important that we get out a photograph showing how Sgt. Pitsnogle really looked when he was patrolling the streets of Reno."

Houston said he was offended by Greco's suggestion that the officer altered his appearance. Houston said Pitsnogle was planning to turn himself in to the police at 3 p.m. at Houston's law office, but when Greco sent out a press release about the indictment, everything changed.

The Sparks Police Department called Pitsnogle and said he should come in early to avoid any problems with the press, Houston said.

"To suggest this guy changed his appearance is so much nonsense," Houston said. "The situation was created by the DA's need to publicize this thing in the first place. He was forced from home without time to clean up and shave."

According to the girl's statement to the Reno and Sparks police departments, she felt forced into taking her clothes off in the back of his car while he masturbated in the front seat.

It started when she and her 18-year-old friend were returning home from a UB40 concert at Lawlor Events Center, the girl told police.

A group of friends had met before and she drank two beers, three sips of rum, and had several hits of marijuana before the show, she said. After the show, they stopped at Taco Bell, and headed home. That's when they were stopped near McCarran Boulevard, she told police.

Pitsnogle told the girls that it was past curfew, and then said he could smell alcohol on the girl's breath, so had her get out of the car, she said.

He conducted a field sobriety test, involving counting and balancing on one foot, and told the girl she had failed each test. Then he went to his patrol car and took out the Breathalyzer, she said. She blew into it twice, and he kept hitting it on the side, saying it didn't work, so he threw the tubes on the ground, she said.

All the while, he kept telling her the consequences of getting a DUI -- saying she would lose her license until she was 21 and she would be on probation, the girl told police. She began to cry and told the officer she was a good student and had a job.

"And then that's when he first began to say ... why should I let you off, what can you do for me not to go to jail," the girl told police. "Why would I risk losing my job? How would this benefit me?"

She said she suggested that it would save him the trouble of filling out the paperwork, which made him laugh. Then she asked how other people have gotten out of an arrest.

"He said 'I've accepted bribes and I've accepted other things," the girl told the Sparks police. "And I said I don't have any money. I could take you to Del Taco or something."

She said when he mentioned "other things," he thrusted his pelvis toward her.

"He just kept looking at me," she said, and she realized what he was leading to, she said.

"And then I remember saying, 'so you want me to give you (oral sex), right?'" she told police. "And he said, 'something along those lines would tempt me.' I know he said 'tempting' and 'that's tempting' and he used tempt a lot, and he thought about it for a long time."

The girl also said she told Pitsnogle that her girlfriend waiting in the car might want to join them.

"I was trying to get her out of the car," she said. "He said, 'that's tempting, that's tempting.'"

Then Pitsnogle told the girl to get into the back seat while he got into the front, she told police. She said he began rubbing his gun in a suggestive way, and kept looking at her.

"And he says, 'I guess it is not going to work because you can't touch me, so you have to think of something else we can do without me touching you,'" she told police. "And I sit in the back for a while ... and I just kind of realize what is happening, and I say, 'so I have to get naked, right? I have to take my clothes off, right?'"

She said he watched as she undressed, and told her to lay on her stomach with her buttocks elevated. She told police that she could hear the officer masturbating, but didn't see anything because her eyes were closed.

Soon, he told her to get dressed, she said, and warned her that she would get in trouble for trying to bribe an officer if she told anyone.

She drove to her friend's house, told her friend's father, and then went to her home about 2:30 a.m. and woke her family to tell them what happened, she said. They went to the police station early in the morning.

Houston said Pitsnogle offered to let her sit in the car because it was cold and raining outside. While he prepared to write out some information, he heard her moving in the back seat, and when he turned around she was naked, Houston said.

"He tells her that this is attempting to bribe an officer, so knock it off," Houston said. When Pitsnogle went back to the station at the end of his shift, he wrote up a report on the incident, and soon learned that there had been a complaint.

He gave his uniform to the other officers, and a DNA test was done for fluids, but none was found, Houston said. The lawyer also said no one has ever made such a complaint against Pitsnogle in his 11 years as a police officer.

[KC]

June 15, 2006 - RENO, Nev. A Reno police sergeant pleaded NOT guilty today to charges he coerced an 17-year-old girl into undressing in his patrol car in order to get out of a drunken driving ticket.

39-year-old Paul Pitsnogle is currently out on 85-hundred-dollars bail. His trial has been set for October 16th.

