S4: E6 — Circling the Drain

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Speaker 1 Hey guys, before we get into the episode, a quick note. We're looking for new stories of betrayal for our weekly betrayal series, which returns in August.

Speaker 1 If you've experienced betrayal and feel ready to share your story, now is a great time to reach out. Email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com.
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Speaker 16 He would come in before he worked out and said hi, but the only reason he was there

Speaker 16 was so that everyone could say, well, he was there working out.

Speaker 17 But he was there for the sole purpose to take a shower after his

Speaker 13 lunchtime activities.

Speaker 1 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal Season 4, Episode 6.

Speaker 1 Circling the Drain.

Speaker 1 In the last episode of Betrayal, you heard Caroline describe her final meeting with Joel in 2022. They met to discuss issues surrounding their impending divorce.

Speaker 1 The location was a coffee shop they had frequented when they were a couple. After more than two months at an inpatient rehab, Joel looked like a different person.

Speaker 1 Gone was the clean-cut cop she had lived with for more than 20 years. Caroline barely recognized him.

Speaker 1 His cell phone pinged relentlessly during their meeting with messages from dating apps. Joel's behavior hadn't changed.
He just didn't need to hide it anymore.

Speaker 1 As far as Caroline was concerned, the relationship was beyond repair. And as you heard in previous episodes, their son had already made up his mind too.

Speaker 1 But Caroline wanted Nicole, their daughter, to make her own decision about a relationship with her father.

Speaker 15 If she wanted to try to have a relationship with him and he was open to that, I wanted that for her.

Speaker 1 At the time, Nicole was the only one in their family still grappling with whether to have a relationship with Joel.

Speaker 22 When it first happened, I just couldn't believe the depth of the lies that he told us

Speaker 22 or

Speaker 22 integrate all of his actions just as one person and as him.

Speaker 1 him.

Speaker 1 Nicole was entering her senior year of high school, and it was just her and Caroline at home.

Speaker 23 In September, Labor Day weekend, our daughter and I decided that we were going to get away for the weekend and we were going to go visit my best friend who lives in New Mexico.

Speaker 23 And as we're on our drive, it's about a six-hour drive, this text comes through.

Speaker 26 And it's from Joel.

Speaker 18 And it's probably two to three screens long.

Speaker 1 He'd sent it to both Caroline and Nicole in a group chat.

Speaker 28 And it just says, I just want you guys to know I love you more than anything in the world.

Speaker 24 I think about your mother and you guys every day.

Speaker 26 I regret my stupid actions.

Speaker 28 I hope that we can be a family.

Speaker 15 And our daughter was just devastated by this text.

Speaker 1 Joel was saying he wanted to be a family, but his actions showed otherwise.

Speaker 22 And so I tried calling him and

Speaker 22 he didn't respond.

Speaker 23 And then she goes to call him again, and this time you could tell he put her to voicemail.

Speaker 28 And so I said, maybe he's at work.

Speaker 1 Caroline just couldn't bear to see Nicole in so much pain.

Speaker 28 She wants to connect with him and he doesn't answer.

Speaker 1 Nicole was holding out hope.

Speaker 29 He still holds this sort of grasp on me.

Speaker 1 Nicole and Caroline arrived in New Mexico for a much-needed visit with Caroline's best friend, Deborah. We met her in an earlier episode, and Deborah could see Nicole was hurting.

Speaker 30 I feel like she really struggled because she was a daddy's girl. She was trying to weigh out.

Speaker 30 Do I want to still have a relationship with my dad?

Speaker 28 The next day, my best friend, her husband, me, my daughter, we're FaceTiming with my son, who is in college on the East Coast. And we start just reminiscing and going down memory lane.

Speaker 23 And my son says, oh, I remember this picture. I got to pull this picture up.

Speaker 12 He's real silent.

Speaker 28 And then all of a sudden he says, Mama, could you take me off speakerphone and just talk to me?

Speaker 23 And so I said, well, what's going on? And so he gets very serious.

Speaker 28 And he said, please just take me off speakerphone.

