Santa Clara Police Officer's Indecent Exposure Arrest Kept Under Wraps For Months
SANTA CLARA (KCBS) – The case of a Santa Clara police sergeant being arrested for alleged indecent exposure has been kept under wraps by officials for nearly a year.
Last May, Sgt. Thomas Leipelt reportedly had sex with his girlfriend in a back room at her workplace in San Jose. After she went back to the sales floor, her co-worker walked in on the veteran officer, and he allegedly exposed himself to her.
Leipelt was arrested two months later. But all of this was kept under wraps by the police department and the city for months, raising questions of transparency.
"It lacks transparency, that's true," Dennis Kenney, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told KCBS. "However, it's kind of an embarrassing situation, problematic for the officer and embarrassing for the department. So it's not surprising that they would prefer for this one to go away."
Santa Clara police told the San Jose Mercury News that they did not publicize the case because it was a "personnel matter" and it was investigated by a different agency.
Leipelt has been on paid administrative leave from the department, pending trial next week.