2 Rialto officers quit, 4 punished in sex scandal

Two Rialto police officers have quit and four others have been severely disciplined after an internal investigation was completed into allegations that they had sex with strip club workers at police union headquarters, the chief said Friday.

The announcement is the latest chapter in a scandal that has sullied the image of the Police Department in Rialto, near San Bernardino, since a waitress at the strip club made allegations of group sex, on-duty sex and other liaisons inside union headquarters and the agency’s narcotics office.

The allegations became public after the waitress at the Spearmint Rhino Gentleman’s Club in Rialto, Nancy Holtgreve, filed a claim and then sued the city for $500,000. She is alleging the department violated her civil rights after her relationship with one officer soured when she got pregnant by him, and the officer began threatening her.

Rialto Police Chief Mark Kling said the actions taken by the department reached far beyond the two officers identified by Holtgreve and showed how seriously they pursued the sexual misconduct investigation. Kling said the two officers’ resignations came as the department was pursuing their terminations.

“I do not tolerate nor will I accept behavior that is not conducive to professional law enforcement, especially when it comes to sexual misconduct while on duty,” Kling said. “We have held those employees accountable, including accepting the resignations of officers that will never be police officers again.”

Kling acknowledged that officers used a police union building for the sex sessions.

“The other four officers were found to not have had sex on duty,” he said. “They were held accountable for other violations and they received severe and appropriate punishments.”

An officer who resigned, James Dobbs, was identified by Holtgreve as the father of her child. Kling said he could not legally identify the other officer who quit. He said the second officer was not named by Holtgreve, but internal investigators found other evidence against him.

Kling said an investigation found that none of the officers’ conduct was criminal.

Holtgreve claims the misconduct began in 2008 when officers started hanging out at the Spearmint Rhino, then arranged to rendezvous at a nearby Denny’s. Dobbs started taking her to the police union hall for sex, she said.

“Occasionally, several employees of the Rhino and several officers would engage in sexual relations at the union together,” according to her legal papers.

Holtgreve alleges that once she became pregnant by Dobbs, he threatened her repeatedly. When she reported the conduct to the department, officials failed to protect her civil rights, she alleges.

Dobbs could not be reached for comment.

Holtgreve claimed Dobbs introduced her to another officer who had sex with her at the department’s narcotics office. The investigation determined that the officer did not engage in sex while on duty, but he was among the four officers who were disciplined for inappropriate conduct, Kling said. He remains a sworn member of the department.

richard.winton@latimes.com