Sex inquiry focuses on police officers

The Largo department is checking whether male officers had inappropriate relations with female Police Explorers.

By AMELIA DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2000

LARGO -- The Police Department is investigating allegations that several male officers had inappropriate sexual relations with female members of a department-sponsored youth Police Explorers Unit since 1990.

One or more of the officers under investigation are still employed by the department, said Lt. Michelle Smith, who is conducting the inquiry. Smith declined to release names of current officers being investigated or the Police Explorer records that may implicate them.

Two officers, Patrick McKeever and Tom Faircloth, no longer work for the department, Smith said. Faircloth resigned in 1994 after an internal affairs investigation into his relationship with a 16-year-old Largo High School student resulted in a recommendation that he be suspended without pay for a week.

During the course of that investigation, both Faircloth and the teenager denied their relationship extended beyond hugs and kisses. Later, the two married, Smith said.

McKeever, who now lives in Moundsville, W.Va., said he had a sexual relationship with a female Explorer while working as a Largo police officer. "I'd rather not go into it further," McKeever said in a brief telephone interview. He said he resigned after 10 years with the department.

Another officer, John Ferraro, shot and killed himself in December 1998 as sheriff's deputies were prepared to arrest him on charges of having sex with a 16-year-old.

Smith said the focus of the current investigation is on the one or more officers still employed by the department. Police Chief Jerry Bloechle became aware some current officers may have had inappropriate relationships with Explorers when a television reporter asked last week to see Explorer records dating to 1992.

"In the process of gathering the records (for the TV reporter) we became aware of the implications," Smith said.

That is when the department decided to conduct its own investigation, she said. Smith said investigators plan to interview all current Explorers as well as many former Explorers, police officers and others who may have knowledge of any inappropriate relationships before releasing records.

Police Explorers are a division of the Boy Scouts of America. Members of the Largo unit are between 14 and 22 years old, Smith said.

In a lengthy suicide note written by Ferraro shortly before he shot himself in 1998, Ferraro spoke of his own relationship with a Police Explorer.

"I'm not the only person who's had sex with a minor at the police department, or with Explorers who no longer are with the department," Ferraro said. "They really need to tighten up the rules with those Explorers."

Following the release of the suicide note by the Largo Police Department, Chief Bloechle told a Times reporter last April 16 that Ferraro's allegations concerning officers and Explorers had been investigated. Bloechle said then there was nothing to substantiate the allegations in the suicide note.

Bloechle attributed Ferraro's comments to the officer's state of mind when he wrote his suicide letter.

On Tuesday, Bloechle declined to talk to a reporter about the current investigation. In a news release from public information officer Mac Williams, Bloechle said: "It would be inappropriate for the department to make further comments on this ongoing investigation."

Smith said she doesn't know how long the internal affairs investigation will take but estimated it would be longer than a week.

- Staff writer Jane Meinhardt contributed to this report.

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