COPA investigator allegedly compromised cases involving brother, boyfriend — both cops
An investigator for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability was accused Tuesday of conducting nearly 80 records searches that compromised probes involving the investigator’s brother, boyfriend and other members of the boyfriend’s family — all Chicago police officers.
The bombshell allegation involving the police oversight agency was included in Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s quarterly report summarizing misconduct cases over the previous three months.
As always, Ferguson does not identify the accused COPA investigator, who no longer is employed by the city.
But the report accuses the investigator of conducting “over 77 improper searches” and also alleges they “improperly accessed records over 69 times” between December 2017 and January 2019.
The records searches occurred “without authorization” and compromised “COPA investigations involving the employee’s brother, boyfriend and the boyfriend’s family members, all of whom are police officers,” the report states.
The accused investigator “failed to disclose” the subjects of the investigations as conflicts of interest, the inspector general said.
After Ferguson launched his investigation, the accused COPA employee allegedly made matters worse by sending an anonymous complaint to the inspector general’s office from a city computer while on the clock.
“The investigator falsely claimed that a coworker had carried a gun to the COPA office and planned to commit a mass shooting,” the quarterly report states.
The inspector general’s office “determined that the complaint was false and sent in retaliation against the co-worker, whom the investigator suspected of cooperating” with Ferguson, the report states.
The now-former COPA investigator has since been charged with felony disorderly conduct and felony official misconduct.
Though a COPA spokesman refused to identify the employee, citing personnel rules, those same charges in early January were filed against COPA investigator Alison Yohanna — and other facts of the case align as well.
At the time, Yohanna was accused of writing a bogus email that one of her co-workers carries firearms and would commit a mass shooting, starting at the intake room of the COPA offices. The allegations about illegal searches were not outlined at that time. Ferguson recommended that the COPA investigator be fired and placed on the city’s do-not-hire list. But when the accused investigator appealed the firing, the city settled the case by allowing the investigator to resign, the report states.
In a statement, COPA said after the misconduct was uncovered, it “promptly notified the Office of Inspector General” and “immediately eliminated access to COPA databases.”
Even before Ferguson’s latest report, the statement continued, “COPA strengthened our already robust policies governing database usage, and all COPA employees reaffirmed our conflict of interest and confidentiality agreements.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Ferguson’s investigation raises “concerning” questions about personnel and controls at the agency charged with investigating wayward police officers.
“Any time that there’s serious allegations like this, it gives people pause. It’s gonna be incumbent upon Sydney Roberts and her leadership team to demonstrate that the organization is, in fact, operating with integrity despite what sounds like some serious issues with one investigator,” the mayor said.
“It raises questions that have to be addressed — not only about the individuals, but also about the policies and practices that were in place that would allow this kind of access, seemingly unchecked. So, there’s work to be done.”