Speaker 26 I just want to talk to you.

Speaker 28 And so I excused myself and I said, is everything okay?

Speaker 27 And he said, no.

Speaker 1 Their son told Caroline that she needed to look at their shared family photo vault. Joel was still uploading pictures to the cloud.

Speaker 28 When I pull it up, there is just picture after picture.

Speaker 27 of women on a beach who you can clearly tell they have no idea they're being photographed.

Speaker 1 Immediately, Caroline went to Deborah and showed her what her son had seen.

Speaker 30 It's just pictures of girls in their bikinis.

Speaker 31 Some of them are zoomed in on their butts or their crotch.

Speaker 30 You know that the women don't know because they're either laying down and their face is on the opposite end

Speaker 30 or, you know, he's behind them when they're walking.

Speaker 24 There was one girl I remember.

Speaker 30 She was walking with her boyfriend. She was hand in hand with a boy and he was taking pictures of her butt.

Speaker 1 Joel had gone to the beach and secretly photographed women. He zoomed in on parts of their bodies, all while telling his family he was committed to change.

Speaker 32 And I am mortified, mortified that my son is seeing this.

Speaker 32 His frantic response to me is, you got to delete this.

Speaker 18 Get it off of here. Get it off of this.
And I go to call Joel and he doesn't answer. And then I'm trying to to figure out how to get a hold of him and I'm texting him what I'm seeing.

Speaker 1 The photos were right there in the vault for the entire family to access. Joel was indulging himself with no thought about the fact that his kids could see these pictures.

Speaker 1 And there weren't just photos of women. There was also a photo of Joel out at a bar in California.
By his side? is a fellow CSPD officer, a buddy who must have come out to visit.

Speaker 1 In the photo, they were out at a bar, smiling and holding up beers, having fun. Meanwhile, his family was falling apart.

Speaker 26 I mean, it just appears that he treated this inpatient rehab facility as a glorified frat house, not as a therapeutic opportunity.

Speaker 29 This was just kind of a retreat for him, the little vacation.

Speaker 22 away from Colorado and the mess that he created.

Speaker 1 Joel finally responded to Caroline's text saying he didn't realize he was still sharing the digital photo vault.

Speaker 15 We had extremely minimal contact, but after I found out about the pictures, I told him we can't even share a phone account together.

Speaker 18 It was almost comical.

Speaker 23 I thought to myself, you're not even safe to have a Netflix account with.

Speaker 15 That next day, I went out and I put the kids and I on a separate phone plan.

Speaker 1 She acted quickly. All she wanted was to shield the kids from these images.

Speaker 18 I was so frantic.

Speaker 32 I'm at my best friend's home.

Speaker 12 I'm not even home.

Speaker 32 And my immediate concern was to make sure that we are completely separate from him.

Speaker 1 So she asked Joel to delete the shared account, and he did. But in the rush, Caroline didn't save all the old family photos.

Speaker 23 Which, I mean, sounds a little cheesy, but, you know, now I don't have the kids' baby pictures or video of my dad's celebration of life.

Speaker 26 All of that was on our shared account. There was just no way I could chance the kids and I continuously seeing these types of pictures and images that he took.

Speaker 1 And just being able to view those photos felt like a liability.

Speaker 1 Before she separated their phones and photos, Caroline noticed something else in Joel's cloud pictures.

Speaker 28 There's one woman repeatedly and pictures very recently.

Speaker 1 It looked like Joel was already in a new relationship. Caroline texted him to ask who the woman was.

Speaker 28 He says that he met someone while he was in rehab. She lived in Puerto Rico and they had decided to meet.

Speaker 1 Caroline thought back to the text she and Nicole received a few days earlier while they were driving to New Mexico, when he said he'd do anything to repair their relationship.

Speaker 28 And so the truth is revealed that he sends this text begging the kids and I that he wants to be a family again and he's so sorry.

Speaker 28 But the fact of the matter is he was sending it while he was already with a female he met online.

