Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam, it’s Yeardley. Welcome back to Part 2 and the conclusion of Blood Boiler. If you’ve already listened to Part 1 and it’s been a minute, don’t fret, here’s a little recap.

Robert: The suspect in this case, Darren, is a certified corrections deputy with the county next door. Victoria is looking at the car and it’s then when Darren gets out of the car and says hello to her. She recognizes Darren because she has met him a few times before over the years. But he suggests that he come in and be with her and that they watch a movie together. A little bit into the movie, Victoria recounts that Darren violently grabs her head and forces his tongue down her throat. Victoria pushes him away forcefully. She’s yelling at him, no. And she becomes very upset and starts to cry. Darren becomes more forceful. He’s kissing her again against her will and literally ripping her clothing off her body. Darren is assigned to court security, so he works in the courthouse every day.

Paul: So, he’s well known in the jurisdiction.

Robert: Yes. Darren is on a first name basis with all the players at the courthouse, all the judges, all the prosecutors and defense counsel. He knows all the players.

[music]

Yeardley: Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Yeardley: So, Robert, Darren is showing up at Bob’s house while you and your partner Chuck are in the house with Bob doing a controlled call with Darren. [Robert laughs] Oh, dude, that sounds like a giant cluster.

Robert: This has never happened to me before where we’re doing a recorded phone call and the suspect shows up. So, we are frantically closing curtains. Detective Chuck and I are literally on the ground hiding so we can’t be seen from the front door or the front window.

Yeardley: [laughs] It is like an episode of I Love Lucy or something.

Robert: And Detective Chuck and I are not small people either. [laughs]

Dan: It’s too bad you didn’t have a bike helmet and a backpack. And you’d play it off like you were on your mission and just happened to stop by.

Robert: That was a different chapter in my life.

[laughter]

So, anyway, this is fun too. And Dan, Dave and Paul will know about this too, but I don’t know if Yeardley does. So, one thing that is great is obviously detectives, we drive unmarked cars, right? And then another skill I was taught early on is you never park in front of the house you’re going to. So, just out of habit and custom, we park three, four houses away, and you walk a little bit. And this case may be the only time in my career where that was important. We parked three, four houses away, and we walked up, and that way, there’s no car that looks out of place at this house. So, fortunately, Bob refuses to open the door. He says through the door, “Hey, I told you not to come over here. I don’t want to see you go away.” But they continue talking on the phone.

Yeardley: So, does Darren go away or at least go back to his car and they continue the conversation.

Robert: Darren goes away and he sits in his car. He sits in his car in the driveway for quite a while and then ultimately, he drives away. And the whole time there, [Yeardley laughs] we’re still on the ground hiding out and every once in a while, I lift up a corner of the curtain and look out to see if he was still there. So, yeah, it was interesting. So, Darren does make some admissions though. He admits that a back rub turned into them going down a sexual path. He denies that he used any force with Victoria. Bob confronts Darren says, “Hey, I have another female friend who told me you did the exact same thing to her.” And Darren also denies that. Bob confronts Darren about why he’s having unprotected sex when he knows he has an STI.

And Darren says, “You know what? I always use protection, except for this one time with Victoria.” Bob confronts Darren, saying that Victoria says that she was crying this whole time. Why would she be crying? Why would you think that was okay? And why do you think that equals consent? And Darren explains that away, saying, “Hey, she was crying because of her relationship with you, not because of anything that was happening in the moment with me.” So, he totally has a spin on that one.

Yeardley: This guy.

Robert: And then Bob confronts Darren. And this is where we get our first solid information about what’s going on at work is Bob confronts Darren about how he’s bragged for years about screwing clerks and a judge in the courthouse, Darren spins that to say, “Well, gosh, Bob, doesn’t that just show you that I don’t have to force anyone to have sex?” I have multiple women who are beating down my door. There is no need to force anyone to have sex.

Yeardley: The arrogance is just- [crosstalk]

Robert: It gets better.

Yeardley: -shocking.

Robert: If you’re not already convinced that Darren’s not a good guy. Darren says, “Bob, I’m not even attracted to Victoria. I didn’t force her to do anything.” But Darren still asks Bob for forgiveness. Even though, he’s saying nothing bad happened on his part, he still asks Bob for forgiveness. And that’s how that call ends.

Yeardley: I just want to say along those lines, Darren asking Bob for forgiveness. Darren says, “I didn’t want to disrespect you.”

Robert: Yes.

Yeardley: Right.

Robert: Yes.

Yeardley: There’s no consideration for Victoria,-

Robert: Zero.

Yeardley: -that I was disrespecting Victoria and having my way with her. Oh, this guy.

Robert: Zero. Yeah. The only thing that Darren apologizes for is for betraying Bob, yep.

Yeardley: Exactly, full.

Robert: And detectives know that when you start following where the facts lead you, sometimes they go somewhere totally different, right? You’re just following what information people are telling you. And I like to end interviews with, “Well, who else knows about this? Who else should I talk to?” That kind of stuff. And you get leads, and you might go a different direction. So, when I was assigned this case, I didn’t know we’d be going to the courthouse and knocking on doors at the courthouse. So, here we are. So, we get to a courthouse, and we interview many court clerks and people who work at the courthouse. And it would not be an understatement to say they did not want to talk to us. This is very uncomfortable. And they don’t want to talk to us.

And they also know that anything they admit could mean criminal charges, and it could mean the ending of their career. And so, people did not want to talk to us. Fortunately, several did, but they weren’t happy about it.

