LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville Metro Police Chief Jackie Gwinn-Villaroel is currently on paid, administrative leave pending allegations that she mishandled a sexual harassment complaint within the department.
Mayor Craig Greenberg announced her administrative leave at a late-afternoon press conference on Wednesday. More specifics came out on Thursday. An attorney for Major Shannon Lauder, who leads the LMPD 1st Division, alleges that Lauder was sexually harassed by a fellow major.
Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey is now the acting chief, and there will be three investigations into the alleged harassment: one by LMPD, one by attorney David Beyer and one by Lauder's attorney.
This is not the first time Gwinn-Villaroel has had her accountability questioned or has been suspended or reprimanded as a police officer.
Prior to coming to Louisville, she worked in the Atlanta Police Department for 24 years. When she was an investigator in 2003, she was suspended for 20 days for accessing a file she had no right to access, and lying about it to higher-ups during the internal review process.
According to the internal APD investigation obtained by WHAS11, the "Gangs and Guns" unit was investigating John Farmer for drug and gun charges. Farmer was married to Sonia Villaroel, who is the sister of David Villaroel. Jackie Gwinn-Villaroel was married to David Villaroel.
Farmer was pulled over and arrested on 1/14/03 for having drugs and guns in his car. On Jan. 15, 2003, police obtained a search warrant to search his business, a car repair shop.
Investigator Browning was taking a phone call about the case as they were trying to get a search warrant for Farmer's house as well. Gwinn-Villaroel overheard the phone call and went into Investigator Browning's office to look for Farmer's file after Browning had left.
At least one officer saw Gwinn-Villaroel do this, and they devised a plan to repeat the process, with a camera in Browning's office to get it on film. On Jan. 28, 2003, officers placed a manilla folder with Farmer's file on Browning's desk, made a dummy phone call and got Gwinn-Villaroel on film picking up the file, leaving the office, and returning it seven minutes later.
"This is a very serious work rule violation due to the fact that the matter involved the accessing of arrest and case information of a family member by Investigator Gwinn-Villaroel. This was an investigation that was being handled by another CID unit, and that Investigator Gwinn-Villaroel had no involvement with," APD Deputy Chief M.L. Brooks wrote in a memo.
The documents also say Gwinn-Villaroel denied searching for and taking the file until she was shwon the video, at which point she admitted to it. She was suspended for 20 days at the time. Gwinn-Villaroel would stay with APD for another 18 years, being promoted several times, all the way up to the commander of the APD training academy.
More recently, and in Louisville, Gwinn-Villaroel was questioned in a civil court case about the use of her body camera.
In November 2023, Gwinn-Villaroel took the stand in a civil case about the death of a 22-year-old in 2021. Trevon Mitchell died when he refused to stop after being signaled by LMPD officers, he died in a fiery crash at the conclusion of the chase.
Gwinn-Villaroel responded to the scene and said, "I would have activated it, if I had it on," about her body camera. Mitchell's attorneys say there was no body camera from the chief, and showed a photo from another officer's body cam of Gwinn-Villaroel at the scene wearing a body cam.
"Where's the footage, chief?" the attorney for Mitchell asked.
Gwinn-Villaroel said she never delated any footage. Mayor Greenberg defended the chief at the time, saying she "misspoke" and it was a "trap question."
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