Speaker 28 And so it just kind of became this. awareness in that moment for everyone, but specifically our daughter, that whenever he reached out, really trying and wanting to be a part of our lives,

Speaker 34 it was always

Speaker 15 a way to mask and disguise the fact that he was doing just the opposite of what he was saying.

Speaker 1 Nicole noticed the same pattern.

Speaker 29 He reaches out, sends my brother and I a text message when he knows that we're going to find out something. pretty soon.

Speaker 1 Dawn is a friend of Caroline's and was also her divorce attorney.

Speaker 1 She mentioned earlier in the series that she doesn't usually represent friends, but she made an exception for Caroline out of concern for the kids, who she knew well.

Speaker 1 Dawn saw the impact of Joel's absence on Nicole.

Speaker 35 To see Nicole really struggle to not see her dad or have that relationship anymore. It was just so jarring to her.

Speaker 35 She still desired that relationship, but Joel really just pulled completely away.

Speaker 1 Jen Forrester and her husband Tom are among Caroline's closest friends. Jen also was disappointed that Joel didn't try harder.

Speaker 13 The fact that he kind of just gave up was really surprising. He hasn't tried to repair the relationship.
And frankly, as a parent, why would you give up? I would never give up on my kids.

Speaker 13 I would say, I'm still here for you. I still love you.
I will always be here for you.

Speaker 33 How can you know that your child is out there and not want to be around your child or like know what's happening with them?

Speaker 1 Nicole thought Joel would, at the very least, try to connect for the big moments, the milestones.

Speaker 15 And everything that Joel did, one of the hardest days was her graduation.

Speaker 19 You know, I left that morning because I wanted to get a lay necklace for her to wear. I wanted to get her favorite coffee and have it waiting for her when she woke up.

Speaker 12 And when I came home, she was already up.

Speaker 19 And there was this

Speaker 36 envelope taped to our front door.

Speaker 21 And her little face, oh God, it just kills me.

Speaker 21 She just had this desperation in her face, like she just was hoping for it.

Speaker 36 And she said, oh my gosh,

Speaker 12 is that from my dad?

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Speaker 1 You know that feeling when your alarm goes off and your first thought is, why do I feel so awful? It's like being betrayed by your own body. But here's the plot twist.
It's not your fault.

Speaker 1 Dehydration and brain fog are sabotaging you beneath the surface. When I found found Early Bird's morning cocktail, I felt the shift immediately.

Speaker 1 It's this blood-orange mimosa drink that you mix the night before and you keep on your nightstand. When the alarm goes off, you drink and it's like flipping a switch.

Speaker 1 Clean energy, no brain fog, no crash. I'm in control of my day again.
Early Bird is clinically engineered to target morning fatigue from all angles.

Speaker 1 There's clean, natural caffeine, mood lifting nootropics, and a supercharged electrolyte blend to combat dehydration. This is more than just a morning drink.

Speaker 1 It's a science-backed tool to help you take control of your mornings and own your potential. It gives me the energy to show up as the best, most accomplished version of myself.

Speaker 1 Discover how good it feels to rise and grind on your own terms. Visit clubearlybird.com and use code betrayal for 20% off.
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Speaker 1 On the morning of Nicole's high school graduation, Caroline found her daughter staring at an envelope that had been left on their front door.

Speaker 21 She just had this desperation in her face, like she just was hoping for it.

Speaker 12 And she said, Oh my gosh, is that from my dad?

Speaker 19 And I said, I don't know.

Speaker 12 And when I handed it to her and she saw that it was signed by our neighbors, God, it was one of the worst things to ever see. It was horrible.

Speaker 15 You just saw her completely deflate.

Speaker 26 This day that she had just worked so hard to celebrate.

Speaker 15 She just didn't recover from that day.

Speaker 36 You just saw her with this solemn expression and just deflated.

Speaker 15 Every time she opened the door just a little bit,

Speaker 19 another lie would come up.

Speaker 19 You know, on her graduation that night, she wanted to go out to some parties with some of her friends. And before she left, she said,

Speaker 19 I'm going to text my dad.

Speaker 12 And I said, okay, that's completely your decision.

Speaker 23 I wanted her to continue that contact.