Yeardley: And, Robert, just to be clear, the reason that these sexual acts might be the end of their career is because now they’re breaking policy, even if it’s consensual.

Robert: Yeah.

Dave: Official misconduct is what’s coming to my mind.

Robert: Yeah. So, we have a crime in our state called official misconduct. And it basically says, “If you’re a public servant and you’re doing naughty things on company time, then it’s not just a policy violation, it’s potentially criminal.” And so that comes up. We’re going to talk about that. [laughs] So, as I’m talking to court clerk #1, she admits that she’s known Darren for years through working in the courthouse as a deputy. She remembers one time telling him about some relationship issues that she was having at home. And what do you think Darren does? He’s the listening ear. He moves right in to console her and comfort her. And she says the two of them engaged in an affair. As time goes on, she decides that she wants to save her marriage. So, she tries to end things with Darren.

Darren kind of pushy and doesn’t want to end things with her. And she says that ultimately her marriage fails at the same time that Darren’s third marriage is failing. And so, then they engage in a kind of a more traditional relationship. They begin dating, but they never live together. She says in the back of her mind, she knows he has a poor reputation around the courthouse, that he’s a player, that he is having sexual relationships with all the women at the courthouse. I may have exaggerated and said that we had already spoken to many of them already, but I was just asking her, in your opinion, who else would it beneficial for us to talk to? And she provided more names.

She is also the first person to tell me the name of the judge that we had heard about already so many times. This court clerk is also beneficial because she recalled several times where she was having sex with Darren, where she told him no repeatedly, and he continued. So, there is now a pattern, which didn’t surprise us, but there is now a pattern with another actual victim now where they were having sex and Darren did not take, no. This court clerk described Darren as being very aggressive and in control. She said there were times where he slapped her so hard it would knock her jaw out of alignment, causing her pain that would last until the next day. So, she’s describing just not anything she wanted to have happen to her.

She described a time where she had to go to the hospital because of an injury that Darren caused to her vagina. And she described this kind of forceful injury occurring about eight times over the length of their relationship before she finally got rid of him. She said each of these times she would tell Darren to stop, and he just wouldn’t. And this court clerk said she had never made a report to law enforcement. So, again, this just highlights how under reported these sexual assaults are, even when they involve physical trauma. This court clerk, she said that Darren was very clear on their first date. He told her, “Hey, I have herpes.” First date. And she admitted to making out with Darren and providing oral sex to him in the workplace. And she said this happened several times.

She told us that in the courthouse, she has an office with a door that locks. And so, they would just go in there, lock the door, and engage in those activities. And she said when Darren would come by while he was working and want oral sex, and she didn’t want to, he would guilt her into it and talk her into it, and he would often just show up at her office and ask for sexual favors. Darren had also told her that he was a Navy SEAL. You know, he was this big, tough guy. And later we find out that wasn’t the case. But that’s what he told this court clerk. And this court clerk was very disappointed at the moment because she says, “You know, Darren’s in the running right now to be promoted to sergeant, right?”

She says that’s a promotional process going on right now. And I did not know that. This court clerk is very distraught. She’s worried about losing her job based on her interview with us. And in fact, after I left the courthouse and drove back to my office, I got a call from a lawyer who now said he was representing her. And he made it very clear that she wanted to cooperate, but this attorney wanted all future contact to go through him. I later ended up talking to the prosecutor on this case about trying to provide these court clerks with letters of immunity so that they would be protected, able to tell the truth, but not have to worry about being criminally charged or losing their job.

I feel, as someone who wears a badge, that police officers should be held to a higher standard than someone who’s not a police officer. These court clerks, yeah, they’re violating policy, sure. But I feel that’s a little different when you carry a badge and a gun and you’re in a uniform, and you are definitely not supposed to do that. I feel like it shocks the conscience to be doing what Darren was doing at work.

Paul: Hey, Robert. With court clerk #1, how far in the past was that relationship with Darren?

Robert: Their contact had been within the last couple years, but it was just outside of the statute of limitations. And I think you’ve discussed that on this show, what that is. Basically, the state is required to commence a prosecution within a certain time period after a crime, or it just goes away like it never happened.

Yeardley: And in this case, the crime is official misconduct.

Robert: Yes. Yes.

Yeardley: Okay.

Robert: Yeah. So, I guess I’m going to jump in here too, and say again, I’m working with a prosecutor from the Department of Justice, someone I’ve never met, total stranger, I’m a total stranger to them. They don’t know my work, they don’t know reputation, they don’t know anything. They’re basically, from the get go, just like, “All right, keep me posted.” They weren’t really interested in the day to day. And this is with prosecutors 1 and 2, because, like I said, this turned over three different times at the attorney general’s office for some reason.

So, I go interview court clerk #2. She provides a statement. She says, obviously, it’s well known around the office that Darren has slept with a lot of people in the building. I fell for that. And it was because of him that I learned to not pee in the company pond. She admits that they had sex in a courthouse in a jury room with the door locked. She describes it in great detail. She says that Darren’s in uniform, that they couldn’t talk very much because he had to listen to the radio in case he got a call. We got to be careful. You know, we got to be careful and quiet. And she also says that it had been several years ago, and it’s well outside the statute of limitations for this court clerk also.

She says that after she told Darren she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, he’s approached her several times in the subsequent years about how they should get back together and hook up again. When I ask her, “Hey, who else should I talk to about this case? Who else has information?” She mentions court clerk #1 and then she also mentions the same judge. So, this is becoming now pretty solid information.

