POLICE CITE EVIDENCE OF DRUG USE BY OFFICER, SUPERVISOR

MANCHESTER - Local police say they have evidence that one of their own
officers and a department records supervisor were using cocaine while
working for the department, although no criminal charges were ever
filed against the two women, who dispute the allegations.

Documents made public Friday also say that Dawn Cushman, the Police
Department's former records supervisor, issued a pistol permit to a
local man from whom she was buying cocaine on a regular basis.

The documents also say she informed Susan Lowry, who was then a local
police officer, of an investigation that related to her suspected drug
use.

Lowry and Cushman were "very good" friends, according to the
documents. Both resigned last year amid the allegations, citing
"personal reasons."

The 255 pages of documents detailing the Police Department's
investigation into the conduct of the two women were made public
Friday in response to requests by the Journal Inquirer and other news
organizations under the state Freedom of Information Act.

Lowry on Friday vigorously denied the allegations in the report,
saying that police lied to her when they told her they would present a
warrant for her arrest to a judge if she didn't resign.

"They have no proof," Lowry said. "They have allegations. That's all
they have. They have all this innuendo but nothing to arrest me on."

Cushman declined to comment on the case Friday, saying she wanted to
go over the documents herself before discussing the matter. But she
has denied the allegations in an application for unemployment benefits
filed last July and obtained recently by the Journal Inquirer.

"Upon completion of the investigation, I was exonerated, but the
damage had already been done," Cushman wrote. "My character had been
assaulted and my good name slandered."

Cushman also wrote that she resigned "under duress" and that "the
environment in which I worked became too unbearable to deal with. I
was an exemplary employee with a spotless record that was accused of
improprieties and forced out of my job."

Police began investigating Lowry in late 2004, when an unidentified
source told members of the East Central Narcotics Task Force that
Lowry had used cocaine with a female bartender at the Sportsman's Cafe
at 208 Spruce St. over the Halloween weekend. Police then launched a
narcotics investigation focusing on the bar.

In November 2004, according to the documents, two drug task force
officers saw Lowry's vehicle leaving the area behind the Sportsmen's
Cafe. Police later learned that Lowry had begun dating a felon and
that the two would meet at the cafe, the documents say.

Although the felon's name was blacked out in the copies of police
documents turned over to reporters, Lowry on Friday identified him as
Michael Giangreco. She said she lived with him from late 2004 to the
spring of 2005, when she kicked him out of her house after learning of
his criminal record.

In an interview with police in March 2005, the bartender - identified
by Lowry as Jayne Griffin - told police that she and Lowry had used
powder cocaine at Cushman's house over the Halloween weekend in 2004.
In a separate interview with police, Cushman denied that anyone used
drugs at her house.

Lowry's cell phone records showed calls made the weekend in question
to Cushman and Jose Padilla, a drug dealer recently sentenced to serve
a year in jail. But the former officer told a reporter Friday that
Giangreco had access to her phone and had called Padilla to buy drugs.

About a week after police first interviewed Cushman and Lowry last
March, another officer, Scott Ventura, who had a prior personal
relationship with Lowry, was interviewed by police, according to the
documents.

Ventura reported that Lowry told him Cushman had looked at police
computer files about the Sportsman's Cafe investigation, according to
the documents. An audit of the department's computer records showed
that Cushman gained access to the report on five days in February and
March 2005.

In mid-March of that year, Cushman and Lowry were put on paid leave
due to the investigation.

Days later, Cushman was interviewed again, according to the documents,
and mentioned to Lt. Joseph San Antonio the bartender's allegations
that Lowry had used cocaine at Cushman's house.

San Antonio asked Cushman where she learned of the bartender's
accusations, which police say could only be found in a report filed
about a week before by Sgt. Christopher Davis of the department's
detective division. Cushman initially told San Antonio he had told her
of the allegations in a prior interview. But he hadn't, according to
the documents.

Cushman then admitted that she had looked at the computer files,
saying she "wanted to know what the hell was going on." When San
Antonio asked if she passed information from the report to anyone
else, she "looked surprised" and stopped the interview, saying, "I'm
stopping right here. I'm done," according to the documents.

Later in March, an informant told San Antonio and Detective Joseph
Amato that a drug dealer had told him that he was delivering four to
five bags of powder cocaine at a time to the home of a female police
officer in Manchester. The informant told police that the drug dealer
was a good friend of Giangreco's.

The drug dealer was detained in Hartford later in March, according to
the documents. He picked Lowry out of a photo lineup and said that, on
about four occasions, he had delivered cocaine to her house and
snorted lines of the drug with Lowry and Giangreco.

The drug dealer also said Lowry had a local dealer, later identified
as Padilla, who was arrested weeks later after police found cocaine in
his Center Street house and in his car.

During the search, police also found a handgun for which Padilla had
obtained a permit through Cushman in August 2003, according to the
documents. Padilla later told police he was selling cocaine to Cushman
"on a regular basis" when she approved his pistol permit - and that
she didn't charge him for the permit.

Padilla told police he sold powder cocaine to Lowry and Cushman about
65 and 70 times, respectively, over a 1=- to two-year period,
describing the two as "regular customers," according to the documents.

In April 2005, San Antonio met with Hartford County State's Attorney
James Thomas. Thomas told San Antonio that there was enough evidence
to charge Lowry with committing a computer crime but recommended that
police handle the matter internally, according to the documents.
Thomas also told San Antonio he didn't feel there was "enough penal
interest to charge Cushman or Lowry with tampering with a witness or
interfering with a pending criminal investigation," the documents add.

Lowry told a reporter Friday that she offered to take a drug test and
a lie-detector test, but that police refused the offer. She said much
of the evidence against her came from Padilla, who has been convicted
of selling drugs, and from Giangreco, who has a long criminal record.
Both are currently serving jail sentences. "Jose Padilla is a liar,"
Lowry said. "You've got Mike Giangreco and two drug dealers, and I'm
thrown into the middle of it?"

In a release Friday, police characterized the actions of Lowry and
Cushman as "highly offensive," adding that "positive organizational
changes have been put in place to protect against future problems of
the same nature."

Since the investigation into Lowry and Cushman, police said, the
department has initiated mandatory, random drug testing of employees.
Also, pistol permits are now authorized by captains and must be signed
by Chief James O. Berry. In addition, a new computer system has been
programmed to "appropriately limit access to files," police say.