PORT ANGELES — Last year ended with Clallam County Sheriff’s Deputy Dwane Hayden being nominated for the department’s Employee of the Year by his supervisor.
In February, Hayden, 37, who started with the department in 1999 after four years as a Department of Defense police officer, received the award.
Ten months later, the Sheriff’s Department began the process of firing him.
In late October 2004, Hayden started an extramarital affair with an unmarried Sequim woman that occurred while he was being paid to patrol the county, according to an investigative report released by the Sheriff’s Department last week.
Hayden cooperated
Hayden was forthright with the investigation, Portland, Ore.-based attorney Jill Dinse wrote in her investigative report, and said Hayden was aware that his conduct was in violation of department policy.
Hayden worked the night shift when the relationship began, and was supervised by former Sgt. Dave Fontenot before Fontenot was promoted to lead the department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau in January.
Hayden and Fontenot are good friends and co-own a flooring business together.
According to the investigative report, Hayden spent anywhere from 30 minutes to more than two hours during his 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift at her Sequim residence, engaged in intimate relations, talking or watching television, the report says.
Hayden visited her residence two to four times a week over a six-month period.
The relationship also was the reason that Hayden spent almost 60 hours of personal time on his county-issued cell phone talking to the woman without reimbursing the county.
Most of the personal calls occurred between September 2004 and October 2005, but Hayden never exceeded the county plan’s maximum number of minutes.
Although Hayden was using “free” minutes, the Sheriff’s Department’s cell phone policy states that even “free” minutes cost something, and employees are required to reimburse the department for personal use.
The county has not received any reimbursement from Hayden for personal cell phone use, Dinse wrote.
The woman said she believed Hayden was “completely engaged” in his job while at her residence because he kept in radio contact with dispatchers, the report says.
But part of Hayden’s job was to spend as much time as possible on county roads enforcing traffic laws.
“It is presumably difficult to enforce traffic laws from inside a personal residence,” Dinse wrote.