[Break 1]

Now, I’m not going to lie. I really wanted to interview the judge. I really did. I didn’t want to miss this one, [Yeardley laughs] but I happened to be in trial that week. And so detective Chuck, my awesome partner, he goes and he interviews the judge and a court clerk #3. So, detective Chuck interviews court clerk #3 and she provides a statement, but she’s very, very upset that she’s being contacted by the police at work. Now, detective Chuck, he’s a brilliant detective. He probably taught me more than anyone. He’s been a great mentor to me. And he kindly explains to her, “Well, it’s about something that happened at work.” So, we thought talking to you at work would be appropriate.

Yeardley: [laughs] I mean.

Robert: I could just imagine him saying that she vehemently denies having sex with Darren. In fact, she wants to know who said that, because she wants to sue him for defamation. That’s just–

Yeardley: This is #3.

Robert: This is court clerk #3. Yeah. And so detective Chuck asks her, “Who else should we talk to who else has knowledge about this?” And she says, “Well, court clerk #1, court clerk #2, and you should also talk to a judge, but I better not say which one.” And so detective Chuck, he’s always ahead of the curve. He’s really smart. And he goes, “Oh, well, I have a 02:00 PM with judge so and so.” And court clerk #3 instantly goes, “Yep, that’s her.”

[laughter]

Dave: Snitch.

Robert: Yeah. He’s a smart guy. So, again, I’m really sad to miss this interview, but I’m in trial on a different case. And Detective Chuck interviews the judge. The judge, of course, is hesitant to speak to Detective Chuck, but she admits to dating Darren, although she says, “I really don’t want my colleagues to know anything about this relationship.” And Detective Chuck tells her, “Well, it’s pretty well known.” Like, pretty much everyone in the courthouse knows.

Yeardley: Cat’s out of the bag.

Robert: Yeah. And Detective Chuck asks this judge whether she had sex in the courthouse with Darren and she denies it. Detective Chuck attacks it from a different angle. And he says, “Well, just curious, has Darren ever suggested that you guys have sex at the courthouse?” And the judge paused for a long time and then changed the subject without answering. And Detective Chuck told me this happened at least three times in the interview where he would bring that up, she would divert the conversation, and then he would bring it up 10 minutes later, and she would again divert the conversation. And I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on what we think about that.

Dan: I mean, you got to remember Detective Chuck is interviewing a lawyer.

Robert: Yeah.

Yeardley: Right.

Dan: She’s sharp. She has an idea of where this is headed.

Robert: Yep. And she also has presided over trials involving these same things. So, it’s interesting on this case how knowledge of the system greatly impacts how everyone’s responding. We’re outside of our normal rules, but we’re still in the same system. [laughs]

Yeardley: Yeah. That is interesting. And it seems to me that even if the clerks are given immunity so that they can speak freely, that the judge, simply because she is a judge and should therefore be held to an even higher standard of conduct, should not be granted immunity, right? Because, I mean, what are we doing here?

Robert: And the judge is elective, right? This could be the end also for her. So, I’m sure she’s worried about that. But I think she’s also really worried about professional embarrassment and what her colleagues are going to think.

Yeardley: Fuck around and find out, lady.

Robert: Exactly. And Detective Chuck’s last interaction with the judge before he leaves, she stops him and she asks if he could please keep her name out of the report.

Yeardley: The answer would be no.

Robert: The answer is a big fat no. No, you get treated just like everyone else. So, we talked to court clerk #4. Court clerk #4 admits that she had a sexual relationship with Darren outside of work. And she remembers that Darren had approached her at work and tried to kiss her at work, completely out of the blue. Sound familiar? So, again, I’m noticing patterns that I think would be very helpful if this case were to end up in front of a jury. So, this court clerk #4, she refused Darren’s advances, reminded him, “We’re at work. What are you doing? This is highly inappropriate.” But she recalled that she had to physically push his hands away and loudly tell him to stop. She remembered having to say no multiple times.

And again, this is in the workplace during business hours. There are other people around. But she never reported this to anyone, including her supervisor or to law enforcement. And we ask her who else we should talk to. And she gives us the list of court clerks one through three and the judge.

Yeardley: And the judge. [laughs]

Robert: She also tells us in her mind that the judge is possibly mentally ill and had engaged in stalking behaviors with Darren. And I said, “Well, tell us more about that.” And she said that the judge continuously was calling Darren and showing up at Darren’s house after Darren had told her not to show up to his house. And it was her understanding from Darren that he’d had to report this to his captain at work because he wanted the contact to stop. So, this was very, very interesting information and we’re also wondering if this case ever went to court, which court clerk would be available for the courtroom? Because there’s so many conflicts of interest here.

[laughter]

There’s way too many conflicts going on.

[laughter]

Dave: Or, lots of deputies to be serving the judge with a restraining order as well.

[laughter]

Robert: It gets awkward very fast. So, at this point, again, I’m keeping in contact. Not every day, but I’m keeping in contact at least once a week with Darren’s captain, over internal affairs, and just keeping him updated. And that contact was very helpful because he would get little nuggets and share with me. And I think maybe if I wasn’t keeping him in the loop, that he might forget or might not mention these things that kept coming up.

Yeardley: And where’s Darren’s captain getting these nuggets from?

