Two police officers have sued the city of Allentown and its police department, accusing them of retaliation and not properly addressing other officers’ inappropriate behavior.
Allentown police officers Randy Fey and David Howells III, represented by attorney Dennis Charles, filed the whistleblower lawsuit against Allentown and its police department last Friday, according to county court documents.
The plaintiffs, who became whistleblowers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claimed the police department didn’t properly resolve allegations against officers that included sexual assault, discriminating against coworkers, using their positions to receive sexual favors from women involved with prostitution and drugs, and falsifying police documentation.
Other defendants in the lawsuit include Chief Charles Roca and other members of the police department leadership.
In a statement, city spokesperson Genesis Ortega said, “The City is aware of the lawsuit filed by Officers Fey and Howells. The City believes the lawsuit is without merit and intends to vigorously defend this matter. The City will timely seek dismissal of this action by the filing of Preliminary Objections. We look forward to full vindication in Court.”
In one instance, the lawsuit alleges that around 2010, a defense attorney told Fey that a detective inappropriately contacted one of the attorney’s clients, an unnamed female sex worker involved in a Lehigh County criminal prosecution.
The lawsuit further accused the detective of engaging in “unlawful and/or unethical conduct as a police officer.”
When Fey reported the incident to a lieutenant, according to the lawsuit, the department didn’t discipline or fire the officer. Instead, he was transferred out of the department’s vice and intelligence unit, where Fey and Howells also worked, and into the detective bureau.
The detective placed himself on leave and later retired “with no adverse consequences” or conclusion to Fey’s report, the lawsuit stated.
After the “incident,” the lieutenant reportedly warned Fey that what happens in the unit stays in the unit, and that he’d face retaliation if he shared the information in question outside of his chain of command, including potential punishment and demotion.
According to the suit, Fey reportedly later helped a captain of the department’s criminal investigations division investigate a double homicide, providing information from confidential informants and prior investigation within the vice and intelligence unit.
Fey claimed he was berated and punished for not keeping his information inside the vice and intelligence unit, and was threatened with being moved out of the unit.
This instance represented a pattern, according to the lawsuit. Other instances included a lack of discipline against a detective in the vice and intelligence unit for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a female sex worker, the lawsuit alleges.
In another instance, the lawsuit said, department managers and supervisors chastised and treated Fey poorly for reporting his supervisorfor allegedly lewd behavior. The supervisor was demoted.
In 2018, according to the suit, Howells similarly reported alleged misconduct as well as missing money that police officers previously seized while fulfilling search warrants. The police department’s managers and supervisors, including Roca, refused to properly investigate and respond to Howells’ report, the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit claims that a sex worker told Howells that detectives had sexually assaulted her. However, the department’s command staff reportedly told Howells that the woman had made false allegations in the past, and warned Howells to not report anything outside of the chain of command.
In November 2022, three officers reportedly told Fey that a supervisor threatened to transfer them out of the vice and intelligence unit due to their being people of color, according to the lawsuit.
After Fey reported this behavior to Roca, the chief promised that Fey’s report would be confidential and reportedly moved the supervisor’s office to the criminal investigations division.
Fey later felt that the supervisor indirectly threatened retaliation against him, according to the lawsuit, and that Roca didn’t keep his promise of confidentiality.
In October 2023, the police department reassigned Fey out of the vice and intelligence unit to night shift in the department’s fourth platoon, which the lawsuit called retaliation for Fey being a whistleblower. The department also confiscated and still possesses Fey’s work phone, according to the lawsuit.
In that same month, the department reassigned Howells to the first platoon, a decision the lawsuit also called retaliatory.
