We expect police to be honest, trustworthy,
and avoid getting arrested themselves.
What happens, though, when a town
hires a police officer out on bond?
So there's a small village called Log
Lane that's about an hour NE of Denver.
And there is an officer on patrol with
a pending felony case against her.
As investigative reporter Jeremy Hohola
finds, there is nothing in state law
stopping her from being a criminal
defendant and a cop at the same time.
In the small village of Log Lane.
To find rows of mobile homes,
a few dispensaries. And
two town cops watching over 800 citizens.
One is Don Flisar as a logline cop.
She has a badge and a gun.
She also has a mug shot and
five felony charges for theft.
Yep, a police officer with a
current felony theft case out on
bond and forcing the log lane law,
court records reveal.
Before she was hired in Log Lane,
Flisar was a Morrison police
officer through early 2021.
While there,
investigators believe she may have pocketed.
31 grand while doing VIN
inspections on used cars,
hundreds of which were never completed,
leaving potentially hundreds
of buyers oblivious to the
true history of their vehicles.
How you doing? My name is Jeremy Hohola.
I'm a reporter for 9 news here in town.
And I have some questions about your
pending felony case that you have.
Before we hear from Officer Flisar,
there's the other cop,
logline officer Pedro Malave.
Before he was hired here,
he worked as a Commerce City police officer.
Internal affairs records say
he sent thousands of sexting.
Messages and nude images to
several women while on duty.
He was also suspected of using
his police phone to get steroids.
Malave was never charged with the crime
and resigned from Commerce City right
before he was to be fired in 2016.
Highly inappropriate. Not somebody you'd
want to have working in your agency.
Doctor Philip Stinson has been
a criminologist for 20 years.
As a Bowling Green State University
professor, he tracks 20,000
police officers with troubled
histories like Officer Flisar.
It's it's highly unusual that we
would see an officer who has an open
felony case leaving one department
and going to another department,
he says. Any defense attorney
would have a field day with the
cases handled by these two cops
because of their histories,
especially as one has a pending
felony case. Is there any
legitimate good excuse for the
town to employ this person?
Well, the only excuse,
the only valid reason would be that
they have an officer who's still
certified by the state of Colorado.
Online. We can see officers flisar malave
are still state certified to be officers.
Her pending felony case and his
serious past history have not
affected their certifications.
To give you an example when
a cop will be decertified,
we look to another log lane officer.
Log Lane chief of police Joshua
Katz resigned after a domestic
violence arrest last year.
He was convicted of felonies and now
he can no longer be a cop in Colorado.
Back to officer Flisar.
Did you disclose to the town that
you had a pending felony case?
I mean, you're enforcing the law,
you're enforcing the law.
How can you be enforcing the law
if you have a pending felony case?
Do you think that looks good for
the public to see that? Sorry.
I don't have any comments.
You don't have any comments? No, no
comment. But Flisar's application to log
lane speaks for itself under traffic
and criminal offences information,
which requires disclosure of any arrest
and detainment by law enforcement,
regardless of punishment.
She did put down a 2016 speeding ticket.
She did not disclose her pending
felony case on the application that
says under penalty of perjury.
So the reason this is a problem is that we
want to police agencies to be transparent.
We want there to be police accountability.
We want there to be a police legitimacy.
So to sum all of this up,
when someone is facing a pending felony case,
there is nothing and state law that would
stop them from being a police officer.
It does depend on the
local police agency though.
For example, in the city of Denver,
a cop will be immediately suspended without
pay if they're arrested on a felony.
Don Fossarus felony trial
is set for February.
In the meantime,
we have called log lengths and emails,
made tons of phone calls to get the
mayor's perspective on all of this.
They don't want to talk about this. Is
there any oversight that exists for
for police forces throughout the state,
much less for log language specific?
Yeah, there's the state certification board,
there's the post board,
but there's nothing in the law that
would prohibit them from being police
officers because their histories
don't affect their certification.
Maybe after this somebody might look at
this and say something you just changing
to look into that. So cases in February
and then then things could change.
Well, that's the thing.
If she's convicted of a felony,
that's when the state will
come in and decertify.
Social never be able to be a cop,
but if not convicted.
If not convicted,
she could potentially be
a cop. OK. Yeah. Thanks, Jeremy.