Robert: So, coworkers were chatting, and, of course, Darren had told some people and police agencies, gossip spreads really fast. So, I think Darren must have been telling people about how he was being unfairly targeted or what he suspected was going on. I don’t know. So, anyway, I get Darren’s agency policies prohibiting sexual conduct on duty, and we won’t be surprised. It’s not allowed. It’s clearly in their policy. And so, his agency, at this point, decides that they should put him on admin leave. So, he’s finally put on admin leave. But of course, now he knows that something’s escalated and that he is under the microscope.

So, I realized with him being put on admin leave, gosh, there’s more interviews I got to do really quickly before he poisons the well. And so, I reach out to ex-wives 1, 2, and 3.

Yeardley: Darren’s ex-wives?

Robert: Darren’s ex-wives 1, 2, and 3. And fortunately, all of them are willing to talk to me, which surprised me, but I was happy. So, ex-wife #1 says she met Darren in middle school. He never, ever pressured or forced her into having sex. Ex-wife #1 says his job in the Navy was not being a SEAL, but being a chaplain’s aide. And ex-wife #1 says she was very surprised by the allegations. Ex-wife #2 says that Darren never pressured her into sex, never forced her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Darren told her right away that he had herpes, like, immediately when they met, and she also was very surprised by the allegations.

Ex-wife #3 says she met Darren while they were both working in the jail. She was in the medical field and he was a deputy in the jail. She said he was always appropriate at work, always respected her boundaries, never forced or pressured her into doing anything. And she also was very surprised by the allegations.

Yeardley: So, I want to ask Paul something then. Is there a pattern or something that you recognize in a predator who never assaults the person they’ve chosen like a spouse, but only gets off on assaulting people who are outside of that supposedly sanctified relationship?

Paul: I mean, we see it both ways with the various different types of predators whether you’re talking rapists or killers. You have these men that are entered into, let’s say, a marital relationship, and they never do anything with their wife that is outside of a normal relationship. They are going outside the relationship to carry out their fantasies. But then we also have these offenders that are abusing their wives in a variety of ways. Sometimes it mirrors what they are doing when they’re attacking strangers. I can’t speak to what would be the reason for one predator versus another to carry out the abuse patterns and the violence on their spouse versus not.

Yeardley: Right. So, all three wives are like, “I can’t believe Darren is being accused of this.”

Paul: Yes.

Robert: Yes. And it highlighted to me just a reminder of how each of us, we have a public self, and we have a private self. So, his public self is going out, putting on that badge as a credential every day, that symbol of public trust, when really, he’s not someone I would trust to cut my lawn. So, I’m still getting a lukewarm response from the DOJ prosecutor. Again, someone I’ve never met before, someone I don’t know anything about. She’s not really excited about the case. Well, now that I have this official misconduct stuff locked down, I am excited. I get her on the phone and I tell her, “Hey, I have actual victims. They are willing to testify and they’re having sex in the courthouse.” Darren probably had sex with the judge, the judge won’t tell us. And I’m just flabbergasted. She wants nothing to do with it. She goes, “Robert, how is this any different than someone playing fantasy football on their work computer?”

Yeardley: What?

Robert: That’s literally what she said.

Yeardley: That’s disgusting. This is why victims don’t come forward.

Robert: Exactly. And I’m thinking, because this shocks the conscience. And she told me, like, “Nope, it’s just the same as if you’re playing fantasy football on work time. It’s no different than that.” So, anyway, it caught me just completely off guard because you know I was talking to my local prosecutors about this for advice and just running past them, and they were all ready to indict Darren on this stuff because I asked him, how would you handle this if this was your case? And they’re like, “Duh, we’d have him fired and we would indict him.” And so, this DOJ prosecutor just was not very impressed by this at all.

[Break 2]

. So, you’re working lots of other cases while this case is going through. One day, me and another detective got asked to investigate a local police chief who had been accused of DUI. Obviously, it would be an awkward scenario, but his own officers did not arrest him. So, we got asked to go follow up on this. So, we’re out interviewing this chief who has an attorney. The attorney, by way of introduction, told me, “Hey, I’ve only been in private practice a short time. I used to work at DOJ.” So, I said, “Oh, well, by the way, do you know this prosecutor?” The one who is, I just mentioned.

Yeardley: The one who likens Darren’s assaults to people playing fantasy football on their work computers?

Robert: Yes.

Yeardley: Right.

Robert: And he says, “Yeah. Why are you asking?” And I said, “Well, you know, I have this case XYZ,” and she doesn’t seem very interested. And he goes, “That’s my wife.”

Yeardley: Oh.

Robert: So, open mouth, insert foot kind of thing. It was not cool. And again, I work in a large metro area. This is bad luck, anyway. So, I was trying to ask him what he thought of her and his opinion was, obviously, that’s my wife.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Oh, God. On the other hand, you hope that he’s a little bit glad somebody’s willing to speak truth to power, but probably not.

Robert: No, it did not go well. It did not go well. So, the DOJ attorney that switched to a second one switched to a third one throughout the course of this. No good reasons, just people leaving and going to work other places.

Yeardley: And what sort of timeframe now are we talking about? Is this a year, this investigation or is it a matter of months?

Robert: Yeah, just a matter of months. In fact, we’re only a month into the investigation when Detective Chuck and I go knock on Darren’s door. We show up, no cars in the driveway, no answer. So, we go, probably have lunch or dinner, come back, no cars, no answer. And then finally, we come back about 8:30 at night and Darren’s car is there. And as predicted, we knock on the door. He wants nothing to do with us. He won’t talk to us about Victoria’s allegation. And again, Detective Chuck, he is always ahead of the curve. He goes, “Okay, if we can’t talk to you about Victoria, can we please talk to you about official misconduct at work?” Darren doesn’t like that either. He says, “No, he won’t talk to us.”