Speaker 15 And she sent just the most simplistic text and just said, I graduated today.

Speaker 36 That's it.

Speaker 19 And he took a while to respond and then eventually said, oh, I know I'm so proud of you.

Speaker 12 But minutes later, I get this rage text from him blaming me for not reminding him.

Speaker 15 And you just saw her pining after just this hope, like, just be different.

Speaker 1 It wasn't just Nicole who was in pain. Caroline's friends watched her suffering too.
Joel wasn't around anymore, but every few weeks, a new secret was revealed. Here's Caroline's friend, Jen.

Speaker 13 There was an incident where Caroline had gotten a text message from someone. This person had

Speaker 13 basically told her about a friend of Caroline's who had been intimately involved with Joel.

Speaker 13 And that was a rough day.

Speaker 13 You'd see her start to heal.

Speaker 12 She relaxed.

Speaker 13 You'd see her start to move forward. And then something else would happen.
And this was one of those instances. Like it's not just taking two steps forward and one step back.

Speaker 13 Every time something came up,

Speaker 13 it just ripped the bandaid off again.

Speaker 1 As people in the community learned about Joel and Caroline's separation, they felt more inclined to contact Caroline with details of Joel's affairs.

Speaker 1 It felt like every day she learned of new affairs that had been going on right under her nose, sometimes for years.

Speaker 1 He had a long-term affair with a hairstylist. He sent inappropriate texts to a local college professor who Caroline worked with.
He'd had sex with an insurance agent, a prison guard, a nurse.

Speaker 1 Caroline was re-traumatized every single time with each new revelation.

Speaker 1 Her entire life was turned into community gossip around town, in the halls of the Colorado Springs Police Department, and even at work.

Speaker 1 Caroline's not a cop, but she does work in law enforcement. Her job requires her to interact with police officers all the time.

Speaker 39 They come into my place of employment and I have to pass them.

Speaker 12 I have to interact with them.

Speaker 39 I see them on elevators. I see them in the hallway.

Speaker 15 Meanwhile, I've heard the snickering.

Speaker 18 There's been blatant comments said back and forth in front of me where they know I'm in earshot.

Speaker 26 I was

Speaker 37 humiliated

Speaker 26 to walk into work knowing that rumors were starting to fly and spread about what he had done.

Speaker 1 Caroline had to face the consequences of Joel's actions every day. And so did the kids.
They continued to find out new information.

Speaker 1 And instead of letting themselves be surprised or hear it through a third party, they wanted to control how and when they heard things. Really, it was the only thing they had control over.

Speaker 1 Here's their son.

Speaker 40 I wanted to know everything.

Speaker 40 Complete transparency. If someone were to say that My mom shared too much.

Speaker 40 I think that'd just be continuing this deception.

Speaker 40 I'd rather find out from my mom so we wouldn't be blindsided randomly in the community.

Speaker 40 Nobody would want that.

Speaker 40 The truth hurt, but it was powerful and it was needed.

Speaker 38 That was the only way to move forward.

Speaker 1 The rumors were inescapable. Caroline's friend Jen recalls a day Caroline received particularly hurtful news about Joel.
She couldn't even talk to anyone about it. It was too much.

Speaker 13 I think emotionally, the anger, the hurt, the sadness all comes back.

Speaker 13 I mean, she spent four days in bed reliving all of it. She basically said, don't come over.
I don't want to see anybody. I cannot

Speaker 13 deal with anything, right? So Tom and I dropped off dinner on her doorstep, you know, hey, we're here for you if you need us.

Speaker 1 All her grief, heartbreak, shame, and humiliation was unfair. Joel was able to leave and she was left with so much destruction when all she did was love and trust her husband.

Speaker 1 All of this got me thinking about consequences. Justice, really.

Speaker 1 You're going to hear different perspectives on what consequences mean throughout this episode. But I wanted to start with Caroline.

Speaker 1 What would justice feel like for her?

Speaker 1 Turns out, it's pretty simple.