A Washoe County grand jury indicted Pitsnogle last month on one felony count of willful misconduct of a public officer and one count of open or gross lewdness, a gross misdemeanor.

According to the grand jury transcript obtained by the Reno Gazette-Journal, Pitsnogle had stopped the girl and her friend at about one o'clock in the morning on April third.

The officer said he thought he smelled alcohol, and had her do a series of sobriety tests. When his Breathalyzer machine failed, he told her sit in the back of the patrol car, while he sat in front.

The girl testified before the grand jury that Pitsnogle kept making suggestive movements and statements, implying that she could get out of a ticket by providing him with a sexual favor.

[KC]

Lawyer for police officer asks for dismissal of indictment

July 12, 2006 - The lawyer for a Reno police sergeant accused of coercing a teen into undressing and posing in the back of his patrol car to get out of an arrest is asking the indictment against him be dismissed, alleging improper grand jury proceedings.

Sgt. Paul Pitsnogle, 39, pleaded not guilty last month to May grand jury indictments of one count of felony willful misconduct of a public officer and one count of open and gross lewdness, a gross misdemeanor.

The indictment relates to a 1 a.m. April 3 traffic stop for a possible curfew violation he made of a 17-year-old student who was driving with her 18-year-old friend near the on ramp to Interstate 80 at West McCarran Boulevard in Reno.

The indictment accuses Pitsnogle of directing the younger girl, who undressed, to pose in various positions in his patrol car while he masturbated in the front seat. She told him that she earlier had consumed alcohol and smoked marijuana. He did not call dispatch to report the traffic stop and did not ask for back up at any point. She was not ticketed or arrested.

Pitsnogle's attorney, David Houston, filed a motion Thursday asking that a judge dismiss the indictment. Houston said the evidence that could explain the allegations away was not presented to the grand jury, although he sent the prosecutor a lengthy letter with Pitsnogle's explanation of what occurred. He also challenged the jury instructions and said the elements of the alleged crimes do not fit with the charges Pitsnogle was indicted on.

"If the district attorney would have given the grand jury the right instructions and told them what to consider and how to consider it, they would have never indicted my client for open and gross lewdness," Houston said.

But Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Greco, responding to Houston's comments to the Reno Gazette-Journal, said he did introduce exculpatory evidence that "explains away" the charges, including giving jurors a copy of Pitsnogle's handwritten notes that he made following the incident and before detectives questioned him.

Greco also said the grand jury was told that a forensics examiner found no semen in Pitsnogle's patrol car, and a detective testified to what Pitsnogle told him about the incident, according to transcripts.

Greco said Houston's claims were "utterly without merit," and criticized him for speaking with the media. He said he is writing a motion in opposition to Houston's.

Houston wrote in his motion that much of the evidence presented to the grand jury was inadmissible and inflammatory.

For example, he cited the theories that Pitsnogle was fixated on the girl when he first saw her and pulled her over for little or no reason, that the testing for intoxication was in his plan to exploit her and that he deliberately failed to call for back up. He said those theories were unfair and highly prejudicial.

Grand jury proceedings are secret, and the defendant and his or her counsel generally are not present for other witnesses' testimony. Proceedings are held to determine if probable cause exists to believe the defendant committed the alleged crime.

Houston criticized the proceedings because defense attorneys are not allowed to introduce evidence or question witnesses. Greco said a jury trial is the forum for jurors to explore all of the facts.

April 3

According to handwritten notes Pitsnogle made following the incident, he said the "driver said she would be ruined if she was arrested because she was a drug counselor for kids. She asked me what she could do to prevent being arrested, isn't there something I could do. I asked her what she thought was worse, me jeopardizing my job. She stated she didn't have any money so how bout (oral sex)?

"I declined and told her that would cost my career. She stated nobody would know," the note said. "She then offered a 'party' with her friend. I again stated that wasn't possible."

Pitsnogle wrote she again offered oral sex when he asked her to sit inside his car because his alcohol breath test device wasn't working.

"I told her that if I so much as touched her I would lose my job," he wrote. "She began taking her clothes off. I told her to put her clothes on and that I could arrest her for bribery. ... I gave her a warning and released her."

Pitsnogle did have the girl blow into the device, which read that her blood alcohol level was .007 percent. Officers collected his device following the allegation and it read .007 percent, records show.

