Former police explorer reaches $500,000 settlement with Rohnert Park in lewd texts case

Rohnert Park has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a civil lawsuit filed by a woman who was sexually harassed by a former public safety officer while she was a teen enlisted in the city’s explorer program for youth considering careers as police officers or firefighters.

The conduct of then-officer Garrett Piland, 34, led to a criminal investigation and conviction last year for engaging in unlawful sexual contact with two underage girls, including sending lewd texts to one and requesting sex from another.

One of the girls, who joined the explorer program when she was 14 and is now 20, sued the city and Piland in August 2017 seeking unspecified damages. The woman, who was identified in court documents with the pseudonym Mary Roe, accused the city of negligent supervision and hiring practices, causing the failure “to identify Piland for what he was - a dangerous sexual predator,” according to the amended complaint. The woman, through her attorney, declined to comment.

“She put her faith and trust in the city to take care of her when she was working as an explorer and I think the settlement reflects that the city is finally acknowledging that they didn’t do the right thing,” her attorney Dan Crowley said in an interview.

Assistant City Manager Don Schwartz said city staff “immediately” contacted the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office to request a criminal investigation as soon as they learned about Piland’s reported behavior.

“Our hearts go out to the young members of the Explorer program who were the victims of inappropriate and abusive behavior by a former employee of the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety,” Schwartz said in an email. “This should never have happened and we condemn the actions of this former employee.”

The woman’s lawsuit was among a series of cases brought against Rohnert Park officers and its Public Safety Department alleging misconduct by officers and lax supervision.

“This case was, in large part, about the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety recognizing that the policies and procedures they had in place failed miserably,” Crowley said.

A federal jury last month awarded a Rohnert Park couple $145,000 plus attorneys fees - which could total up to $500,000 - after deciding three officers violated their civil rights during a search of their home in 2014.

The city is also facing a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a Texas man who claims a Rohnert Park officer abused his authority by committing theft during a traffic stop on Highway 101 in Mendocino County. The lawsuit also names a former sergeant, Jacy Tatum, who resigned in June amid mounting allegations about his on-duty behavior, including his role in the city’s aggressive effort to seize illegal cannabis and cash from Highway 101 motorists.

The city ran an explorer program, designed for youth interested in public safety careers, from 2004 until it was suspended in 2016. Schwartz said the Piland case was one factor in the decision to halt the program, but it also suffered from low enrollment and a lack of interest among other department personnel.

Piland worked for the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department for nearly four years before he left his position in March 2017. Schwartz declined to specify whether Piland resigned or was fired because state law bars the release of police personnel information.

The allegations surfaced in the fall of 2016 when one of the girls told another Rohnert Park officer that she had been receiving sexual texts from Piland since meeting him at a Christmas toy drive in 2015, according to search warrant documents that detailed her statement to sheriff’s detectives.

She told detectives that Piland had asked her to meet him for sex and at one point asked her if she had a rape fantasy and offered to tie her up or handcuff her, according to the documents.

The complaint in the civil lawsuit describes a pattern of inappropriate behavior by Piland that began after the woman joined him for an on-duty ride-along.

Piland sent her inappropriate and sexual text messages and then his advances escalated, court documents show. During an explorer meeting in early 2015 at the public safety department on City Center Drive, Piland followed the girl into an office, “physically blocked her from exiting the office” and “grabbed her buttocks, and squeezed” when she tried to go around him, according to the allegations outlined in the 29-page amended complaint filed August 2017. Piland grabbed her again that same day “in a sexual manner,” she alleged in the complaint.

The girl fled to a bathroom and hid, feeling “fearful, embarrassed, panicked,” according to the filings. She stopped joining Piland on ride-alongs, but the text messages continued, she said.

According to Crowley, other officers who provided sworn-statements taken in pretrial depositions described an atmosphere of little supervision within the department and said Piland had engaged in sexual acts with other employees while on duty.

Crowley said his client was once asked by an officer to wear gym shorts when she reported to the department.

“I’m sure there are good officers there, but there was almost an ‘Animal House’ kind of an atmosphere with some of the police officers,” said Crowley, who based his opinion on his client’s experience and on the sworn statements from other officers.

Piland was arrested by sheriff’s deputies in November 2016. He pleaded no contest in May 2017 to attempting to have sex with a minor, a felony, and sending harmful material to an underage person, a misdemeanor, in a plea agreement reached with prosecutors. He was sentenced to a six-month jail term and was booked into the Sonoma County Jail on Nov. 15, 2017 and released Feb. 3, jail records show.

Outgoing Interim Public Safety Director Jeff Weaver, who will hand over the post to incoming director Timothy Mattos on Dec. 28, said the series of lawsuits and other incidents stand apart from what he’s observed over several months while temporarily running the department.

“There has been a series of things but they’re not part and parcel of a troubled organization, in my estimation,” Weaver said.

Piland and his business Piland Window and Solar Cleaning were named in the lawsuit but were not part of the settlement. Crowley said the lawsuit will be dismissed once the settlement is finalized, and said that his client recognized that Piland “pled guilty to a felony for what he did.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220.