Speaker 18 It would feel fantastic to be able to walk into professional meetings, to be able to walk into my own employment, to be able to be in the community and not have cops think can make blowjob comments next to me.

Speaker 1 She doesn't want to feel like the butt of a joke. And she wants the support of the people at Joel's job, people she has supported for two decades

Speaker 23 on a very very personal note you know the people who surrounded him at his profession the deputy chief is my son's godfather i have not heard one word from him and the mix of all of this

Speaker 24 i have not heard one word from any of the people who

Speaker 25 My kids and I were ever there for them in their time of need.

Speaker 23 Not one person

Speaker 34 has reached out to say, are you and the kids okay?

Speaker 24 Not one.

Speaker 1 Joel was able to walk away from the mess without being terminated. Why?

Speaker 1 Because instead of being fired, he retired.

Speaker 1 In an earlier episode, you heard Joel meet with his boss, Commander Jeff Stroessner. This was at the conclusion of Joel's internal affairs investigation for having sex in his police car while on duty.

Speaker 1 Stroessner found conclusively that Joel had violated five Colorado Springs Police Department policies, including departing from the truth, lying.

Speaker 1 He let Joel know he was going to recommend him for termination.

Speaker 41 The legislative intent is very clear that we cannot allow peace officers to remain employed when they've lied during an IA investigation.

Speaker 1 Joel's career as a cop would be over. The department set another meeting for two weeks later to make it all final.

Speaker 1 But that meeting never occurred because instead of facing termination, Joel chose a path that ensured he'd never hear the words, you're fired.

Speaker 1 He retired, and just like that, his work problems vanished.

Speaker 1 A letter about his pending termination was replaced by an email congratulating him on his decades of service, just days after his meeting with Commander Stroessner.

Speaker 1 How did this happen? Well, our team has been investigating it. And the first thing we discovered is that this happens all the time.

Speaker 1 Dan, a former CSPD officer, said it's common for cops under investigation to retire.

Speaker 38 Honestly, I was surprised he didn't retire like the day this came to light. I figured if he knew that this was true and knew how it could end,

Speaker 38 I'm truly surprised that it just wasn't happened immediately.

Speaker 1 It appears that Joel waited until after the meeting with Internal Affairs and Commander Strosner, when he knew for certain they were onto him and there was no talking his way out of it.

Speaker 1 But before he officially left the CSPD, he took FMLA or family medical leave and went off to rehab, where his sexual escapades only continued. In taking FMLA, Joel stretched his time.

Speaker 38 I hate to say it, but when some guys are circling the drain of their career and getting ready to get fired, they will drag it out as long as possible because they're collecting a paycheck.

Speaker 38 And they might as well as long as they can.

Speaker 38 And it irks you when you're sitting up there knowing that we're paying somebody that is more than likely going to get fired and did some pretty bad stuff.

Speaker 1 We also found this troubling. Joel had sex in his police car on the taxpayer's dime, and his consequences consequences amounted to an early retirement, a handshake, and a pat on the back.

Speaker 1 We contacted Jeff Strossner about it via email. He's now the chief of another police department in Colorado.
He pointed out that retirement is managed by a separate agency. Here's some of that email.

Speaker 7 As I am sure you are aware, he retired prior to discipline, and retirement is a process managed by the Colorado Fire Police Pension Association.

Speaker 7 The department has no control if someone decides to retire prior to the execution of discipline and does not have the authority to intervene in the retirement process.

Speaker 7 It is common for retirement eligible officers who see the writing on the wall to decide to retire rather than go through the termination process.

Speaker 1 The police department wasn't about to interfere with the pension association. They don't have the power to.
It seems like once Joel chose to retire and took medical leave, he became untouchable.

Speaker 1 It turns out, we weren't the first to investigate this pattern at the CSPD.

Speaker 36 I'm Carly Rose.

Speaker 34 I'm a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS.

Speaker 1 Carly reports on the criminal justice system in Colorado. I sat down with her when I was in Colorado Springs.
Her team uncovered some alarming patterns among Colorado cops.

Speaker 1 which we'll get to in a moment. But first, I wanted to share one case that tipped her team off to a larger larger problem.