And my next question, because I like to plan ahead too, I said, “Hey, Darren, in the near future, I might be asking you to turn yourself in. Is that something you’ll do if I ask you to? Because I don’t want to embarrass you at work.” And he said, “I wouldn’t be embarrassed. You just do whatever you have to do.” Do whatever you have to do as you close the door on us. So, I think it’s the next day I have an attorney who reaches out to me and says that he’s representing Darren and obviously not to contact Darren anymore. And this attorney I happen to know by reputation, he practices in my county also.

And I am confident that he’s just someone who has interacted with Darren so many times at the courthouse that Darren just asked him, “Hey, I’m being accused of something. Would you represent me?” And so, this is a decent defense attorney that I’ve dealt with on several cases over the years. So, I wrapped this case up with a neat little bow. Obviously, we’re not going to get anything out of Darren. And so, I send it off to, not my local DA’s office again, but to the Attorney General at the Department of Justice. And I ask her to consider a long list of charges. Rape in the first degree, sexual abuse in the various degrees, official misconduct, reckless endangering, assault in the fourth degree, and any others you might want to add on there.

And she says, “Well, let’s get Victoria’s medical and counseling records.” So, I’m able to obtain those. As I explained, Darren’s on leave. His captain reaches out and says, “Yep, I can confirm we have his badge and his gun.” Darren hires the lawyer. And there was one other person that I was hoping to talk to, and that was Darren’s best friend at work. The captain told me that he was very close with one of his coworkers. I reach out to this guy several times and he ignores me. And then finally I start telling him in the voicemail, “I’m just going to come to your work and talk to you. Then I don’t want to, but I’m just going to show up at your work since you’re avoiding me.” This friend hires a lawyer, and the lawyer says, “He’s not talking. Leave him alone.”

So, I don’t know what that friend has to say, but sounds like a good grand jury witness, potentially. So, again, this case is finally moving along when the captain reaches out to me and says that a retired coworker of Darren is now calling in and wants to talk to the investigator. So, lots of people know Darren, right? [laughs] He’s very well known. So, I have no idea when these people call in what they’re going to say. And this person that called in says that Darren used to be dating their mother. And when this person was young, Darren physically abused her. And this young person made two reports. Nothing was ever done about it.

She thought it was because Darren was in law enforcement, but she says Darren forced her in the backyard, threw her around like a rag doll, pretty much beat her up, gave her a black eye, split her lip, and nothing came of it, even though multiple reports were made to Child Protective Services.

Yeardley: I’m sorry, Darren did that to the girl who was the daughter or Darren did that to the mom.

Robert: Darren did it to the daughter of someone he was dating.

Yeardley: Oh.

Robert: Yeah. So, Child Protective Services did come out and they said, “Hey, lady, either Darren can’t be here or your daughter can’t be here.” And so, you have to choose. And, of course, mom chose Darren. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love watching Dave shake his head. [laughs] You knew where that was going. Yeah.

Dave: The live show, we talked about patterns on both sides of this. You know, victims, their families, and then on the other side, the suspects, we get the same patterns. It is the way it is.

Yeardley: So, Robert, can you explain that? Child Protective Services, how do you choose Darren over your daughter?

Robert: Well, they come out with good intentions, and they say, “Hey, we need to have a safety plan here.” So, in order to keep this child safe, we either need to remove the child from the home or we need to remove the offender from the home. And mom was not willing to say that she would keep her daughter away from Darren. And so, when I’m talking to the CPS worker who handled the case, and this was years ago, the CPS workers said, “No, I’m confident police were involved.” Police responded, not to the house.

So, I called the agency, and they dug through the archives, and they said, that report was purged. We don’t have it anymore. So, anyway, lost that. Another retired deputy from Darren’s agency came forward and said that Darren and a female friend had been drinking together at a bar in the city. And her friend later told her that as the three separated for the night, that Darren had forced her friend to provide oral sex to the friend. And her friend said that she was very confident that had she not complied with his demands that he would have raped her. And so, she went along with it. She said it was in a car, it was on the public street, and unfortunately, the friend refused to speak with me or get involved in any way.

So, I lost out on someone there who, you know, out of embarrassment or shame or whatever, just didn’t want to be involved.

Yeardley: Robert, it’s incredible to me that all these people Darren has assaulted are in or close to law enforcement in some way. My question is, “How do you widen that net in your search for victims?” Because it seems highly likely that Darren would have victims outside of law enforcement too.

Robert: Yes. And so, once he’s put on paid leave and once he said he’s not going to talk to us, word got out. And as you talk to more people, obviously word gets around and travels around. So, people were calling in, and we may have done a media release also looking for more victims, because this was one of those cases where there were already lots of victims. And so, we were confident there would be more victims. So, another retired deputy comes forward. The information she wanted to provide was that she said, “I believe that Darren was caught having sex with a city police officer in the courthouse.”

And she said that as far as she and Darren were concerned, Darren flirted with her at work, but it was very harmless and only plain. But she said it was at a retirement party that Darren did something that caused her to call. She said Darren approached her at work, grabbed her, and began forcibly kissing her. Sound familiar? So, we’re getting these patterns over and over and over. She says she was absolutely stunned. There was absolutely never any desire for relationship with him or anything. She pushed him off. She walked away. And she thought to herself, he’s just being drunk and stupid.

