FLANAGAN

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is expected to investigate Police Chief Dick Flanagan following allegations that he condoned an officer allegedly forcing two women into sex acts.

After Bellaire Village Council’s closed-door session regarding litigation on Thursday, Village Solicitor Michael Shaheen said Flanagan still is chief of the village police department.

Shaheen said after he and Mayor Vince DiFabrizio met with Flanagan last week it was decided that Flanagan would stay in his position.

After the council meeting, Councilman Jerry Fisher, who was filling in as mayor during Thursday’s meeting, said he did not know anything about the complaint being amended to include Flanagan until he read about it in the newspaper. That is why council called for the closed-door session to speak with Shaheen, he said.

According to a copy of the amended complaint, filed June 29 in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Ohio, Flanagan was named as a defendant, along with existing defendants the village of Bellaire, Bellaire police Officer Gene Grimm and the Bellaire Police Department.

The original complaint against Grimm claimed that he forced a woman to perform a sexual act on him in exchange for not getting arrested for having a crack pipe in her purse. This allegedly occurred in February 2021. According to the amended complaint, in May 2019, a different woman told Flanagan that Grimm was forcing her to perform a sexual act or else he would have children taken away from her.

The Intelligencer is not publishing the name of either woman because of the sexual nature of the case.

The complaint states the first woman told Flanagan that Grimm had been forcing her to perform sex acts for quite some time and that she was tired of it.

Flanagan allegedly told the first woman that he would look into it and do something about it. However, Grimm allegedly continued to demand sexual favors through June 2019. The woman believed nothing was going to be done about Grimm’s behavior and that Flanagan was condoning it, according to the complaint.

Shaheen said after meeting with Flanagan that it was determined that he should be able to stay in his position as chief because the allegations against him were not “heinous” like those against Grimm. The chief was also cooperative in talking with Shaheen and DiFabrizio about the allegations and he shared related files, Shaheen added.

Shaheen said, however, that Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was contacted and asked to investigate the allegations against Flanagan. He said the village would wait for the results of the BCI investigation before taking any further steps regarding Flanagan.

The federal complaint also states: “The de facto policies and/or customs alleged in this complaint, separately and together, are the proximate cause of the injury to plaintiffs, because Defendant Grimm had good reason to believe that his misconduct would not be revealed or reported by anyone, or that he would be immune from any type of disciplinary action, although his conduct was in fact reported to Defendant Flanagan regarding (the first woman). Defendant Flanagan knew, or should have known, to investigate (the first woman’s) report which would have prevented what happened to (the second woman).”

Grimm has been placed on unpaid leave.