After the OPP started secretly monitoring the phone calls and text messages of one of their own officers, they found out Const. Luanne MacDonald had sent a photo to her boyfriend of a half-naked, intoxicated woman detained in a police cell block.
Her boyfriend also happened to be an OPP constable.
And that’s not all the OPP discovered about MacDonald, who worked at the Alexandria satellite office of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry detachment.
In March 2014, MacDonald got a call from a mother who reported her drunken boyfriend had sexually assaulted her 14-year-old daughter. MacDonald not only discouraged the concerned parent from filing a complaint, but she also tried to cover her tracks and lied about what she knew of the assault to an investigator.
The details of MacDonald’s on- and off-duty behaviour are revealed in an agreed statement of facts filed with the Ottawa courthouse after she pleaded guilty last week to obstruction of justice relating to her handling of the reported sexual assault.
Her trial was transferred from Alexandria to Ottawa at the request of her defence lawyer.
Unbeknownst to MacDonald, 46, the OPP were secretly monitoring her phone calls and text messages in 2014 under a court order.
In an email to the Sun on Thursday, an OPP spokeswoman declined to provide a reason for what had prompted the police force to monitor one of its own in the first place.
“This question pertains to a matter of evidence and I won’t be speaking to that,” said Acting Sgt. Angie Atkinson.
She also said she could not comment about whether MacDonald was the subject of an investigation prior to March 2014.
The document filed with the court contains excerpts of the incriminating calls and messages, but it does not explain why her private communications were being intercepted or for how long.
Her Ottawa-based lawyer, Michael Edelson, declined to comment on the case.
Her trial had been scheduled for Jan. 16 to Feb. 17 and Feb. 27 to March 3. But on the first day of the trial, MacDonald entered a plea of guilt to one count of obstruction.
The probe into the officer also resulted in seven other charges being laid on July 23, 2014, including breach of trust by a public officer, theft of telecommunication, fraud, voyeurism, and distribution of voyeurism material stemming from unrelated incidents. Although she has not entered a plea on any of these other charges, she has admitted certain facts of the case in the agreed statement of facts filed in court.
The document reveals the constable suggested the mother not file a police report and that she made sure the reported sexual assault stayed a secret.
MacDonald agreed with the mother that reporting the sexual assault would tear the family apart and “destroy a business.”
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