Bullitt County officer fired for lying about sexual relationship hired by nearby department

HILLVIEW, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Bullitt County police officer caught lying under oath about a sexual relationship with a teenager was fired, but he's back at work with another department just two miles away.

In a video with investigators from the Hillview Police Department taken in February, now former Officer Mike McNear is seen confessing to that relationship:

"All right, f*** it. I mean we f***** around. We had f***** around. I mean, I don't want to lose my damn job.
"I'm worried about my home life ... The whole thing, the whole f****** thing was wrong between me and her.
"I should've never let it get that far. You know I'm guilty of it. I'm coming back now saying f****** recanting on what I said earlier. But man, the whole time I'm sitting here, f***** I knew you all were gonna gather facts."

In another police video from February, the woman, who is now 23, talks about a relationship she calls "intimate" with McNear. She had worked at McDonald's in Hillview and said that's where officers, including McNear, would often go to eat.

"It started when I was 18, and then the last time I seen him was that night at McDonald's," the woman said, adding in the police interview that their sexual relationship involved oral sex.

McNear's admission is much different than what he said in court under oath four months before. Investigators first learned about the allegations in September 2017 for the criminal trial of Tammy Morris, the girlfriend of the woman that is accused of having a relationship with McNear. Morris was arrested for disorderly conduct in September 2016 at McDonald's. McNear said she was causing a "disturbance."

In court for Morris' trial, the attorney questioned McNear:

Attorney: "Wasn't she berating you for having an affair with her girlfriend?"
McNear: "She claimed that, but I was not having an affair."
Attorney: "You didn't have any kind of improper relationship with this woman?"
McNear: "I did not."
Attorney: "Ever?"
McNear: "Ever."

McNear refused an on-camera interview but said he was fired unfairly and made a mistake.

"I got caught up with a girl giving me attention and should've been concentrating on my home life," he said, adding that their relationship wasn't an affair and that it didn't last years.

Investigator: "What do you mean by saying messing around?"
McNear: "Kissed each other, fondled, but she's never fondled me. I might have fondled her a little bit."

The internal affairs investigation found that McNear violated numerous policies and procedures of the police department. He was not charged criminally, and Bullitt County Commonwealth's Attorney Shelly Alvey said the case won't be presented to the grand jury.

Investigators say the woman gave them a picture of McNear sleeping in her car as proof of their relationship. She said they had been intimate in both of their cars, including the patrol car.

Investigator: "You had a physical relationship going on while you were actively using heroin?"
Woman: "I was on and off heroin the whole time."
Investigator: "And he knew this?"
Woman: "Yes."

Records show McNear was giving rides to that woman and her sister.

Investigator: "When you said that you guys made out pretty much every day, did you guys ... were you making out while he was on duty or while he was off duty?"
Woman: "Both."

After a five-month internal affairs investigation, McNear was suspended with pay in February. In May, he was fired. His resume says he worked at the Hillview Police Department for nine years.

But it didn't take him long to find a new police job. The city of Pioneer Village says it hired McNear in August. The two police departments are only a couple miles apart in Bullitt County.

Hillview Police Chief Lt. William Mahoney said he doesn't think McNear should still be a police officer. Pioneer Village Police Chief D.J. Reynolds said he can't comment on hiring McNear.

Reynolds himself is under investigation for rape, and former Hillview Police Det. John Nissen just took a plea deal for official misconduct, accused of trying to cover it up.

Mahoney said he wants the public to know if they think there is a problem with the Hillview Police Department, "They need to understand we're going to take care of it."

"That's just not the type of conduct law enforcement officers out here need to be doing," said Col. Charles McWhirter with the Internal Affairs Department of the Hillview Police Department. "I was very disappointed in (McNear's) actions and also his untruthfulness."

McNear is married with two children and teared up at the end of his police interview. His personnel file from the Pioneer Village Police Department is 27 pages and doesn't disclose his firing from the Hillview Police Department.

"It was really shocking to a lot of us with the allegations," Mahoney said. "It did hurt us as an agency to have him terminated, because we were all friends with him."

"You ain't the first guy getting tangled up with a girl, man," the investigator says at one point in the video. "And won't be the last."

"I have never done nothing that f****** stupid before, and this is stupid," McNear tells the investigator.