Deputy says he'll sue for retaliation over racy courthouse calendar shoot

Joel Manley, a longtime Clackamas County Sheriff's Office deputy, has warned the county he plans to sue for harassment and retaliation. (Noelle Crombie/The Oregonian)

A veteran Clackamas County sheriff's deputy who refused to participate in an off-color calendar shoot for a co-worker faced two internal affairs investigations after the scandal broke and said he retired because of retaliation.

Joel Manley, 51, also alleges that his mostly male co-workers at the county courthouse fostered a "boy's club" atmosphere and ignored important policies, including how to handle drugs that people have in their pockets when they come to do court business.

Manley said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive that fellow deputies and his supervisor made work miserable after he turned down the calendar shoot last fall.

The photos showed Sheriff's Office employees in various stages of undress.

"I kept telling them over and over that is a bad idea," Manley said. "There were a couple of people who were in the calendar who didn't want to but succumbed to the peer pressure."

He said one deputy told him he'd covered security cameras in the courthouse with sticky notes to hide cops' poses.

Manley, a Sheriff's Office employee for 19 years, also detailed his allegations in a notice he filed with county officials telling them that he plans to sue for harassment and retaliation.

Some of Manley's claims echo those of a whistleblowing sergeant who also is suing the agency. In his $1.6 million lawsuit, Sgt. Matt Swanson claims commanders retaliated against him after he tried to initiate an internal affairs investigation into a detective who was ignoring sex abuse cases.

Manley said his work environment became so difficult that he retired last month.

He said deputies who posed for the calendars were supposed to undergo "command counseling" with the chief deputy, Chris Hoy. Their boss, Dave O'Shaughnessy, was placed on leave for his role and returned to work last month. O'Shaughnessy leads the Civil Division, which oversees security at the courthouse.

After details of the photo shoot were reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, Manley said he was accused of leaking information and became the subject of an internal affairs inquiry.

The inquiry found no evidence of wrongdoing, according to a letter Manley received from the Sheriff's Office. The stigma lingered, however, and he said he was increasingly isolated at work.

He claims Sgt. Corey Smith, his supervisor, at one point called him a "coward" because he wouldn't participate and a coworker called him a "rat." Smith didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

Manley said Smith then filed a separate internal affairs complaint against him in February, alleging that Manley had made a copy of a piece of mail sent to another deputy.

The mail was an anonymous complaint about an incident involving members of the agency's tactical team. The complaint said junior members were pressured to wear offensive T-shirts during the last night of training at Camp Rilea last fall. Someone had sent it to about a dozen people in the Sheriff's Office.

Manley said he routinely distributed correspondence coming into the courthouse and said he made a copy of the letter for a commander and sent another one through interoffice mail to the sheriff.

Later in February, Manley said he came into work to find the insert to a bulletproof vest in his mail slot, which he interpreted as a threat to his personal safety.

That prompted him to retire five years earlier than he'd planned, he said.

Manley also decided to let county officials know about other issues at the courthouse.

In his lawsuit notice to the county, he detailed two concerns in particular:

-- On multiple occasions, Manley said he told Smith that deputies and security staff violated policy when they discarded illegal drugs that people often have in their pockets or purses when they come into the courthouse. He said deputies routinely ignored agency policy requiring them to log drugs and take them to the property room. Manley cited an example in February when deputies stopped a man with a heroin-filled syringe.

The man fled, leaving his female companion and two young boys at the security gate. A deputy tossed the syringe into a medical waste container and the woman and children left without follow-up, Manley said. He said the deputy didn't alert state child welfare workers as required.

-- Last summer, Manley said he overheard a deputy asking supervisors to place him in a courtroom with a combative defendant with the goal of beating him.

Court and police records show an altercation occurred in the courtroom later between the deputy and the defendant, Ronald Strasser, that resulted in Strasser's arrest for resisting arrest.

"They staged the environment so they would have the opportunity to use force against him, knowing that he is a difficult person to deal with," Manley said.

Sheriff Craig Roberts said Manley's allegations relate to pending internal affairs investigations and he couldn't comment.

"We will conduct a thorough investigation looking into all of these allegations and we will take appropriate action when completed," Roberts said in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Sitting in his lawyer's office in Sherwood, Manley produced his latest evaluation, dated last September.

In it, Smith calls Manley a leader and praises his "outstanding relationships" with local residents, saying he "is well respected by all."

Manley also shared a copy of a letter dated March 23 from a Clackamas County fire chief, who praised Manley's "high level of commitment, teamwork and composure in a very stressful environment" after the deputy responded to a medical call.

"I am not a disgruntled employee," Manley said. "I actually loved working for the Sheriff's Office."

-- Noelle Crombie

503-276-7184

@noellecrombie

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