Speaker 34 Alexander Kenoyer was a police officer for the Colorado Springs Department, and he resigned while under investigation in 2012.

Speaker 1 Kenoyer was caught having a sexual relationship with the subject of a criminal investigation.

Speaker 1 He left while under investigation, and that was perfectly legal, but he was never decertified, meaning he could still work as a cop in Colorado.

Speaker 15 Then he was hired at the Cripple Creek Police Department.

Speaker 34 And that's where he met Kelly Davis.

Speaker 1 Davis came into the department to report a possible crime. But then Kenoyer started doing exactly what he did back in Colorado Springs.
He started messaging her daily. And the messages became sexual.

Speaker 34 Him being the police officer had the power in this situation.

Speaker 1 Kelly Davis eventually reported Kenoyer and he was charged with sexual misconduct.

Speaker 1 But all of this may have been prevented if he'd been terminated and decertified back in Colorado Springs.

Speaker 34 He had already done it in another department and was caught for it, in a sense, in being investigated, but then he left and was able to go to a different department and victimize another woman.

Speaker 1 Kanoyer walked away from the CSPD and went on to another department. The heat from his first IA investigation did nothing to deter him from future misconduct.
It didn't deter Joel either.

Speaker 1 After he admitted to sexual harassment in 2019, he got little more than a write-up. And we all know what happened next.

Speaker 1 Carly and her team wanted to understand how often officers were avoiding termination in cases like this. So they looked at something called the Post database.

Speaker 34 It's a public database of the certifications of these officers, as well as certain actions against them, like resignations or terminations, or if they were under investigation.

Speaker 34 One thing that really stood out was

Speaker 34 this action that was titled resignation in lieu of termination and then also resignation while under investigation.

Speaker 34 We were like, oh, people can resign rather than face the consequences of an investigation.

Speaker 1 Rocky Mountain PBS reported the story in April 2024.

Speaker 1 At the time of their reporting, there were 158 cases in the database in which officers had either resigned in lieu of termination or while under investigation.

Speaker 34 And then about 120 had been terminated.

Speaker 1 Instead of being held accountable, more officers took the option to walk away.

Speaker 1 And Joel was one of them.

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Speaker 31 This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?

Speaker 31 They may be happening to you without you knowing.

Speaker 31 If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA.

Speaker 31 OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on osa.com.

Speaker 31 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

Speaker 1 In reporting this season, we've thought a lot about early warning signs.

Speaker 1 Moments when Joel's behavior could have been stopped. Along the way, there were people who raised the alarm on Joel, like the reporter back in 2019.

Speaker 1 Back then, Joel Kern was up for the job of public information officer at the CSPD. The reporter came forward to warn the department that Joel was a problem.

Speaker 1 While he had served in that role temporarily, he had asked her and other reporters to use WhatsApp to communicate.

Speaker 1 And after some hedging during an internal affairs investigation, he eventually admitted to sexual harassment.

Speaker 42 I would say that there was a degree of flirtation going on,

Speaker 42 and then

Speaker 42 the sexual innuendo

Speaker 42 is how I would classify it.

Speaker 35 Were you trying to get more friendlier with those two, maybe hoping it might go somewhere?

Speaker 42 I think if I was honest with myself,

Speaker 42 then I would say, yeah, that would be an accurate statement.

Speaker 1 Joel was written up and took himself out of the running for the job. He wasn't suspended or demoted.
To us, it felt like there wasn't much of a consequence.

Speaker 1 But not everyone agrees with that assessment.

Speaker 20 I'm Will Aitchison. I'm a lawyer who practices out of Portland, Oregon.
I have represented law enforcement labor organizations for about 45 years.

Speaker 1 Will has worked on countless disciplinary proceedings. And when it comes to Joel's harassment case, he thinks the department did the best they could with the information they had at the time.

Speaker 1 After all, Joel said all the right things.

Speaker 20 It always helps an employee to come in and tell the boss, I know I've done something wrong and I apologize for it.

