A former Campbell County Police officer is appealing after he was fired for code of conduct violations claiming he received oral sex from a confidential informant after he brought her a Big Mac in 2020, and that he violated body camera policy in a separate incident in 2021.
Campbell County Circuit Judge Julie Reinhardt Ward heard oral arguments April 28, where attorneys for former officer Kyle Gray said investigators in the case did not adequately determine that Gray violated the department’s code of conduct because they could not prove he did, in fact, have sexual contact with the woman, referred to in investigative reports as Jane Doe.
Not only that, but Gray’s attorney discovered a text from Jane Doe saying that she would say whatever she needed to say to get out of jail, which she sent the same day she signed an affidavit affirming her claims about sexual contact with Gray.
The investigation began during a random review of bodycam video in April 2021. According to the investigation, Gray had turned off his bodycam prior to the completion of his law enforcement duties.
Gray, according to the investigation, had a history of not properly using his bodycam, so the video was reviewed. It showed Gray arrive at a single-car collision, take a report, and then begin to transport Logan Bratcher to her residence.
Gray said he shut off his bodycam en route because policy only requires it to be activated during law enforcement activities and, since Gray said he believed he had concluded such activities, he turned it off.
Campbell County Police Chief Craig P. Sorrell instructed Maj. Jeremy Newberry to conduct an investigation on April 12, 2021 after Officer Eric Surber discovered text messages on April 8, 2021 from the Campbell County Detention Center in which a woman referred to as Jane Doe said “I gave kyle gray a blow job” in a March 18, 2021 text.
The investigation, termination and appeal highlight a disciplinary process within police departments that Gray’s attorneys say violated Gray’s substantiative and due process rights. The process, called progressive discipline, looks at the totality of a police officer’s conduct when an officer is disciplined.
“That gets lost with people who are used to the criminal justice system,” Sorrell said in an interview with LINK. “Police conduct is judged in totality, not in a singular event.”
Gregg Muravchick, a former Transylvania police chief who has more than 40 years experience in law enforcement, said that unless an officer commits a crime — at which point that officer should be charged as anyone else would be — a department should look at the totality of the circumstances.
“You have to have rules of conduct and sometimes there’s a policy about speeding,” Muravchick said. “So do you terminate someone for speeding? That’s a small example, but do we know if they are on a hot call? Sometimes officers turn off their lights and sirens if they don’t want the person to hear you coming.”
The most important thing to think about before filing an administrative charge, Muravchick said, is to look at the department’s policy.
“What did that individual do to violate that policy, and can you prove he violated that policy?” Muravchick said.
But, Muravchick emphasized, the important thing to remember is that police departments, and the agencies charged with policing their own, are instructed to look at the totality of an officer’s behavior — not just one incident.
The incidents involving Jane Doe and Logan Bratcher are separate, but were both cited as reasons that Gray should be terminated, Sorrell said in a June 8, 2021 letter to Gray.
“It is my belief that you violated the listed Campbell County Police Merit Board Rules & Regulations and CCPD Policy,” Sorrell wrote in a letter to Gray, recommending his termination.
While the random bodycam audit and random audit of text messages from the Campbell County Detention Center, also known as “chirps,” are what led to the April 2021 investigation, Sorrell’s letter says “in reaching my decision of the appropriate disciplinary action, I am not considering your violation of the above policies in a vacuum, but I must consider past conduct.”
Because the investigation and violations alleged by Sorrell against Gray jump back and forth chronologically, this story will begin in 2019, and explore the allegations, and Gray’s response to those allegations, through 2022.
2019
Jane Doe was arrested on Dec. 9, 2019, and taken to the Campbell County Detention Center. Gray and a second officer went to see Jane Doe in jail, where she told them ways in which she could be of use as a cooperating individual, sometimes referred to as confidential informant (CI), according to Newberry’s April 2021 investigation.
