Sheriff Davis resigns Monday; allegations of misuse of money

By DUSTIN ENSINGER

For The Sun­bury News

Delaware County Sher­iff Wal­ter L. Davis III resigned Mon­day morn­ing amid alle­ga­tions that he mis­used tax­payer dol­lars while attend­ing a 10-week FBI train­ing acad­emy in Quan­tico, Vir­ginia, last year.

Davis came under fire after it was reported that the Ohio Bureau of Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tions was look­ing into his use of Fur­ther­ance of Jus­tice (FOJ) Funds while on the trip.

Instead of allow­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion to run its course, Davis chose to step down, a deci­sion that will allow him to avoid pros­e­cu­tion. But the deal Davis reached with Union County Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney David Phillips, who was appointed as spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor in the case, will ban him from hold­ing elected office in the future.

“The sher­iff agreed to resign from his posi­tion, with­draw from the Novem­ber bal­lot and never hold elected office again,” Phillips said in a state­ment. “He will also repay to the county the money at issue and pay for any audit which may be required. In return, I have agreed to defer pros­e­cu­tion so long as Mr. Davis is in com­pli­ance with his agreement.”

The agree­ment allows Davis to keep his pension.

Records obtained by The Delaware Gazette show that Davis used FOJ funds to cover cer­tain costs of a ren­dezvous in Arling­ton, Va., with a female deputy whom he supervises.

In a state­ment released by the sheriff’s office, Davis, who is mar­ried, acknowl­edged that he made a mis­take but did not address the nature of his rela­tion­ship with the female deputy, Janine Senanayake, say­ing it is a pri­vate matter.

“It is dif­fi­cult to wit­ness the neg­a­tive pub­lic­ity drawn to this office because of my actions,” he said. “I take full respon­si­bil­ity and will reim­burse the county for the expenses that are in question.”

Davis, how­ever, also said that there was a rush to judge­ment, both by the media and the Delaware County Repub­li­can Party, which stripped him of his endorse­ment last week.

“Is that the Amer­i­can way?” he asked dur­ing a Mon­day morn­ing press con­fer­ence at his attorney’s office. “I think it’s careless.”

But county GOP Chair­man Bob Mann denied that the sher­iff was not given an oppor­tu­nity to tell his side of the story. Mann said that he spoke with Davis twice last week by phone with the inten­tion of lis­ten­ing to Davis’ take on the sit­u­a­tion. How­ever, Davis instead wanted to meet in per­son this week. Mann also said that Davis, as a mem­ber of the GOP Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, could have spo­ken on his own behalf dur­ing the party’s vote to rescind his endorse­ment. Davis did not attend the meeting.

The records obtained through a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request show that Dep. Janine Senanayake rented a room at the same Arling­ton, Vir­ginia, hotel that Davis used to park his rental car at while he was at an FBI train­ing pro­gram in Quan­tico, Virginia.

Dur­ing the same time that Senanayake stayed at the hotel, Davis used FOJ funds to pay for park­ing, at least two meals, includ­ing two break­fast buf­fets at the hotel, a rental car and gas, the records show.

The hotel, the Mar­i­ott Crys­tal Gate­way, is more than 30 miles away from Quan­tico, Va., and records show that Davis parked a rental car there from August 12, 2011 to August 14, 2011, the same period of time that Senanayake rented a room there.

Davis used the FOJ fund to pay $132 for a rental car, $10 in gas, $54 in park­ing fees and $86 for two meals over that time.

Davis said he will return $1,331, which includes the cost of two flights that are not in question.

“There are some funds in ques­tion,” he said. “I’m going above and beyond to make sure we own up to any mis­takes we may have made.”

Davis has also report­edly been using a West­er­ville con­do­minium to meet with Senanayake. The report included video show­ing both their vehi­cles parked near the condominium.

The Gazette obtained records show­ing the con­do­minium, located at 77 Mer­lin Drive, is owned by Etta Sivier, another Delaware County Sheriff’s Office employee.

In Jan­u­ary, the sheriff’s office announced that Sivier, a cor­rec­tions offi­cer, was pro­moted to the posi­tion of sergeant.

Senanayake, who has not been dis­ci­plined “at this time,” accord­ing to a sheriff’s office spokesper­son, has been the focus of a sim­i­lar inves­ti­ga­tion before.

Senanayake was fired from her pre­vi­ous job as a Perry Town­ship police offi­cer, where she was known as Janine Eng­land, after dash­cam video was leaked show­ing her kiss­ing and touch­ing for­mer Perry Town­ship Police Chief Tim­o­thy Escola dur­ing a trip to Cincin­nati to pick up a prisoner.

