An internal investigation of a police officer has been closed as not sustained after he was accused of coaching a public defender on how to question one of his co-workers.
During the course of the investigation, other allegations surfaced that the officer — William Bonanno — and the public defender — Vanessa Johnson — were involved in a relationship and that they had engaged in sexual behavior in a back corridor at Tucson Municipal Court.
While Bonanno remains employed by the department, Johnson resigned from the public defender’s office.
Both told investigators that they were nothing more than close friends, according to documents released to the Arizona Daily Star. However, co-workers reported that Johnson was very flirtatious with Bonanno.
A co-worker and self-described confidant of Johnson’s also told investigators that Johnson admitted to being in a sexual relationship with Bonanno and engaging in sexual behavior in the court house.
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Tucson Police opened an investigation into Bonanno after being told that he had reviewed one of Johnson’s cases involving a fellow DUI officer.
Bonanno reportedly did not get along well with the officer who was scheduled to be questioned by the public defender’s office on a DUI case.
One day when Bonanno and a few other DUI officers stopped at a Starbucks to get coffee, Johnson also happened to be there.
They began talking as a group and Johnson discussed how she interviewed that officer and how Bonanno looked at her case file beforehand and coached her on the type of questions she should ask to burn him.
One of the officer’s present reported the conversation, because he thought it would be inappropriate to do something like that, documents show.
When questioned about the incident, Bonanno denied giving Johnson specifics on any case. Rather he said they would discuss DUI investigations in general terms and that the information he gave her was nothing she couldn’t have found out on her own.
All the while, rumors were swirling that Johnson was hanging out with the DUI officers and that she was in a relationship with one.
Johnson was confronted by her superiors about the rumors. She did not deny being friends with the officers but said she was not romantically involved with anyone other than her husband.
Johnson said she was told that she could be conflicted off some of the cases, but given that she was on probation they chose to let her go instead.
Initially the Tucson Police Department decided the allegations were sustained and a 20-hour suspension was the consequence.
However, a grievance was filed and at the end of February and Tucson police Chief Kermit Miller directed that the finding be changed to not sustained.
Bonanno has since been removed from the DUI squad and is now on patrol, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.