Jane Doe was released from the Campbell County Detention Center on Dec. 30, 2019, aided by Gray, according to the investigation. Jane Doe was then taken into custody at the Clermont County, Ohio jail on separate charges.
2020
On Jan. 2, 2020, Gray and a second officer got Jane Doe released for a second time, at which point she began to fill out paperwork to work with police as a CI, according to Newberry’s report.
On Jan. 7, 2020, Jane Doe attempted controlled drug buy in cooperation with the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force, of which Gray was a part, but the controlled buy was unsuccessful, investigative notes say. During Newberry’s interview with Gray, Gray said that when the deal was unsuccessful, other officers yelled at her and she began to cry; Gray told Newberry he believed Jane Doe was “emotionally broken” and that he had to handle her with kid gloves.
Gray also said that, shortly after an unsuccessful controlled drug buy, Gray met with Jane Doe and her attorney, at which point Jane Doe said she hadn’t eaten in several days.
On Jan. 11, 2020, Jane Doe texted Gray for a ride home from Silver Grove, according to the investigation.
Jane Doe said, in an interview with Newberry, that Gray arrived within 10 minutes of her texting him. Jane Doe told Newberry that Gray took her home and then went to get her a Big Mac while she took a shower. Gray and Jane Doe told Newberry that Gray returned while she was in the shower, left a Big Mac on the table, and left.
Gray said that was the end of their interaction that day.
But Jane Doe told Newberry that before Gray even picked her up, they had agreed she would give him oral sex. Jane Doe said to investigators that she texted Gray when she got out of the shower, and he returned two to three hours later, when she gave him oral sex in her basement apartment.
On the same day Jane Doe signed an affidavit swearing that what she told Newberry was true, which was April 9, 2021, Jane Doe sent another text from prison: “If they said I could get out tomorrow id [sic] be like ok on january 11 2020 in silver grove ky … i performed oral sex on blah blah blah. And id sign that sh** big 2,” according to court documents.
The text was not included in Newberry’s investigation and, according to Gray’s attorney Eric Eaton, was not discovered until Eaton found it after Gray’s firing.
But, Sorrell said in an interview with LINK, this chirp was sent after the affidavit was signed, and Jane Doe did not benefit as a result of signing the affidavit.
“The fact is, although it implies she was going to get something for it, she never did,” Sorrell said.
In his interview with Newberry, Gray said the oral sex “didn’t happen.”
Gray also completed a polygraph exam in 2021 in which administrator Greg Ellison said Gray was being truthful when he denied having sexual contact with Jane Doe.
Jane Doe told investigators that she exchanged explicit text messages with Gray on a daily basis, though when investigators went to find a record of those texts on Gray’s former Drug Strike Force phone, they found that it had been more than a year, which is when such texts are deleted from the system.
Investigators were unable to recover any texts between Jane Doe and Gray.
Unrelated to the stories involving Jane Doe and Logan Bratcher to describe an incident in which Gray was suspended; the incident was part of the reason for the inquiry into Gray’s body camera footage relating to Logan Bratcher because it also involved what the department described as Gray improperly turning off his body camera.
In July 2020, Gray responded to a welfare check for a woman after her estranged husband called police. The woman was drinking after 15 years sober, according to Sorrell, and the estranged husband was worried she might hurt herself. According to Sorrell in his decision to terminate Gray, Gray turned off his bodycam in some of his interactions with the woman, and admitted to exchanging sexually explicit text messages with her.
Gray was suspended after the woman called the department and showed them the texts, Sorrell wrote in the decision.
“It bothers me still to this day that a CCPD officer, after responding to a call of a person in such a state of distress, would somehow become involved in sexually oriented phone calls and texts,” Sorrell wrote.
2021
Gray responded to a single-car crash on Jan. 9, 2021 involving Logan Bratcher. Gray’s bodycam is on as he arrives on scene, takes a report, and then begins to drive Bratcher home. He turns off his bodycam en route to her residence.