Well, later, Darren sees her in the parking lot. He pulls her into his car forcibly, puts his hand down her pants, causing her pain. She said he was very angry. She told him no several times. And she was scared. She says, “Because of his size, I didn’t think I could fight him off.” She’s also a deputy, and so she says, “This is going to be one of those times I’m going to need to use deadly force.” And so, she, in her mind, is not going with the thing Darren wants to do. She says, “I’m going to have to use extreme violence to get this guy to stop.” And so, she had a plan, and she knew what she was going to do. And she says, “I’m going to rip his eyes out. I’m going to go straight for his eyes. I’m going to stick my fingers in there. I’m going to find a pen, and I’m going to stick it in there, whatever I can do.”

And he still overpowers her and forces her to have oral sex, which she says, “That’s way better than being physically beaten or vaginally raped.” She has never told anyone about this. Not her agency, not local police, no one. She never told anyone about this until she saw the news coverage and the media coverage. And she said after this– even though they worked together for several years after this, she never talked to Darren again. She said she felt he was extremely dangerous, had no business being in law enforcement, believed he probably had a lot of unreported victims.

[Break 3]

So, this case obviously has a lot of tangents and a lot of things going on. And one day I’m at work, and I get a call from Victoria, and she says, “Hey, something just happened.” And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, what’s going on now?” And she says, “I might have done something stupid.” She goes, “I went over to Bob’s house. He wasn’t answering his phone. And I went over to Bob’s house and there was a car in the driveway I didn’t recognize. And so, I let myself in, and I found Bob in bed with another woman.” And she did not react well. In fact, she tried to wake up Bob, but Bob was pretty intoxicated and wouldn’t wake up. So, she ends up throwing a glass or two of wine at this couple in bed. Bob finally wakes up, follows her out to the driveway. He’s completely naked. There’s yelling and screaming. The police respond to the house, and Bob, who’s a witness in our case, is arrested for domestic violence against Victoria.

Yeardley: So, I thought Victoria and Bob were through, but Victoria has a moment of jealousy.

Robert: Yes.

Yeardley: Splashes them with wine. And then does Bob actually lay hands on her in the driveway, even though he’s out there naked?

Robert: He does. He is trying to get Victoria’s phone from her. And during the process of grabbing her, he leaves some bruises on her arm and wrist. And he does break her phone. And so, he’s arrested for some charges for that.

Yeardley: Not ideal.

Robert: I know it was a lot of drama. So, I want to corroborate everything I can. So, I go to that city police department, I get Victoria’s phone, I take it to our forensics folks, and they say it’s too damaged to have anything. I wanted to see if there were text messages, any other evidence to see, it’s too damaged to do anything. So, this throws a wrench in the prosecution. The DOJ attorney is now, “Well, gosh, we want to rely on Bob as a witness. And now he’s been arrested for assaulting our survivor, Victoria.” So, anyway, the new DOJ attorney. I can’t remember if this is #2 or #3. She says, “Before we go to grand jury, I want to do a FETI interview with Victoria. I wasn’t familiar with this. This was several years ago. I didn’t know what that was.

I learned it was a forensic experiential trauma interview. And this particular attorney teaches this topic and how to do these interviews throughout the state and throughout the country. And so, she wants to do one. Now, I’ll tell you, in my whole career, I have had exactly zero other DAs ever trying to do an interview on my case. There’s a clear distinction, and there’s a clear distinction for a reason.

Yeardley: And what is that reason?

Robert: Well, we don’t want a DA to be called as a witness ever. How can you prosecute a case if you’re a witness to a case? So, we don’t want that. It’s not good practice. We have division of labor and division of responsibilities for a reason.

Paul: Having worked at a DA’s office and seeing firsthand, prosecutors avoid becoming witnesses like the plague. They will do everything in their power to avoid anything like that. And that’s where the DA investigators often get inserted into cases to be that intermediary, that buffer, so the information can be obtained. And now you have an investigator who’s a witness and not the DA, the prosecutor.

Yeardley: I see. That makes sense.

Robert: So, this attorney conducts this FETI interview, and I’m sitting in there, and I’m supposed to take notes and record it and write up the report on it, which I do. And the statements are consistent. I don’t think we got anything else from Victoria that we didn’t already know, but that’s what this prosecutor wanted to do. So, we did it. We got counseling records from Victoria that showed that she went to months and months of counseling and attended every week, and there were attendance records, and she was very consistent with what she did. And at this point, I’m like, “What else is this prosecutor wanting? What could they possibly want?” So, finally, we go to grand jury, and it’s eight months after the initial report that Victoria made, we go to grand jury, and of course, there’s lots to talk about, right?

We have the official misconduct. We have all the sex crimes. We have possibly sex crimes against these other people that we’ve talked to. And we’re there for several hours, and then the attorney comes out and she says, “I’m discontinuing the grand jury. I’m not going to have him vote.” That’s not a good thing. And it’s highly unusual to not let the grand jury vote after they have the facts.

Yeardley: And this is the prosecutor saying this.