He wrote he did not arrest her for open and gross lewdness because he was not offended and said her bribery stemmed from her immaturity. He said she was placed in his car so he could determine the extent of her impairment.

When Pitsnogle got back to the police station and changed out of his uniform, detectives talked to him after the girl and her parents reported the incident. They told him about the allegation and asked him for the uniform he wore. His reaction was, "I knew I should have arrested her," court documents show.

When Pitsnogle pulled the girl over, he asked her and her friend if they were out past curfew. Then he said he smelled alcohol on her breath and asked her to get out of the car, court records show.

"The testimony of (the girl) was that she wanted to get out of a possible ticket or citation from the stop, and admitted she first proffered what she characterized as offering the officer (oral sex) to avoid any charge," Houston wrote in his motion. "She made it very clear in grand jury testimony that she was the one who asked him if he wanted (oral sex). She testified she offered and did these acts based on her belief that Sgt. Pitsnogle wanted her to offer or do them."

The girl testified she asked him how other people had gotten out of arrests and he said that he had accepted money and other things, and then thrust his pelvis toward her. At that point she said "So you want (oral sex)?"

When she got in the back seat, she testified, Pitsnogle told her that they couldn't touch each other, and then began touching his gun. She said she knew she had to get naked because of the way he was scanning her body up and down and looking at her. When she asked if she should undress, she said he said "that's a good idea."

During the time she was posing nude, she said he dimmed the inside car lights when motorists drove by. Then she said she began to hear sounds that indicated to her that he was masturbating, but said she kept her eyes closed and did not see it. Forensic investigators said they found no semen in his patrol car.

Hearing to be scheduled

Pitsnogle, an 11-year Reno police veteran, remains free on bail and currently is on administrative leave. Next, Houston said, a hearing will be scheduled so that he can argue the points in his motion. That hearing date has not yet been determined.

The girl's 18-year-old friend stayed in the car while she initially performed sobriety tests. The pair had been driving to a friend's home after earlier attending a concert in Reno and drinking alcohol and taking hits of marijuana.

The 18-year-old girl testified that her friend was sobbing and crying very hard after she got out of his car.

If convicted, Pitsnogle could face up to four years in prison on the misconduct charge and up to a year in jail on the lewdness charge, which would require him to register as a sex offender.

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[WaTcHeR]

10.18.2006 - Speaking in crisp sentences and responding to questions with a sharp "yes, sir," and "no, sir," the young woman stared straight ahead Tuesday as she told a Washoe County jury how a late-night traffic stop ended with her naked in the back seat of a Reno police patrol car while the officer allegedly masturbated.

"What were you thinking," Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Greco asked the girl, 17 at the time, after she described how Reno police Sgt. Paul Pitsnogle told her to pose with her buttocks raised about 1 a.m. April 3.

Once the officer finished, she said he told her to get dressed and said: "Don't tell anyone. You're the one that's going to be in trouble. You're the one that bribed me."

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening," said the girl, who broke down in tears at the end of Greco's questions, and appeared to hyperventilate at one point.

She sobbed just before the lunch break and again after nearly four hours of testimony while the jury watched her videotaped interview with a Reno detective about eight hours after the alleged incident. After seeing her cry and bite her fingers, Judge Steven Elliott allowed a county witness advocate to sit beside her during testimony.

Pitsnogle's lawyer, David Houston, questioned how much beer, rum and marijuana the

girl had partaken of that night while at a concert with friends. And he pressed her to explain why she never called to her friend waiting in another car, or why she brought up giving Pitsnogle oral sex if she was afraid

of being raped.

"When you started taking off your top, he told you, now you're trying to bribe an officer, knock it off. Isn't that why you were afraid?" Houston said, his voice rising.

"No, sir," she replied. "That's not what he said."

Pitsnogle, an 11-year veteran of the police department, has been charged with one felony count of misconduct of an officer and one count of open or gross lewdness, a gross misdemeanor. If convicted, he could face up to four years in prison.

His trial in Washoe District Court is expected to run through the week, with the girl back on the witness stand today.

Wearing a blue dress and a buttoned black sweater, the

18-year-old told of her 4.0

grade-point average and her volunteer work with a boys and girls club when she began her testimony.

The night of April 2 involved a UB40 concert with a group of friends, along with two beers, sips of rum and several hits of marijuana, she said.