In later interviews with Bratcher, she told Newberry she had no issues with the way Gray interacted with her and that he was professional.
Bratcher even drove from out of state to testify at a hearing on Gray’s behalf, noting how professional he was, Eaton told LINK.
On March 18, 2021, Jane Doe sent a text while inside the Campbell County Detention Center saying that she gave Gray a blow job, Newberry’s investigation says.
That “chirp” was discovered and reported to Sorrell on April 8, 2021. The next day, Newberry interviewed Jane Doe in jail, where she went into detail about what she said happened in early 2020.
She signed an affidavit April 9, 2021, swearing her allegations were true; the same day, she sent the text saying she would sign whatever she needed to sign to get out of jail.
On April 12, 2021, Sorrell assigned Newberry to conduct an investigative inquiry.
Newberry interviewed Jane Doe’s boyfriend, who we will refer to here as John Doe, on April 13, 2021. John Doe told Newberry that he had seen some messages on Jane Doe’s phone after she returned from prison and that it seemed like Gray was trying to “get with her.”
On April 16, 2021, Newberry interviewed a former roommate of Jane Doe’s, who said she had seen men going in and out of Jane Doe’s apartment and that she suspected she may be a prostitute, according to the investigation.
Over the course of the following week, Gray was notified of the inquiry and interviewed. He denied any sexual contact with Jane Doe. He also took the polygraph and Ellison, who administered it, determined Gray was being truthful when he said he did not have sexual contact with Jane Doe.
In May, Newberry tried to get text records from Gray’s Drug Strike Force phone, but because records are only kept for a year and they were beyond that time frame, there was no way to verify that any text messages were exchanged between the two or what the nature of those texts was.
On May 24, 2021, Newberry turned in his investigation, concluding:
- Gray did violate the department’s bodycam policy when he turned his bodycam off before he was finished transporting Logan Bratcher.
- Gray did not violate the department’s code of conduct in relation to alleged sexual activity with Jane Doe because there was a lack of evidence.
Two weeks later, Sorrell filed a memo stating that he believed Gray violated Campbell County Merit Board rules and regulations and department policy.
The merit board reviews accusations against police officers.
Sorrell determined that Gray violated three different policies:
- Body worn and mobile video recorders: Officers are required to have their body cam turned on during all law enforcement activities; Sorrell said he believed Gray violated the policy when he turned off his bodycam before dropping Logan Bratcher at her home in January 2021. Sorrell also cited Gray’s previous violation in this decision.
- Cooperating individuals: When Gray left food at Jane Doe’s house, Sorrell said, he should have been accompanied by another officer. Policy states that “in all instances of meeting a CI of the opposite gender or transgender there shall be two officers present.”
- Code of Conduct; conduct unbecoming: Sorrell said that he agreed with Newberry’s findings and that “I do not find sufficient evidence to establish there was any sexual contact with Ms. Jane Doe.” But, Sorrell wrote, “I do however, find that your overall conduct in dealing with Ms. Jane Doe is unbecoming and reflects discredit upon the [sic] yourself and as a representative of the Department.”
Sorrell goes on to write that a police officer has an authority that needs not be taken advantage of.
“Consider for a moment that at the time you violated policy by visiting Ms. Jane Doe’s home; you had arranged for her to be released from the Campbell County Jail, followed by the release from the Clearmont [sic] County jail, and then arranged to quash a Campbell County warrant which had arisen following post release,” Sorrell wrote. “It is because of such positional authorities and the potential for abuse of power, or allegations of impropriety or abuse, that such policies exist.”
The case is currently in the hands of Judge Ward. If she denies Gray’s appeal, Eaton said they will continue the appeal process.
“Ofc. Gray filed his appeal under the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights after he was unfairly terminated based on false accusations,” Eaton said in an email to LINK. “He hopes to be reinstated with the Campbell County Police Department as soon as possible so he can continue to serve his community.”
