Police Department fires officer for sharing explicit photos of slain student.
Logan City Police Department has fired a police officer who was guilty of sharing explicit photos of slain University of Utah student.
Miguel’s Deras’ employment was terminated immediately after sharing the explicit photos of murdered Lauren McCluskey while he was investigating an extortion complaint she filed prior to her death.
According to the probe, Deras “mishandled sensitive evidence while investigating a complaint filed by Lauren McCluskey as an officer with the University of Utah police department.”
Police Chief, Gary Jensen said in a statement that the conclusions drawn in the DPS report are inconsistent with the high expectations and standards placed upon our officers by the community and our department.
Lauren McCluskey was reportedly shot and killed on campus on October, 22, 2018 by Melvin Shawn Rowland, 37, a registered sex offender and Utah State Prison parolee, after weeks of being stalked.
Rowland, who McCluskey briefly dated, also repeatedly blackmailed her and threatened to release explicit photos if she did not comply with his requests.
The 21-year-old student athlete reported the harassment and provided the images to Deras as proof of the extortion.
According to the DPS investigation, the ex-officer showed the images of McCluskey to his fellow officers, including to a sergeant at the scene of her murder, on multiple occasions.
He is also accused of cracking jokes and making inappropriate comments about the pictures.
One staff member had described that Deras remarked explicitly about getting the opportunity to “take a look at them at whatever point he needs.”
Deras anyway denied boasting about the photos,stating that he just demonstrated them during a normal instructions to discover how they ought to be taken care of and put away.
He left the college not long after McCluskey’s homicide and later joined the Logan police power, where he stayed waiting on the post trial process pending the examination’s result.