But once she entered the show, the drinking stopped, she said, and when the concert ended at 11 p.m., she had a big meal at Taco Bell.

While the girl and her 18-year-old friend drove to a friend's house, Pitsnogle pulled them over and began testing her to see if she was under the influence, she said.

After she felt she had passed a leg-stand and eye-motion

test, Pitsnogle had the girl

blow into a breathalizer machine. He complained the

gadget was broken and threw the straw on the ground.

She said he never told her the results, which police determined was far below the legal limit, and instead said she could lose her

license if arrested for driving

under the influence.

"Were you scared?" Greco asked.

"Yes, sir," she said. "I told him I'm a good student. I didn't want to be labeled as a person with a DUI."

"Did you offer him anything?" Greco asked.

"I said he didn't have to do any paperwork if he didn't arrest me," she said, and then said she could take him to Del Taco, which made Pitsnogle laugh.

The girl said he began asking how it might benefit him if he let her go.

"He asked me how I could tempt him into not arresting me," she said. She asked what others have done to get out of a ticket.

"And he said, 'I've accepted money and other things,'" the girl said, adding that he began thrusting his hips toward her.

"At the time, I couldn't believe he did that to me, that a cop just did that to me," she said. "I said, 'So you want (oral sex)?'" the girl testified, "and he said, 'That would be tempting, that would tempt me. That's a good idea.'"

The girl said she was scared and followed his lead as he opened the patrol car door and motioned her inside. He said they couldn't touch, "so think of something else."

"So, I have to take my clothes off?" the girl said.

"That's a good idea," she said Pitsnogle told her. Then, she undressed.

When Houston began his questioning, he asked the girl why she didn't call 911 to report Pitsnogle as soon as the incident was over, or why the young women didn't ask an officer to take a statement later.

"Was it because you were too high at the time to confront the police?" Houston asked.

"That is not true, sir," she said.

She described the scene as surreal, but Houston suggested that was from the effects of the drugs and alcohol she had consumed.

"Your head's going a mile a minute," Houston said. "And you don't think you're high?"

"I wasn't high, sir," she said.

Houston asked if Pitsnogle ever asked for oral sex or ever received it, and the girl said he had not. And when the officer was "thrusting his hips," Houston said, "do you think he might have been rocking on his feet?"

"No, sir," she responded.

He asked why her family had called a lawyer that night and suggested she made up her story to be able to file a civil lawsuit against the Reno police.

The girl said her family had not discussed that option.

"Our goal right now is to make sure this man doesn't do that to any other girls," she said.

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[WaTcHeR]

10.19.2006 - RENO, Nev. (AP) - The mother of a teenager who testified that a police officer encouraged her to undress in his patrol car said she and her daughter did not report the incident immediately because "I didn't understand what the proper procedure was for reporting a rogue cop."

The mother took the stand Wednesday in the Washoe District Court trial of Paul Pitsnogle, a Reno police sergeant accused of misconduct by an officer and open or gross lewdness.

The woman said her daughter was traumatized and nearly hysterical when she returned home after being pulled over by Pitsnogle in the early morning hours of April 3.

"We thought long and hard about how hard this would be if she told the truth," the woman testified. "Our concern right now is that Sgt. Pitsnogle can't wear a uniform again and can't do this to another girl. This man was a pervert with a badge and a gun and a uniform."

The teenager, who was 17 at the time but has since turned 18, testified Wednesday that she was afraid to call police because Pitsnogle might respond to her home.

She testified that Pitsnogle implied he could be bought off in return for sexual favors after he pulled her over for a curfew violation and threatened her with arrest for drunken driving.

Attorneys for Pitsnogle, 40, an 11-year veteran of the police force with no prior citizen complaints, contend the teen initiated the encounter to escape a drunken driving citation and now hopes to use the criminal case to bolster a civil suit.

An 18-year-old friend who was a passenger in the car the night of the stop testified Wednesday that after attending a concert, the two teens went to a fast food restaurant, ate tacos at her house, changed clothes and were going to another friend's house when they were pulled over.

She said the young driver was terrified by the stop because they had been drinking and had smoked marijuana before the concert. The teenage driver also had been pulled over the night before, but had not been ticketed.

Both teenagers testified they had only a few sips of beer from the time the concert began at about 8 p.m. until they were stopped more than five hours later.

