Police officer accused of sharing explicit photos of student murdered by ex
An investigation is underway into whether a former police officer showed off explicit photos of a slain university athlete prior to her 2018 death.
Lauren McCluskey was just 21-years-old, and a stand out track athlete at the University of Utah, when she was murdered on campus in 2018.
She had earlier been extorted by her ex-boyfriend.
Ms McCluskey contacted University of Utah Police more than 20 times to report harassment of a man she had previously dated, Melvin Shawn Rowland, before she was shot and killed.
The case was assigned to Officer Miguel Deras who received photos which were being used against her, unless she paid the person who was blackmailing her $1000, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
She paid the $1000 and sent the photos to the campus police as evidence. At the time Ms McCluskey reportedly did not know who had accessed her files and was blackmailing her.
New allegations have emerged and implicate Mr Deras of saving the photos to his phone and showing the photos to another officer in the lead up to Ms McCluskey’s death.
The Salt Lake Tribune unearthed the explosive allegations, which further suggest two other officers overheard Mr Deras of bragging about getting to view the photos whenever he pleased.
Mr Deras received the photos on his department email as part of Ms McCluskey’s extortion report, and accessed them on his personal phone because officers did not have department phones at the time, his attorney Jeremy Jones said in a statement.
Mr Deras brought up the photos during a routine briefing only to ask how they should be handled and stored, his lawyer rebuffed.
“He never shared the photos in question, and certainly not in the manner described,” Mr Jones said in a statement.
That account is similar to the findings of an internal probe by the campus police department, but its new Chief Rodney Chatman said he’s now concerned about thoroughness of that investigation.
The officers who conducted it have been placed on administrative leave as the Utah Department of Public Safety completes a new review.
“It is inexcusable for a police officer to inappropriately share or discuss photos or information provided by a victim seeking justice,” said Mr Chatman, who was hired after other missteps in the McCluskey case sparked a backlash.
Ms McCluskey was murdered on October 22, 2018 and Mr Deras left the university police in September the following year.
The Tribune states the University of Utah had no knowledge of the abuse of evidence until Mr Deras left the department and officials only looked into the incident after the Tribune requested to review records, bringing the issue to their attention.
However, according to the Associated Press, university officials, for their part, said an internal investigation did not find evidence that Mr Deras acted inappropriately.
One officer reported Mr Deras showed him a photo, but only to inquire about how to upload it to a case file, said university spokesman Chris Nelson.
Ms McCluskey’s family says in a lawsuit that her reports to the police were not taken seriously, and the police should have quickly discovered Rowland was a registered sex offender on parole who had been lying to her about his name, age and history.
Instead, Rowland fatally shot Ms McCluskey with a borrowed gun on campus and later killed himself.
The university has acknowledged mistakes and made campus-safety changes, but maintained the 21-year-old’s death could not have been prevented.
“He didn’t help her at all, he didn’t try and arrest anyone he just used her for his own enjoyment without helping her case,” said mother Jill McCluskey.
Ms McCluskey’s parents have filed a $56 million negligence case against the university in 2019.
Mr Deras quit the university police department after failing to follow procedures revamped in the wake of Lauren McCluskey’s death.
He now works as an officer in Logan, Utah, where the department has launched their own investigation into the new allegations.
An online petition has been set up, calling for Logan Police Department to fire Mr Deras.
“Not only did Deras fail Lauren, resulting in her death,” the petition reads.
“He exploited her.”
with Associated Press
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