Speaker 20 He did get a reprimand and he did lose what is considered in law enforcement to be a really good job. So I think that punishment is on the range of reasonableness.

Speaker 1 We also wanted Will's thoughts on retiring in lieu of termination. He confirmed what Dan and Stroessner told us.

Speaker 20 That's actually quite common.

Speaker 1 Police officers receive job protections like the ability to retire in this way that people in other professions don't. That can be a good thing.

Speaker 1 These protections prevent new leaders like a chief or mayor from hiring and firing randomly for political or personal reasons.

Speaker 20 We do not want a public employee punished for simply doing their job the way they should.

Speaker 1 But these protections also mean that cops like Joel get a lot of leeway. We asked Will to read the transcripts from Joel's second disciplinary hearing, the one for having sex in his police car.

Speaker 20 Any police officer reading that transcript would be thoroughly embarrassed by what they were reading and would come up with the conclusion. He should be fired.

Speaker 20 I think ultimately, if he had not had this right to retire, the city of Colorado Springs would have terminated him.

Speaker 1 Former CSPD officer Dan says that for the most part, CSPD employees do serve honorably, and the department has procedures in place to eliminate any bad actors.

Speaker 38 You know, that's why you have

Speaker 38 internal affairs in those places that are there to try to weed those people out and get rid of them.

Speaker 38 And I think most officers are going to be of the opinion that the officers that are giving us the black eye need to go.

Speaker 38 I will still say to this day that the Color Springs Police Department is one of the most ethical departments you're going to find. And 99% of the officers out there are doing it right.

Speaker 38 They're doing it for the right reason.

Speaker 1 Joel ultimately lost his certification to be a cop, but he was never criminally charged.

Speaker 1 And there are people who see Joel's low-key exit as telling, that it speaks to a pattern of corruption and favoritism.

Speaker 1 If you've made the right friends and leadership, you'll get a softer landing on the way out.

Speaker 1 We heard rumblings about this long before we ever set foot in Colorado because there was somebody posting stories about it online, a whistleblower acting under the name Romy Eastridge.

Speaker 1 They had a page called the Police Officers Whistleblower Network, where they posted story after story of misconduct at the CSPD,

Speaker 1 on-the-clock affairs, covered-up crimes, and inconsistent discipline. This whistleblower has remained anonymous until now.

Speaker 1 After several conversations, she decided to break cover to participate in betrayal.

Speaker 44 I think that in order for these officers

Speaker 43 to lose the fear, of speaking out, I kind of need to lead by example.

Speaker 1 That's Claudia Aldrich. Claudia has a family member who used to work at the department.

Speaker 1 Claudia's family member went through an internal affairs investigation and experienced what Claudia sees as unfair treatment.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, she kept hearing stories about other CSPD cops getting away with bad behavior. And she wanted to shine a light on the double standards within the department.

Speaker 1 So she started her whistleblower page. She says CSPD cops are too afraid to call out misconduct because of the rules for reporting.

Speaker 43 Apparently, they had to go through the chain of command to open an IA and Internal Affairs Investigation.

Speaker 1 If a cop wants to report misconduct, they typically go to their supervisor. And even if a cop reports misconduct directly to internal affairs or to another superior, word gets around quick.

Speaker 1 Claudia's sources confirmed a long-standing question we had about Joel's sexual activity. Did other employees at CSPD know what Joel was doing at work? The answer is yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 But would people report it?

Speaker 43 Who is going to want to do that?

Speaker 44 Because doing that puts their career on a big red spot.

Speaker 1 So instead of reporting misconduct, some officers called Claudia.

Speaker 1 In one post, Claudia cites three sources in saying,

Speaker 10 Who is going to state the obvious from Gold Hill?

Speaker 10 Would walk over to one of us and tell us we had to work the desk while Kern and her would be holed up in his office. Everyone knew what he was doing with her during those days.

Speaker 10 We all just sat and essentially kept watch in case his wife or kids showed up with his lunch. He did that, and you could tell that even the commanders knew it.

Speaker 1 Here's a former civilian CSPD employee who worked at the same substation as Joel. We'll call her Rennie.

