13 North Texas officers violated protocol during investigation into alleged prostitution at massage parlors, chief says - WFAA.com

[Rachel Snyder]

Two police sergeants and an officer were fired and others were disciplined following an internal investigation, the Lewisville Police Department confirmed.



LEWISVILLE, Texas — The Lewisville Police Department announced Friday that an internal investigation found 13 officers violated protocols during an investigation into alleged prostitution at local massage parlors, and three police employees were fired.


The alleged incidents occurred between October 2022 and June 2024, according to the department. The investigation found "inappropriate touching between members of the Lewisville Police Department" and suspects in the prostitution investigation.


At the end of the investigation, this week, two sergeants and one officer were fired, one captain was demoted, five officers and two sergeants were issued suspensions without pay and will return to duty once their suspensions are served, and two officers were given “counseling entries,” Lewisville officials say.


"I’m disappointed and I’m embarrassed at what happened," said Lewisville Police Chief Brook Rollins. "This is not representative of our police department."


Additionally, four officers and one sergeant were reassigned from covert operations to patrol and two officers and one sergeant was removed from the SWAT team.


“There is no evidence that any officer had sex with any of the alleged prostitutes,” according to a statement from the city of Lewisville. “Not all of the employees receiving discipline were found to have engaged in inappropriate contact; some were disciplined for ineffective supervision or communication that facilitated those incidents.”


Rollins said undercover officers need an agreement for sexual conduct in exchange for money in order to establish probable cause for an arrest. He said his officers went beyond that.


"There was contact -- initiated by the suspected prostitutes in every one of these cases -- to the officers and the officers in a lot of the cases were in a state of nudity. And that contact would be considered inappropriate," he said.


The police department’s investigation into alleged prostitution at 10 Lewisville massage parlors began in October of 2022 and involved officers acting under cover, according to a statement from the city.


The investigation led to 32 criminal charges against 28 suspects and the seizure of just over $247,000 and two vehicles. Those charges have been dropped and the money and cars returned, Rollins said.


"It's disappointing. There’s no way to hide behind that," he said. "But at the same time, it’s the right thing to do. We made mistakes and it is not prudent to continue forward with those cases."


The Denton County District Attorney’s Office informed Rollins June 25 that they weren’t able to prosecute the cases “because the undercover officers had been engaging in inappropriate physical contact with the suspected prostitutes,” according to a statement.


“I obtained the list of declined cases from the District Attorney, and we immediately began an administrative review,” Rollins’ statement reads.


Then, June 27, Rollins ordered an internal affairs investigation, according to the statement. The cases were also referred to the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers for a concurrent, but separate criminal investigation from which no charges have been filed as of yet, according to Lewisville officials.


“We take all allegations of misconduct seriously. This extensive internal investigation took hundreds of hours to complete. It involved more than 50 witnesses and several outside agencies (local, state, and federal),” Rollins’ statement reads.


The findings of the internal affairs investigation were turned over to Rollins and the department’s command staff in late September and the affected employees were disciplined this week, per officials.


“Internal Affairs found that the personnel involved began with good intentions but gradually turned from appropriate to inappropriate acts. In other words, nobody set out to do wrong, but over time, erosion of good conduct occurred, and we ended up where we are now,” Rollins’ statement continued. “To the residents of Lewisville, this entire incident is embarrassing and disappointing. As the Chief of Police for the Lewisville Police Department, it is my job to ensure the department operates with the utmost professionalism, integrity, and honor. I am sorry that we fell short of that.”


He said the department will ‘conduct a hard reset and strategically approach the full resumption” of the covert operations unit, but it remains intact with personnel assigned to it.


Rollins said he is not worried about other departments having similar issues with training and regulations not being followed.


"They’re human. They made some mistakes. I am sorry about that and we’ll do better in the future, but I don’t believe there is a systemic structural problem in the department," he said.