Robert: Yeah, this is the prosecutor. And again, this is all these people coming in by appointment to come testify. And some of them just weren’t in the same building at least, but others had to travel in. So, anyway, she discontinues grand jury, but doesn’t excuse them and basically just says, “I want more time to think about this.” And she doesn’t really have a reason. And so, a really weird thing happens is prosecutor #2 also leaves the Attorney General’s office. So, now we get prosecutor #3 and she has to come in and read a lengthy case file and then listen to the first grand jury to pick up the second one, which she does six months later.

So, we’re now 14 months down the road from when Victoria makes her first report, and she lets the grand juror’s vote. But after all of our limitations placed on us, the statute of limitations on most of those crimes had all passed, but she lets the second grand jury panel vote, and they indict Darren on several charges. But there are lesser charges. There’s sex abuse in the second degree, which is still a felony, but not as serious as sexual abuse in the first degree, which has a mandatory prison sentence. They indict on that. They indict on five counts of sexual abuse in the third degree, which is a really weak charge. It’s basically touching, basically touching of the genitals for a sexual purpose, and then the crime of harassment, which is offensive physical contact. So, these are really, really weak charges. It’s pretty disappointing.

Yeardley: Why?

Robert: Who knows? I know prosecutors to be very aggressive. And so, this was just really unusual for me to have these lesser charges. Now, one thing that I was happy about is I know that sex abuse to being a felony, I know that Darren’s career is going to be over. He’s not going to work in law enforcement anymore. The state agency that certifies police officers, they’ll be done with him. So, I’m confident, like, that’s a career ender. So, I call his defense attorney, and Darren surrenders to me at my office the next day. I book him into jail, and he’s in there a few hours before he bails out. Obviously, he’s had months and months to put together some bail money and be ready.

And obviously his bail amount was a lot lower than we anticipated it was going to because of the lesser charges. The media coverage is instantaneous. And they’re all over this. They are all over this. After he’s officially arrested and we get more calls coming in. Usually, media releases work two ways. One, it’s crickets, and on the other hand, it’s really busy. And this one, the phone was just ringing off the hook. So, a woman calls in and says that she had dated Darren several years ago. He had physically abused her son and threatened him while Darren was armed with his gun. And several other calls coming in telling us to go talk to people we’d already talked to.

So, that made me feel pretty good about the investigation. So, I’ll tell you the end and how this case resolved. It was a long case with many twists and turns. Darren ultimately agrees to give up his law enforcement certification, and he works a deal with the Department of Justice to plead guilty not to any of these sex crimes or any of the crimes that he was indicted for. But to a crime that we have, it’s a very odd, very confusing crime called coercion. And on the plus side, it’s a felony. But it also means that if the attorney allows Darren to plea to this, then he would never have to register as a sex offender. So, it would be a felony. It’s going to end his career. He’s going to voluntarily give up his certification, but he would never have to register as a sex offender.

Now, my DA’s office, they would say no. They’d be like, “Nope, we need to have that protection.” The Department of Justice said, yeah, “We’re good with that.”

Yeardley: So, Robert, when Darren is allowed to plead to coercion, that lesser charge is introduced by the prosecutor. Like, it’s the prosecutor that’s lowered the bar.

Robert: No, sorry. Just to be clear on that. So, once the grand jury indicts on certain charges, the prosecutor can’t change those charges. So, it was the defense that says, “Hey, we could avoid a trial if you’ll let my client plead to coercion.” And the DOJ attorney said, “Yes.” So, the grand jury was fine with those sex-related charges. I think here the prosecutor was focused on, “Hey, we can avoid a trial, which would be long and lengthy with all the witnesses that were talking about,” and it’s a felony. And that’s kind of where they were hanging their hat on is I don’t have to drive up to that part of the state every day for multiple weeks to have a trial. And we don’t have to put Victoria on the stand, and Darren is willing to take accountability for a felony. And I think that’s all she was focused on when she said, “Yes, we’ll allow him to plead.”

Yeardley: Does Victoria get a vote in whether or not those charges are appropriate?

Robert: That also depends on the prosecutor. They’re required by law to discuss a plea deal, but they don’t have to listen to the victim so they can shop it to him. And, “Hey, here’s what I’m thinking, and do you have any input on it?” But sometimes those conversations are steered towards, like, “Here’s what we’re doing. I just wanted to let you know, kind of thing.”

Dave: Here’s the elephant in the room. Okay. Robert mentioned that there was a press release and the media really ran with this thing. And you’ve got a prosecutor probably doesn’t have a whole lot of experience in trial, and they don’t want to lose with all this attention they don’t want to lose. They want the win. So, the win for them is pleading this down to coercion and they can say, “Hey, I won, I got a conviction.”

Yeardley: I could have tried this case with the amount of evidence that Robert collected. [Robert laughs]

Dave: A large quantity of prosecutors are very risk averse when it comes to these things.

Yeardley: Yeah, I’m learning that [Dave laughs] rough.

Dave: Don’t despair.

Yeardley: I do despair. I despair a lot. [laughs]

Robert: So, Darren basically pled guilty to coercion. He obviously doesn’t have any criminal history, and so he was sentenced to three years of probation. And not only that, guess what happens after he successfully completes his probation? He can have this reduced to a misdemeanor and have it stay as a misdemeanor on his record.

Yeardley: I’m speechless.

Robert: Yes. So, one of the reasons I wanted to highlight this case was just to show that despite hard work and despite everything working as it should, sometimes you get really crappy resolutions. And so, here’s a guy who is offended against– I mean, I even stopped counting in my notes preparing for this. I stopped counting how many victims there were. There were so many. And that’s what he got was three years of probation. And he is not required to register as a sex offender. So, just a really crappy outcome.

