DENVER — A Denver Sheriff’s deputy has been placed on investigatory leave after Denver police pulled her over Thursday, March 28 and arrested her passenger.
FOX31 is not naming the 46-year-old woman because she hasn’t been charged with a crime, but the probable cause statement states her 36-year-old passenger Timothy Spikes is a known violent gang member.
Spikes was wanted for a warrant in Arapahoe County when Denver police took him into custody. They found $1,150 in cash and three phones on him. When they stripped searched him at the police station, the report states officers found, “a clear plastic baggie of suspected black tar heroin in between buttocks.”
Police say a narcotics dog was called to the 4600 block of South Wadsworth and alerted officers there might be drugs in the car. A search of the vehicle revealed $3,000 in cash in the center console and an empty drug paraphernalia baggie with white residue inside of it.
The next day, March 29, the female deputy — a three-year veteran of the Denver Sheriff’s Department — was placed on leave.
“She’s lost her career, you can bet on that,” said Dr. Don Lindley, a criminology professor at Regis University who once worked in the Vice Squad for the Denver Police Department.
“The cash alone and in that amount speaks to drugs. I have never experienced it otherwise,” said Dr. Lindley.
Possessing large amounts of cash isn’t illegal, so the deputy isn’t facing criminal charges, but she will face an internal investigation for violating department policy which reads in part, “Denver Sheriffs and employees shall not knowingly associate with, accompany, correspond with, consort with, or develop a personal relationship with a current or former inmate or other individual within five (5) years of the inmate’s release…without specific approval from the Sheriff.”
The Problem Solvers have learned the female deputy never sought permission from the sheriff to have a relationship with Spikes. The Problem Solvers have also been told Spikes was housed for two months in 2017 in a detention pod where the deputy was assigned to at times.
The female deputy is already facing a discipline hearing for an accusation she harassed inmates in February. She was notified of the allegation March 19, just nine days before the traffic stop with Denver police.