The passenger said Pitsnogle had his searchlight beamed at the back of the stopped car, making it difficult for her to see much, even though she re-aimed the rearview mirror in an attempt to see the patrol car.

Once Pitsnogle and her friend got into the cruiser, all she could see was the car's interior dome light, which went off when cars passed by on the freeway onramp where they were stopped, the passenger said.

In testimony Tuesday, the teen driver said that after asking her to step out of the car to do sobriety tests, Pitsnogle asked how she could tempt him into not arresting her.

"He told me if I was arrested I'd lose my license until I was 21 and have a probation officer. I told him I'm a good student and I work with kids. I was scared of being labeled as a person with a DUI," she said.

Eventually, she said he thrust his pelvis toward her, and she offered to perform a sex act on him.

"He said, `That would be tempting, that would tempt me. It's a good idea.'"

The teen said Pitsnogle led her to the back door of his patrol car and he got in the driver's seat.

She said he told her, "'I can't touch you and you can't touch me, so think of something else.'"

"I said, `So I have to take my clothes off?' He said, `that's a good idea.'"

She said Pitsnogle masturbated in the front seat as he directed her to pose naked in the back seat.

While the charge of misconduct by an officer is punishable by up to four years in prison, Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Greco said the law mandates an initial sentence of probation. Only if probation is revoked would prison time be served. The gross misdemeanor charge of lewdness carries a sentence of up to one year in jail.

The case, with a lengthy witness list dominated by police officers, is expected to last at least through Friday.

www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/oct/18/101810094.html

[WaTcHeR]

10.24.2006 - Reno police officers testified Monday that the sergeant accused of coercing a teenager into undressing in his patrol car was an aggressive crime-fighter who made reasonable choices that night concerning calling for help "" choices that many other officers make every day.

"He was very proactive," Reno police Officer Scott Hartze

said of Sgt. Paul Pitsnogle at the start of the second week of

Pitsnogle's trial. "He was more of a hunter. He would go seek out criminal activity."

And when other officers were faced with possible bribes or other inappropriate behavior during traffic stops, most said they wouldn't call for backup, even though it's standard police procedure.

"I've had people threaten to kill me, and I don't take it seriously," Reno police Officer Chad Johnson said.

A recent high school graduate testified last week that Pitsnogle stopped her and a friend about 1 a.m. April 3 and said he suspected her of drunken driving. She said he warned her of the consequences of a DUI arrest, and she became upset. She said he then began suggesting that he could be bribed, while thrusting his hips.

The girl, now 18, testified that he directed her to the back seat of his patrol car, said they couldn't touch, and then she undressed while he masturbated in the front seat.

Pitsnogle is charged with one count of misconduct of an officer and one count of open or gross lewdness, a gross misdemeanor.

The sergeant took the stand last week and said the girl had offered oral sex twice to get out of an arrest, and then started taking her clothes off to get out of a ticket. He said he never called for backup because he didn't take her seriously.

On Monday, other officers said they would do the same.

"So, she begins joking about inappropriate things," one of Pitsnogle's three lawyers, Byron Bergeron asked Reno police Officer Shawn Jones. The girl offers food from Del Taco and then offers oral sex, Bergeron said. "You going to call backup?" he asked Jones.

"Now? Absolutely," Jones said, adding that many officers have changed their habits since this case began.

"Prior to April 3?" Bergeron asked.

"I don't think I would have," Jones said.

"If you were going to choose an officer to follow, to respect, who would you choose?" Bergeron asked.

"Paul Pitsnogle," Jones said.

Then Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Greco asked Jones if he would have called for help even after the girl offered two incidents of oral sex and then took her clothes off.

"Would you call for backup then?" Greco asked.

"I've been propositioned so many times, not to brag," Jones said. "I don't know how concerned I would be."

But Officer Jason Sammons said he would have reservations in a similar situation and said he would have called for a backup or a supervisor.

"You would want to protect yourself, right?" Greco asked.

"Yes," Sammons replied.

Most of the officers called to the stand in Washoe District Court said their bullet-proof vests severely restrict their movements, countering the girl's testimony that Pitsnogle turned and watched her from the front seat as he told her how to pose with her buttocks toward him and masturbated.

The officers also said it would be impossible for them to take off their duty belts with one hand. The girl had said Pitsnogle had one hand on a rifle barrel before taking off his duty belt and unzipping his pants.

The trial is expected to run through today, and could go to the jury today or Wednesday.

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