Vail police officer who was fired and charged with soliciting prostitute and harassment can keep job as gunsmith, judge rules

An officer with the Vail Police Department was recently fired after he was arrested and charged with soliciting a prostitute and harassment.

Former officer Adam Bloom is facing two separate criminal trials now. He's been fired from the Vail Police Department after less than a year on the job.

At a bond hearing Tuesday, a judge modified the conditions of Bloom's bond to allow him to work on firearms at a local gunsmith business and work on firearms, so long as he doesn't remove any guns from the shop. The judge also allowed Bloom access to the internet to search for work or log into virtual court hearings.

If convicted, Bloom, 31, could face up to a year in jail, thousands of dollars in fines or both. Soliciting for prostitution is an uncategorized petty offense and harassment for following a person in a public place is a class 1 misdemeanor under Colorado state law.

A department spokesman said an internal investigation will commence after the conclusion of the criminal trials. He also said he can't comment on the case until the trials have concluded.

The Vail Police Department said at least one of the charges stem from an incident that occurred at Local Joe's Pizza on March 25. Court records show the March 25 incident in question resulted in the harassment charge, while the original soliciting charge stemmed from a March 5 allegation.

The two cases were not connected, according to John 

A partially redacted arrest warrant for the harassment charge says Bloom allegedly harassed a bartender at Local Joe's Pizza. It says he showed his driver's license but also his police ID when he was carded at the bar. The victim told investigators he was intoxicated with "extremely" dilated pupils and possibly on a substance other than or in addition to alcohol.

The victim went on to tell investigators "Adam had made the comment several times that 'he just wanted to have sex with her.'" She told him "no," several times, but he allegedly persisted and touched her several times. When Bloom went to the bathroom, the victim ran out the door and tried to get away from the area, but when Bloom finished in the bathroom, he realized she left and chased her, she said.

She said she was concerned that he was carrying a gun since he told her he was a police officer and showed her his police ID. She also feared that he could look up where she lived and come to her house.

She told investigators that her level of fear pf Bloom and the possibility that he would stalk or even sexually assault her amounted to "10 out of 10." 

"She was on the verge of tears and shaking," the interviewing officer wrote in the arrest warrant.

A second witness reportedly corroborated to investigators that Bloom was intoxicated on something other than alcohol, that he was being "aggressive and irrational" and that he tried to fight with another patron for no apparent reason.

Alan Davis, an attorney for Bloom defended his client in a statement to CBS News Colorado Wednesday.

"Mr. Bloom is presumed innocent and adamantly denies these allegations. As a former law enforcement officer, Mr. Bloom believes in our justice system and is confident that the full story will eventually come to light. Unfortunately, due to these being open cases, Mr. Bloom is unable to comment further at this time," Davis said.

Prior to the March 2023 incidents, Bloom had stacked up a number of internal affairs complaints, even while he was still in field training, before becoming a certified police officer, according to internal affairs reports obtained by CBS News Colorado through an open records request.

One officer accused him of making inappropriate sexual remarks around her, making her uncomfortable, according to transcripts of internal affairs interviews. When asked how often this happened, the officer told a commander, "probably at least one a shift," until a field training officer was presumed to have spoken to Bloom.

She described it as "textbook" sexual harassment.

Bloom became a certified police officer on Sept. 2, 2022 but by July 28 of that year, the Vail Police Department had received six complaints about him. Those allegations include, but are not limited to:

• Spreading rumors about drug use and job performance about a colleague while threatening to "help end" a "female companion," "bury her" and "help dump her." The woman in question, herself a prior victim of domestic violence, which Bloom knew because of his work;
• Discussing his genitalia to a female colleague;
• Conduct while discussing another officer at the police station;
• Antagonizing a man who was on vacation in Vail outside a bar, allegedly calling the man "fat" and using homophobic slurs. That person told an internal affairs investigator. That man said in an email to the department that he'd "never been so verbally attacked and antagonized."

At the conclusion of those internal affairs investigations, police commanders ruled that Bloom had violated policies surrounding conduct; performance; laws, rules and orders; and the town's sexual harassment policy.

As a result of those findings, Bloom was suspended for 36 hours without pay, had to take sexual harassment and drug and alcohol awareness training and received a "last chance agreement" letter on Aug. 6, 2022.

After the alleged harassment incident, for which Bloom was criminally charged, he was fired on March 29.

Bloom is out on a $2,000 bond. He's due back in court on July 11.