Lauren McCluskey update: Released report confirms investigating officer showed explicit pics to others
08/05/2020 6:38 pm PDT
via KSTU:
SALT LAKE CITY (KSTU) -- An independent investigation regarding allegations that a University of Utah Police officer shared compromising photos of slain student Lauren McCluskey has been completed and released.
The Salt Lake Tribune has the findings, which were released by the University on Wednesday.
READ the University of Utah investigative report here via The Salt Lake Tribune
In May, The Salt Lake Tribune published a story alleging that former University of Utah DPS Officer Miguel Deras "was involved in downloading, sharing, and bragging about having explicit photos of Lauren McCluskey."
The report concluded that Deras did not download or digitally share picture files of the slain university student-athlete, but the photos were directly shown to at least three officers, and some who saw the pictures — allegedly as part of their police duties — recalled crass and “unprofessional comments” being made, the Deseret News writes.
Deras showed a sergeant one of the nude photos of McCluskey while they were at the crime scene on the night she was fatally shot on campus.
Deras was assigned to investigate McCluskey's concerns of exploitation by a man she had dated.
That man, 37-year-old Melvin Rowland, went on to shoot and kill McCluskey, 21, then fatally shot himself hours later in a church in October 2018.
TRUE CRIME DAILY: Lauren McCluskey case coverage - TCD
McCluskey had reported that someone had threatened to post compromising photos of her and Rowland online unless she met a monetary demand. McCluskey told police she transferred $1,000 to an account in hopes of keeping the photos private and protecting her reputation. The blackmailer was later identified as Rowland himself.
After she paid, she sent copies of the messages and the pictures to the campus police department as evidence. The Salt Lake Tribune reported Miguel Deras, one of the officers assigned to her case, showed off at least one of the images to a male co-worker days before McCluskey was murdered.
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