After being fired for the inci­dent, Senanayake filed a dis­crim­i­na­tion com­plaint against the Perry Town­ship Police Depart­ment alleg­ing she was dis­crim­i­nated against when she was relieved of her duties. While she was fired, Escola was allowed to resign and keep his pen­sion. The U.S. Equal Employ­ment Oppor­tu­nity Com­mis­sion ruled in her favor, find­ing that there was rea­son to believe that her fir­ing may have been dis­crim­i­na­tory. The case has not yet pro­ceeded to U.S. Dis­trict Court. Perry Town­ship Law Direc­tor Charles Hall told the Can­ton Repos­i­tory that the lat­est inci­dent demon­strates a “pat­tern of con­duct.” He plans to ask for a dis­missal of the lawsuit.

Phillips said he was aware of Senanayake’s past when he struck the deal with Davis and does not believe that it should have played a role in his deci­sion not to go after Davis’ pension.

“I’m aware of her his­tory,” he said. “But what hap­pened in another sit­u­a­tion did not affect my decision.”

Delaware County Com­mis­sioner Den­nis Sta­ple­ton said he was caught off guard by the sud­den resignation.

“I was a lit­tle sur­prised that it hap­pened as quickly as it did,” he said.

Sta­ple­ton, along with com­mis­sion­ers Ken O’Brien and Tommy Thomp­son voted Mon­day morn­ing to name Cap­tain Scott Vance as interim sher­iff until the Delaware County Repub­li­can Party Cen­tral Com­mit­tee can con­vene a meet­ing to select a per­ma­nent replace­ment. The cen­tral com­mit­tee has 45 days to choose some­one to fill the role.

Vance was cho­sen after a lengthy closed-door meet­ing because of his abil­ity to lead and the fact that he is a Union County res­i­dent, effec­tively mak­ing him inel­i­gi­ble to hold the posi­tion long-term, the com­mis­sion­ers said.

“That was a big plus for me,” Sta­ple­ton said of the fact that Vance is strictly a tem­po­rary sher­iff because of his residency.

Vance joined the sheriff’s office in 1995 and was pro­moted to cap­tain in 2003.

“I look for­ward to lead­ing our office through this tran­si­tional period,” Vance said in a state­ment. “Despite the tem­po­rary dis­trac­tions of the past sev­eral days, we plan to con­tinue focus­ing on best serv­ing the cit­i­zens of our county.”

Two of the likely can­di­dates to replace Davis are Delaware City Police Chief Russ Mar­tin and City of Pow­ell Police Chief Gary Vest.

But Vest said that he has no inter­est in the posi­tion at this time, and would highly rec­om­mend Mar­tin for the post.

“I will not be putting my hat in the ring this time around,” he said.

Mar­tin, who has served for 30 years in the Delaware City Police Depart­ment, acknowl­edged that he has heard from party mem­bers about fill­ing the position.

“I’ve received sev­eral phone calls and I’m in the process of talk­ing to a close cir­cle of friends and decid­ing what’s best for the county and for my fam­ily,” he said.

Sources have also told The Gazette that Delaware County res­i­dent and Colum­bus Divi­sion of Police Cmdr. Kent Shafer is in the run­ning to fill the posi­tion vacated by Davis. Schafer has spent more than 30 with the Colum­bus Police Divi­sion and is cur­rently com­man­der of the Division’s Strate­gic Response Bureau.

Thus far, only two peo­ple have expressed inter­est in the posi­tion, accord­ing to Mann. He declined to say who.

The party will first set a dead­line for inter­ested can­di­dates to apply for the posi­tion. The party’s screen­ing com­mit­tee will then review the appli­ca­tions and set up inter­views before pick­ing a can­di­date by the mid­dle of next month.

The inves­ti­ga­tion into Davis began in the Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office. The case was assigned to Phillips by Delaware County Judge Everett Krueger to avoid a con­flict of interest.

Now that Davis has stepped aside, the sheriff’s office can return to busi­ness as usual, Phillips said.

“The cloud under which the sheriff’s office was oper­at­ing because of these alle­ga­tions clearly ham­pered the office’s abil­ity to serve as an effec­tive law enforce­ment agency,” he said. “The prompt res­o­lu­tion of this mat­ter will enable the peo­ple of Delaware County to move on, and the sheriff’s office to regain the trust and con­fi­dence of the peo­ple which it deserves.”

Posted by Gary Henery on Apr 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.