New documents show at least three women complained about Fayetteville Officer Jamison Stiles’ conduct in the six months leading up to the officer’s firing and arrest, following a rape allegation against him.
Stiles was arrested and fired in December after a woman said the officer sexually assaulted her after handcuffing her and taking her home from a bar while on duty. The Fayetteville Police Department initiated an internal investigation into Stiles following the rape allegation, after which a former police dispatcher accused him of sexually assaulting her at her home.
The state attorney general unsealed the documents in the investigation this week, leading the police department to release the documents Wednesday.
The internal investigation findings state Stiles made it a habit to switch off his mandatory video recorder, which is against department policy. In one such instance in June 2013, Stiles turned off his video recorder after stopping a woman’s vehicle on suspicion of failure to dim lights. The woman told the internal investigator stiles “spoke very inappropriately” before shining a light on her shirt and asking her if she knew her shirt was see-through. The woman was let off with a warning.
In another instance in July, the officer turned off his video recording after stopping a woman on suspicion of using improper safety equipment. Stiles made the woman pull behind the church before conversing with her and looking at her in a “sexual manner,” the woman told investigators. Stiles let the woman off with a warning, the documents state.
In another instance, a woman’s boyfriend made a complaint to police after Stiles helped the woman home from Dickson Street while he was on-duty, according to the internal investigation. Stiles found the woman on Dickson Street and instead of arresting her on suspicion of public intoxication, the officer drove her home, but turned off his video recording device. The woman and boyfriend made no specific allegations against Stiles, but said his conduct made the woman feel “uncomfortable.”
The report states Stiles responded in October to JR’s Lightbulb Club in Fayetteville, in response to a woman who was passed out drunk. After arriving at the scene, Stiles handcuffed the woman and placed her in his squad car.
The bar held a contest that night called the “Drunken Spelling Bee,” and the woman said she had been a contestant.
After finding out where the woman lived, Stiles told her she was not going to jail and turned off his police recording device, which is against protocol, according to the report. When the recording device came back on, it showed the woman lying down on the car seat with her pants down around her knees, the internal investigation found.
Around the same time, Stiles received a message, possibly a text, from a person whose name is redacted from the document, asking, “No arrest?” Stiles responds, “Nah, just didn’t have the heart, especially when she could have stayed there,” according to records obtained by the internal investigator.
The officer then pulled the woman out of the vehicle and again turned off his recording device, this time for 26 minutes, during which the woman initially said Stiles raped her. She later recanted that claim and said he was on top of her and touched her breast inside her apartment at the Cliffs II, where Stiles also volunteered as a courtesy officer, the report states.
Management at the apartment complex told investigators Stiles had a master key to the apartments because of his position as a courtesy officer. However, they had never had any problems with him, they said.
The day after the alleged assault, the woman went back to the bar angry, saying an officer had raped her and that she “wanted to kill him,” according to the internal investigation.
In his version of events, Stiles told an internal investigator the woman came onto him, clutching him close and holding his hand to her breast while telling him she wanted them to “make a baby.” Stiles said he rebuffed her advances, telling her he was happily married, and left her apartment, according to the internal investigation.
The woman reported the situation to police Nov. 10, after which Stiles was interviewed several times by internal investigators and by detectives with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. Stiles denied doing anything wrong in the interviews and said he turned accidentally turned off his recording device out of habit, later saying he turned off the recording device so the woman in the back seat of his car could have some dignity, the investigatory report states.
In another later interview, Stiles said he had not told investigators everything, that the woman had kissed him while clutching him close in her apartment. He said he did not initially tell investigators the detail because he was scared, according to investigation documents.
The officer was later ordered to undergo a polygraph test to help determine if he was telling the truth about the events with the woman accusing him of sexual assault. He refused the direct order and was fired from the police department for eight violations, police said.
Stiles was arrested a few days later on suspicion of rape, second-degree sexual assault and residential burglary. He was booked into the Washington County Detention Center on Dec. 20 and was released the next day on bond.
Stiles’ next court date is scheduled for Feb. 12 in Washington County.
Stiles had been employed by the Fayetteville Police Department for almost three years before being fired, said Sgt. Craig Stout, spokesman for the police department.
After Stiles’ termination, a former Fayetteville Police Department dispatcher reported she had also been sexually assaulted in her home’s driveway by Stiles in July 2013. She said Stiles was on-duty and in uniform at the time of the alleged assault, according to investigators.
The woman who accused Stiles of fondling her breast in her apartment has been arrested several times by Fayetteville police over the last few years on suspicion of public intoxication and driving while intoxicated, records show.
During the subsequent investigation into the situation, Deputy Chief Mike Reynolds sent an email to an investigator stating, “Sounds like this female has some issues with alcohol. Nonetheless, the (recording device) being turned off and 27 minutes at the female’s residence are concerning.”