Yeardley: I’m devastated.

Dave: You are at the mercy of the detective, the prosecutor, and the judge who is associated [laughs] with your case as well.

Yeardley: God.

Dave: Whether or not they’re competent, the right thing to do here is make sure Darren never works as a cop and that he has to register as a sex offender. And I’m wondering if, because there’s a judge involved and there’s such scandal at a certain courthouse that backchannels people are talking about, maybe we don’t want to open up Pandora’s box and get people to start digging. Is there a way to make this go away type thing.

Robert: Well, and to your point, Dave, these DOJ prosecutors, they prosecute cases all over the state, right? So, they also don’t know anyone at the courthouse. In fact, she didn’t know where to go to report to grand jury. She didn’t know– Okay, now we have this signed indictment. What do I do with it now? She was literally asking courthouse staff, what do I do with this now? And so, they also– they don’t have the advantage of having the relationships there either. That would be challenging on its own. But, yeah, I was disappointed. And obviously, you can imagine Victoria’s reaction when she learned that too. It’s very disappointing, very disappointing altogether.

Yeardley: She musters up the courage to tell you everything and then she’s completely let down by the system.

Robert: Yep, yep.

Dave: And when the listeners hear that, to be a fly on the wall in someone’s car, and they’re like, “What the fuck?” [laughs]

Yeardley: Yeah.

Robert: And I feel like our state has a reputation for being lenient, shall we say, on offenders, which was why for years I was so happy doing the child abuse cases. There is some nasty stuff you have to look at and live through, but these sentences were phenomenal. So, our state does throw the book at people who offend against children, but against other adults, not so much.

Dave: Yeah.

Paul: Robert, I’m wondering, when Darren is arrested for the sex abuse 2 felony, does that in your state automatically cause his DNA to be collected? Because listening to Darren, his crimes over the, I’m assuming, couple decades, with some of those earlier crimes, I mean, there’s no question he’s a predator. And he may have, in all likelihood unreported crimes, whether they be with acquaintances or with strangers. He could be out there prowling, committing crimes very similar to Golden State Killer.

Robert: Yeah. And that wouldn’t have been known, but for this. So, yeah, fortunately, even pleading to the other crime that he did plead to, it did require him to submit a sample.

Paul: Okay, so at least he’s up in CODIS.

Robert: Yeah. It’s any felony upon conviction.

Paul: Okay. So, at some point, a case may be worked and it gets tied to Darren.

Robert: Correct. Yeah.

Dave: Robert, I want to applaud you on– investigating a case like this is a lot of logistics and it’s strategy. I didn’t second guess one move that you did. I mean, going through this, like, who am I going to interview next? And how you kind of plot that out and navigate that whole thing. It’s so complex and I think you did a wonderful job.

Robert: Well, thank you. Yeah, I had a really good team. And as you guys know, we’re always bouncing ideas off each other. And what would you do? And Detective Chuck is really, really great. And so, I would run something by him, and he’d be like, “That’s stupid. Don’t do that.” And so, then I would do the right thing. Yeah.

[laughter]

Dave: Once you start talking to folks, the minute you made your way to the courthouse to start interviewing clerks, I was like, “Well, Darren’s going to know now.” But you have to think in these terms of being four or five steps ahead, like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. When I speak to this person, they might call this person. And now everybody in that orbit is all filled in and they’re expecting the cops to call now. Like it’s such a delicate balance.

Robert: : Yeah.

Yeardley: That is just excellent work, Robert.

Paul: Yes. Great job.

Yeardley: Yeah. But boy. Oh, I, mm.

Robert: Yeah.

Yeardley: I’m grumpy.

Dave: What happened to the judge?

Yeardley: Yeah.

Robert: The judge. I actually meant to look if she was still on the bench. I think she is. I thought I looked her up, maybe I didn’t. Let me see if she’s still on the bench. Oh, she left office January 31, 2022.

Yeardley: She left office. She was not asked to leave office.

Robert: No, it just says she left office. Let’s see, she was a judge from 2004 to 2022. She retired in 2022.

Yeardley: And when did this case take place?

Robert: 2017.

Yeardley: Fuck. Dude.

Dan: That’s 18 years on the bench.

Yeardley: That’s a long time. But my point is after that kind of official misconduct, you’re allowed to just keep your job. No problem. It’s all good.

Dave: We have some big issues in this state with what’s frustrating you right now? Yeardley.

Yeardley: Oy yoy, yoy. Frustrated and grumpy now. Thanks for coming on the show.

[laughter]

No, it’s just great to see you, Robert. I just, again, I just love your thoroughness. And turn over every stone and then that’s all you can do.

Robert: Yeah. And we talked about the system and what role each of these positions plays. And that’s the frustrating part. I can only do what I can do and then what an objective prosecutor wants to do with it. You got a hallway with 12 attorney’s offices. All 12 of them might handle that totally different and focus one thing. Or the attorney who was not bothered at all with Darren having sex in the courthouse, the person next door might be like, “Oh, hell no, we’re going after him.” [laughs] So it was very frustrating. Very, very frustrating. But we only get to do our role. We don’t get to do the other roles.

Yeardley: Yep, I hear you. At least Victoria finally got you as the investigator on her case, Robert, because as usual, you left no stone unturned. Because that’s the way you work, but jeez.

Robert: Yep, I tried.

Yeardley: Yeah. Thanks again, Robert.

Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

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The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

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