Speaker 16 He would come in before he worked out and said hi, but the only reason he was there was so that everyone could say, well, he was there working out.

Speaker 17 But he was there for the sole purpose to take a shower after his lunchtime activities.

Speaker 1 Here's Claudia again.

Speaker 43 I actually had

Speaker 43 one officer call me and said

Speaker 43 he did the same thing during the riots.

Speaker 1 She is referring to protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.

Speaker 43 He was telling people to go and

Speaker 43 basically face rioters while he was in some motel with someone.

Speaker 1 People knew about Joel long before Caroline ever did.

Speaker 1 Did they fear the consequences of reporting his misconduct?

Speaker 43 I know that Kern also had a lot of power and a lot of connections.

Speaker 1 A 24-year veteran of the department who was also willing to sit with us for this project said the same.

Speaker 44 Joel Kern was one of the golden few.

Speaker 44 Kern was protected.

Speaker 1 Posts on the whistleblower page allege that Kern was also protecting himself.

Speaker 10 One says, Lieutenant Kern had a black book of CSPD dirty deeds that guaranteed him protection.

Speaker 1 At first, we couldn't believe this, but then we heard from employees that keeping records to protect yourself is a common practice.

Speaker 44 When you heard of an instance where a call for service might have involved maybe the mayor, city council, other officers, someone in that sort of political or high-level realm, right?

Speaker 44 The first thing you did was look up that call, quickly print it out, because you were guaranteed within a couple hours, hours that call screen was going to disappear and would not be accessible.

Speaker 1 When someone calls 911, it generates a call screen. Sometimes these are referred to as a call for service.

Speaker 1 Call screens contain details like the names of the people involved, the location, the nature of the emergency, and notes about the call's progress.

Speaker 1 This officer and others we spoke with alleged that the identification numbers of calls for service for high-profile individuals would get hidden in the system.

Speaker 44 And so lots of us, and I did it myself, would print out these calls for service.

Speaker 44 So in the case of some sort of retribution or retaliation, I had a file folder of, all right, if that's the way we're going to play, then I have this.

Speaker 44 We all protected ourselves.

Speaker 1 So employees were keeping dirt on their superiors. Why?

Speaker 1 Because they didn't trust their leadership. How can a police force function that way?

Speaker 1 The story of the call screens surprised law enforcement attorney Will Aitchison.

Speaker 20 You definitely have an accountability problem if that in fact occurred. Yeah, I'm very surprised by that.

Speaker 43 These officers were fighting without anybody knowing.

Speaker 43 And nobody knows that these poor cops have to go out in the street and not just watch the back, but also watch their surroundings where they're in their department among their own peers.

Speaker 1 Cops knew the deal, they weren't all going to be treated fairly. It was all about who you were or who you were friends with.

Speaker 1 On the next episode of Betrayal:

Speaker 1 There were times that he hit me, there were times that he threw me across the room in front of the kids. They get this case against him, and

Speaker 45 unsurprisingly, they decline to prosecute.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening to Betrayal Season 4. If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com.
That's betrayalp-o-d at gmail.com.

Speaker 1 Also, please be sure to follow us on Instagram at betrayalpod and me, Andrea H. Gunning, for all betrayal content, news, and updates.

Speaker 1 One way to support the series is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Please rate and review Betrayal.
Five-star reviews help us know you appreciate what we do.

Speaker 1 Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison.

Speaker 1 Betrayal is hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Carrie Hartman.
Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our associate producers are Caitlin Golden and Kristen Malkuri.

Speaker 1 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreinchek.

Speaker 1 Story editing by Monique Laborde. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Editing by Tanner Robbins. Special thanks to voice actors Todd Gans and Andrew Calloway.

Speaker 1 And special thanks to Caroline and her family. Betrayal's theme is composed by Oliver Baines.
Music library provided by MyMusic.

Speaker 1 And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 31 This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?

Speaker 31 They may be happening to you without you knowing.

Speaker 31 If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA.

Speaker 31 OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleeponosa.com.

Speaker 31 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

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