Strip club trip by Newport deputy police chief triggers questions in fired employee’s lawsuit
One of the Newport Beach Police Department’s top-ranking officials took the stand Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court, where lawyers for a former emergency dispatcher suing the city questioned him about his trip to a Las Vegas strip club and a police officer who escaped punishment after a drunken disturbance.
Attorneys pressed Deputy Chief John Lewis to reveal any professional or ethical misconduct he could remember at the Police Department. The lawsuit’s plaintiff, Christine Hougan, contends she was fired unfairly, arguing that other members of the force transgressed worse than she did and escaped such severe punishment.
Hougan is seeking more than $1 million in compensation from the city and Police Department. She alleges officials terminated her in retaliation after her husband, who also worked at the NBPD, testified against the department in a 2009 discrimination trial.
On Wednesday, Hougan’s attorney, Larry Lennemann, asked Lewis if he could recall a time when he believed someone should have been fired but wasn’t.
Lewis pursed his lips and paused before answering, “Yes.”
The deputy chief said he had once recommended that a member of the police force be demoted after getting into an off-duty alcohol-fueled confrontation. The same employee previously had been arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, Lewis said.
Despite that, “my recommendation wasn’t taken,” he said.
Lennemann then inquired about Lewis’ 20-year history at the department, asking specifically about a seminar in Las Vegas years ago that the agency paid Lewis to attend.
“Isn’t it true that you missed the first day of that seminar because you and [police Officer] Damon Psaros were out at the Olympic Gardens strip club and hung over?” Lennemann asked.
Lewis replied that he remembered going to the club but not missing a day of the seminar.
“In retrospect, I shouldn’t have behaved that way,” Lewis said.
When Lennemann pressed, Lewis added that he should have told his superiors what happened.
If Lewis had missed part of the event, “that could be a theft of time, correct?” Lennemann said.
“It could be interpreted that way,” Lewis replied.
According to Lewis’ testimony, Hougan is the only police employee he has ever recommended for termination. Lewis was a lieutenant at the time of the recommendation in 2012.
When Lennemann asked for reasons why Hougan deserved to be fired, Lewis said she disobeyed an order not to talk about a private disciplinary hearing, used her work email account to send profanity-laced messages to her husband, was a disruptive presence in the dispatch center and made disparaging comments about the chief of police.
Hougan’s lawsuit claims that department managers targeted her because she is a woman and because of her husband’s testimony in the 2009 trial, in which a sergeant won a $1.2-million judgment based on allegations that he was unfairly passed over for promotions because of false rumors that he was gay.
John Hougan was fired in 2011. His own wrongful-termination lawsuit is awaiting trial.
According to testimony in Christine Hougan’s case, police officials said they fired John Hougan because he would spend up to an hour a day looking up pornography on computers at work.