Several Maypearl Police Department Sex Scandal Investigations In Three Years

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MAYPEARL (CBSDFW.COM) - Newly released records from the Maypearl Police Department reveal investigations into several sex scandals during the last three years.

The city's last police chief, Kevin Coffey, is currently awaiting trial on charges of sexually assaulting teenage girls.

Personnel records, though, show he himself investigated sexual misconduct within the department.

Maypearl resident Britannie Lyon said she filed a complaint against Officer John Bentley in 2013.

"He'd be like 'Come see me'," she said.

Lyon said she was dating Bentley at the time and admitted to meeting him on the job for sex. She said she filed the complaint at Coffey's request after learning Bentley might have been meeting other girls too.

According to her statement, Bentley on two or three occasions "stopped me… to 'frisk me' while on duty', which "consisted of hair pulling and feeling between my legs."

Records show the department fired Bentley, then reinstated him one month later.

In a letter to the mayor, asking for his job back, Bentley wrote, "It was stupid and unprofessional of me to lie as well as engage in the conduct we did while I was at work."

He argued, though, "other officers were given a chance to step down instead of being terminated."

Bentley wrote doing so allowed them to "find another job within law enforcement."

One example he referenced involved an affair between two married officers in 2012. After it ended, one was accused of sexual harassment for continuing to send his colleague "disturbing and disrespectful" text messages, voicemails, and photographs, according to a written reprimand, signed by Coffey.

One slur in particular directed at the female officer Coffey found showed a :"lack of respect to your fellow officer" and "to women in general."

Coffey wrote he was "extremely disappointed."

Both Bentley and the other officer went on to work for other police departments.

The Maypearl Police Department employs fewer than half a dozen officers.

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