'Never Had A Cop Do That With Me Before'; Woman Says Aurora Officer Josiah Coe Gave Her Meth
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - Angela Bay, 34, an admitted methamphetamine user, said she was "shocked" in March when Aurora police officer Josiah Coe allegedly gave her methamphetamine and a pipe to smoke it in.
"I never had a cop do that with me before," said Bay. "At first I was like, 'Damn, that's pretty cool.'"
But she later said the officer's actions caused her more addiction problems.
"And being an addict, if someone hands me that I'm going to take it because I'm an addict and he knows that," said Bay.
Her comments Friday came days after Arapahoe County prosecutors filed criminal charges against Coe, who resigned after confessing that he had provided illegal drugs to Bay.
He is facing a felony charge of distributing a controlled substance and a misdemeanor charge of official misconduct. Coe has declined to comment on the case, which was investigated by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
But in a one-on-one interview Friday with CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass, Bay recounted what happened. She said she came to know Coe as she was frequently at the medical facility in Aurora where he worked off-duty.
The pair often smoked cigarettes together and Bay said "he was very friendly, super cool." She said Coe was always in his police uniform.
According to Bay and an arrest affidavit in the case, on March 4, as she was leaving the facility, Coe handed her a bandana with items wrapped inside.
"He passed it to me and said, 'I don't do this for anybody, only the ones I like,' and he said 'You owe me but don't worry, it's nothing bad.'"
She said inside the bandana was about $20 worth of meth and a new pipe. The drugs had been confiscated from another user and were supposed to be submitted to the Aurora Police Department as evidence.
"When I got home I smoked it," said Bay.
"It set me back," said Bay, "made me more worse. He knows my problems, he knows I want off and he's giving it to me making me worse, making me more sick."
Bay contacted Aurora police several weeks after the incident. Police investigators went to the medical facility and reviewed videotape footage from the day in question. They said the video corroborated Bay's story, showing her with the officer who was seen on tape handing something to Bay "while his back was to the camera, as if shielding what he was doing." However, when an investigator for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation began looking into the incident, he reported some key video of what happened "appears to be written over and erased."
The CBI interviewed Aurora Police Sgt. Marc Sears, who told investigators Coe confessed to him saying "I f----d up. I gave somebody dope." Sears told CBI investigators 'Coe was remorseful and he felt horrible for making the mistake of providing drugs.'"
Although Coe resigned during the investigation, a spokesperson for the Aurora Police Department said he would have been fired had he not stepped down.
Coe is due back in court in June.
