Police officer promoted to chief despite admitting to 'filthy' texts with underage girl
John "Chuck" Ternent met with his police chief ten years ago when he learned that the teenage girl with whom he was exchanging "filthy" messages was part of an investigation into a school resource officer. At the time, his boss gave him a short punishment, and since Ternent wasn't the focus of the probe, it didn't destroy his police career.
Ternent was then promoted to police chief in the Maryland town of Cumberland.
The Baltimore Banner reported Friday that Cumberland leaders reviewed the 2015 incident before deciding to promote him to run the police department in 2020. The public is only now finding out about it, however, after the Banner fought a 10-month legal battle to obtain the investigation records.
The disciplinary incident has not been previously reported. The full details of the case were released only after the fight to obtain public records. Now, the city's mayor is under fire for being one of those to lend his support to Ternent in 2020.
“We believed it was something the chief had handled through the city’s process,” Mayor Raymond Morriss.
At the time of the investigation, the then-lieutenant Ternent revealed that his information was on the girl's phone. He confessed to his boss at the time that he was “disgusted and embarrassed” by their conversations.
Ternent was never criminally charged and was punished with 24 hours of leave for "conduct unbecoming," the Banner said, citing the documents.
In June, Ternent announced his retirement with one year left in his five-year term. The resignation came one month after the Baltimore Banner "obtained a fully unredacted investigative report about the 2015 incident and about one year before his contract was set to expire."
Ternent said through an attorney that the retirement was based on medical issues.
Investigators attempted to obtain the 146 messages and three videos sent over about six weeks, but they were sent through Snapchat. The company told investigators, "the messages had expired from Snapchat’s servers and could not be retrieved." Of the total messages, 25 were from Ternent.
The other messaging app that they used to chat is based in China, the report said.
"The teenager at the center of the investigation is now an adult, and she disputes that the messages exchanged with Ternent were inappropriate," the report said. "Their conversations took place using the auto-deleting app Snapchat and another messaging app, neither of which could be accessed by law enforcement, according to the investigative report. The Banner is not identifying the woman because she was a minor at the time of the incident."
“None of this even happened,” she told a reporter, according to the Banner.
She was 17 at the time and met the then-46-year-old cop at a community policing event.
“Lt. Ternent had a different interpretation of some of the messaging and voluntarily indicated so to his chief at the time,” a statement to the Banner on the matter read. “Lt. Ternent also voluntarily provided his cell phone for a forensic examination. The investigators ‘were unable to locate (any) digital content’ to support any inappropriate messaging.”
All of Ternent's records were expunched "one day before a new Maryland law took effect that made most police misconduct investigation and discipline files subject to public disclosure," the Banner said.
The Banner added that the retired cop also "tried to have his name removed from the investigative report" that journalists got after the 10-month lawsuit to obtain the records. Maryland's Public Information Act Compliance Board sided with the Banner and released the unredacted information.
Deputy State’s Attorney Gina Cirincion claimed that it was hard to say whether the information should have been revealed to the public during Ternent's hiring.
“We live in a democracy. These people have incredible power. They also have difficult jobs, and they should have the right to make mistakes within their jobs and not be condemned and lose their jobs over every mistake,” Gunston told the Banner.
“But there is certain information that is so serious and so relevant to how they do their jobs that the public should be able to have access to that information,” she said.
