Lewisville Police Chief Brock Rollins said that in October , the former street crimes unit was assigned to uncover alleged prostitution at nine massage parlors in the city, as well as one in neighboring Flower Mound.
The operation lasted until June , resulting in 32 criminal charges against 28 suspects. However, the Denton County District Attorney's Office told Rollins they wouldn't be able to prosecute any of the 23 cases because undercover officers had engaged in "inappropriate physical contact" with suspected prostitutes.
Lewisville PD launched an internal affairs investigation based on the DA's findings, which confirmed the alleged inappropriate contact, as well as alleged violations of "department directives and protocols. Unfortunately, the intentions were not what the original training sets out to teach and also what the guidelines that we put in place for how these investigations should be conducted should happen. Lewisville PD did not go into specifics about the alleged contact but said there was no evidence the officers had sex with the alleged prostitutes.
Legally, there only needs to be an agreement of payment for sexual contact to establish probable cause.
It's certainly what was concerning to us. In total, seven members of covert operations and six members of the operations bureau violated protocol, according to the department. Eleven of those were disciplined: two sergeants and one officer were fired; one captain was demoted; and five officers and two sergeants were suspended without pay.
