When former Sandy Police Officer William Bergin, 27, enters court for the first time on Dec. 11, he’ll face serious allegations from the district attorney.
Following an investigation led by the Gresham Police Department, Bergin has been indicted by a Clackamas County grand jury with felony identity theft, first-degree official misconduct and use of an invalid driver’s license, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Greg Horner.
On Dec. 11, Bergin will either plead guilty and face sentencing for a felony charge, or plead not guilty and face the exposure of a trial in open court.
If he chooses a trial, he likely will have to answer questions about what is being described as an inappropriate relationship with two teenage girls.
He is accused of giving one of the girls confiscated driver’s licenses (identity theft) that were used to enter places where alcohol was served.
The accusations are detailed in an affidavit submitted to a Clackamas County judge to request a search warrant for Bergin’s home in Sandy. The affidavit was obtained by the Sandy Post, as authorized by the Oregon open records law.
The girls are not being identified in this news story, even though they are now 18 and 20 years old, because they were teenagers at the time of most of their relationship with Bergin.
As the detectives sort out their suspicions and what they can prove is truthful and what’s not, they are dealing with statements that link Bergin with an alleged pregnancy and subsequent abortion for one of the girls. That allegation was made public first during a separate investigation of former Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Brandon Claggett. The same two girls were involved with Claggett, according to sheriff’s detectives, who questioned them and wrote the report that was made available to the Post.
In July, Sandy Police Chief Harold Skelton consulted with City Manager Scott Lazenby and then asked Gresham police to conduct the investigation of Bergin. Skelton said that happened immediately after Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts told him that sheriff’s deputies had heard their witnesses give testimony against Bergin.
“I asked Gresham to help with this investigation,” Skelton said, “because I wanted it to be totally transparent and unbiased.”
During the internal investigation, Gresham Police Officer Donald Gibson was joined by a lieutenant, sergeant and administrative supervisor from the Gresham Police Department as well as a sergeant from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department.
That investigative quintet also relied on information supplied from the internal investigation of Claggett, who resigned after the investigation of his “official misconduct” was nearly complete.
That investigation included interviews with both girls involved in the Bergin case. They also were teen-agers at the time of Claggett’s alleged inappropriate sexual relationship with teen-age girls.
Sorting truth from half-truth became the issue during officer Gibson’s probe into Bergin’s activities.
For example, during the Gresham police investigation, the youngest girl told officer Gibson that she did not have a sexual relationship with Bergin and did not have an abortion. But a Sandy police sergeant told Gibson that it was the older girl who had told Claggett that the younger girl had the pregnancy and abortion.
The girls say Claggett made that statement to the police sergeant because he didn’t like either the girls or Bergin.
In another interview, the oldest girl allegedly told a Gresham investigator that the younger girl had “covered (Bergin’s) ass” while being questioned. She also is reported to have told the older girl to cover for him, if she is questioned.
Adding to the suspicion that something sexual was happening between the girls and the officer are statements from Bergin’s neighbors, who say the girls were frequent guests at Bergin’s home – alone with him when Bergin’s roommate was not at home.
In fact, one of the neighbors told officer Gibson he used to send text messages to Bergin’s roommate telling him whether or not it was OK to come home – depending on whether he thought something inappropriate was occurring at the residence.
In addition, during a Sept. 10 search of Bergin’s home in Sandy, photos were seized that depict the same two girls clad in bikinis sitting astride a motorcycle at night. The series of flash photos show poses in which the girl hugging the other from the back of the seat reaches around and grips the other’s bikini-clad breast, and another photo in which the girl in the front twists around to enable the two to kiss. There was no information in the affidavit that indicated who took the photos.
Skelton says he has to trust his officers to act appropriately, according to their code of ethics. But if someone is accused of something inappropriate or illegal, he says he wants to respond.
“I can’t follow my officers around 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “But if I find out that somebody has done something wrong, then I am going to take action.”
Adding to the case of official misconduct against Bergin, there also is damaging evidence of felony identity theft while assisting an underage person to enter places where alcoholic beverages are sold.
The identity theft charge stems from evidence, and the statements of two witnesses, alleging that Bergin illegally kept possession of suspended driver’s licenses, probably at least two dozen, and gave two licenses to a minor.
The oldest girl, who is still not yet 21, told investigators Bergin had perhaps 25 licenses in one of the drawers in a coffee table in his home. That was confirmed by two of Bergin’s neighbors, who saw the licenses.
The oldest girl’s step-sister, who lives in Bend, told investigators she knew about two licenses that her sister said she had received from Bergin.
One of those IDs, the girl told officer Gibson, was seized by a female bartender at a martini bar in Bend.
The same girl also told investigators in the Claggett case she had received two licenses from Bergin last spring, without asking for them, when she wanted to go to a concert in Portland that was restricted to people 21 and older.
“He’s like, well I have some IDs …,” she told the sheriff’s detective. “In his drawer in the coffee table, like I said, there’s stacks of IDs. And he’s like, well let’s match one to you … And he was like – OK. And he gave me two IDs. And he’s like, either one will work.”
The same girl also is alleged to have contacted one of the people whose license had been confiscated and told her that Bergin has a thing for young girls.
When officer Gibson questioned the woman whose license had been seized, she told him the officer took the license and told her that there would be no citation for driving while suspended and there would be no towing of her car for not having liability insurance. She said she was told that the officer would be driving away in one direction and she should drive away in the other direction.
That “thing for young girls” was confirmed in allegations from Bergin’s former roommates and neighbors, who told Gresham investigators they saw Bergin with the girls numerous times, including times when Bergin and the youngest girl would go to his room together and one time when Bergin was seen sitting on a couch next to one of the girls when both were covered by the same blanket.
But that witness also said he didn’t think there was anything intimate going on between the two.
In fact, Bergin told one of his former roommates that he has known the girls since they were children, and would never be sexually involved with them.
Bergin also may have to answer to allegations that he took the girls on ride-a-longs several times a week, which is against the department’s policy.
On Dec. 11, Judge Steven L. Mauer will hear Bergin’s plea inside a Clackamas County Circuit Court.
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