A suspended officer accused of disclosing the identity of an informant to a suspected drug dealer told detectives that he was having an extramarital affair with the dealer’s sister and had been addicted to steroids and painkillers for three or four years, according to a report from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Below is the report from the Enquirer:
Those are some of the details included in a 209-page court document that Butler County prosecutors filed involving evidence against West Chester Officer David Busemeyer.
Busemeyer, 37, of Hamilton Township in Warren County, was indicted last month on charges of attempted tampering with evidence, obstructing official business and obstructing justice.
He is free on his promise to return to Butler County Common Pleas Court. The next hearing is scheduled Dec. 13, when Busemeyer, who was recently suspended from the police force without pay, will either plead or the judge will set a trial date.
According to court records obtained by The Enquirer, Busemeyer was confronted by his superiors Sept. 30 after a Woodlawn police officer advised that one of his female informants had expressed concern that her sister was being harassed by a West Chester officer she was dating.
A search of the sister’s cell phone records pointed to Busemeyer. Both women were sisters of the alleged drug dealer.
By that time, a frantic informant had contacted police to report that he thought his cover was blown and that a police officer was implicated, records show.
Busemeyer eventually confessed to detectives that he contacted the girlfriend and told her to warn her brother to “watch his back” because he was the focus of an undercover drug investigation, according to the court documents.
But Busemeyer denied disclosing the name of the informant but he said he tipped off the girlfriend because she felt he owed her a favor for information she gave him before about illegal drug activity in West Chester.
The girlfriend told police that she and Busemeyer had dated for about a year but broke up roughly two months before the incident that got him arrested. Busemeyer claimed that his wife knew about the affair.
Documents in the case indicate that Busemeyer had been using two aliases – David Ernst and David Wagner – to obtain prescription drugs at pharmacies.
The girlfriend said she knew Busemeyer as David Ernst and that he initially told her he was a firefighter. She said she met him after seeing a shirtless picture of him in a dating ad on Craigslist.
Police searched Busemeyer’s home after learning about his drug use and found a shoe box in the master bedroom closet containing vials of a substance and syringes consistent with steroid use.
Busemeyer told police he was taking 10 to 15 pain pills a day to offset the pain of the steroids, documents said.
He has not been charged involving the prescriptions or steroids.
Busemeyer was suspended without pay and benefits, effective Oct. 31, 2011, following his arraignment in Butler County Court of Common Pleas.
He pleaded not guilty to felony charges of obstruction of official business, obstruction of justice and attempted tampering with evidence.
In early October, the nine-year veteran police officer was placed an administrative leave with pay and was stripped of his police powers in early October. On Oct. 13, Busemeyer was indicted for allegedly releasing information about an undercover investigation.
