LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — An unsettling tradition got here into focus as Megan Moryc settled into her new place on the night-shift squad on the Lakeview Put up of the Michigan State Police.
“It wasn’t until I got to night shift and this particular squad where they would sit in the Post, and this one particular trooper was not bashful about his extracurricular life,” Moryc mentioned. “He would brag about Tinder dates and having threesomes with couples and all the pictures and videos he had on his phone.”
That trooper was Timothy Moreno, and Moryc mentioned Moreno frequently would showcase bare photographs despatched to him, whereas on responsibility, by way of Snapchat.
Michigan State Police Trooper Timothy Moreno (left) and former Michigan State Police Trooper Megan Moryc (proper). (Courtesy MSP. Obtained by way of FOIA. WLNS)
An interrogation performed by MSP Skilled Requirements Part investigators in 2020 revealed that Moreno’s sharing of sexually specific movies and photographs was recognized by different troopers and a regulation enforcement agent from one other company.
MSP’s dealing with of Moreno and circumstances like which can be the muse of the departmental tradition that Moryc, fired twice by the company, mentioned has discriminated in opposition to her as she has tried to reclaim her profession with the assist of arbitrators and courts throughout an almost 5-year battle.
“Now, I wasn’t interested in that kind of thing,” Moryc mentioned. “So, I would either, you know, focus on what I was doing, or I would take myself out of the situation and put myself in another room.”
However Moryc mentioned each time the lads on her night time squads had been collectively, “they would always talk about this kind of stuff, and he’d share videos and things like that.”
As troopers had been reassigned from different posts or new recruits joined, they had been introduced into the picture and video sharing as properly, Moryc mentioned.
“So, it’d be like a whole ‘big boys’ club’ going on at the post,” she mentioned.
Moreno, who’s stationed on the Hart Put up, didn’t reply to a cellphone message left on his MSP-issued mobile phone. There isn’t any publicly obtainable electronic mail deal with for Moreno, and requires him had been transferred by the Hart Put up’s major quantity.
Moryc, 40, a trooper since 2016, was fired by MSP in 2020 after a drunken incident she described as horseplay outdoors a lodge at a police union gathering in Traverse Metropolis.
She was charged with two counts of assault and battery and two counts of prison sexual conduct fourth diploma, and in 2021 she entered a “no contest” plea to the 2 counts of assault and battery. The opposite expenses had been dismissed as a part of the deal.
Moryc District Courtroom Register of ActionsDownload
The presiding choose threw out the sentencing portion of the deal that will have been probation, and she or he spent 21 days in jail. She was fired by the division shortly afterwards.
An arbitrator and the courts mentioned the fees in opposition to her had been spurious and required her to be restored to lively responsibility. She was placed on state payroll once more Oct. 2, 2024, solely to be served with discover she was on paid administrative depart whereas investigators decided if she had lied beneath oath throughout a divorce listening to on Oct. 9, 2018, in Montcalm County.
Moryc signed notification of administrative interview in perjury internalDownload
She was fired a second time on Feb. 13, accused of perjury — one thing a particular prosecutor declined to cost. She’s combating that termination by way of an arbitration course of.
2024 DEC 20 PSS-627-23 Moryc – SOC TERMINATIONDownload
The 6 Information Investigates Staff since August has been investigating this dispute between Moryc and the MSP, reviewing a whole lot of pages of inner investigations, courtroom filings, courtroom opinions, emails and prosecutorial communications.
Moryc has sat for hours of on-camera interviews, however officers for the state of Michigan, together with the MSP, have declined to answer quite a few particular questions from the 6 Information Investigates Staff.
This dispute, which at one level reached the Michigan Supreme Courtroom, is chronicled on this ongoing report by 6 Information Investigates a few sexualized “big boys’ club” on the Lakeview Put up of the Michigan State Police.
Not a ‘team player’
The Michigan State Police Lakeview Put up in Lakeview, Mich. (WLNS)
All of this started on the Lakeview Put up, the place, Moryc mentioned, she grew “sick” of the actions and commenced to isolate herself. She would discover one other room or go elsewhere within the detachment to finish her reviews.
“I very much felt a shift in how they treated me and how they were acting towards me,” Moryc mentioned. “And it was a negative shift as far as I think they worried I would say something.”
Her fellow troopers started telling her she wasn’t a “team player” as a result of she had withdrawn from the sexualized rituals within the squad room.
“But I was getting sick of the kind of boys club going on and the degradation of women being told by both the one who was sharing the video and his friend that, you know, they said to me one night in the post — right to my face, and they said it in a joking way – but I know it really wasn’t a joke, especially because they had said that to other women,” she mentioned.
“Well, women don’t, don’t belong in law enforcement. Women don’t belong in law enforcement is what they said to me.”
Michigan State Police Sgt. Scott Ziesman. (Courtesy MSP. Obtained by way of FOIA. WLNS)
She mentioned Sgt. Scott Ziesman, who supervised the night time squad on which she served, participated at occasions within the banter about photographs.
On March 4, 2020, Moryc was given a particular project investigating intercourse crimes and doable cover-ups within the Grand Rapids Diocese of the Catholic Church. That project took her off the highway, simply because the COVID-19 pandemic was hitting the state and lockdowns started.
Informing Moryc of the brand new project, Ziesman advised her she would should be “a team player,” noting her withdrawal from the opposite troopers on the Put up.
“I said, ‘Excuse me?’ and he goes, ‘You know, some of the squad has been saying that you’re not a team player, and you’ve distanced yourselves’ – something to that effect,” Moryc mentioned of the dialog. “I mentioned, ‘Do you understand what I’ve been coping with?’
“I mentioned, ‘I’ve been watching. I’ve heard them degrade ladies. I’ve heard them speak about how, , their wives – they shouldn’t must ask for intercourse, or they shouldn’t must plead for it. I’ve needed to, , have them taking part in porn or, , watching all these items on the submit.’
I mentioned, ‘This has been going on, and this is why I’ve distanced myself, and I felt them form of coming after me for it. Scared, I will go inform on them.’
“And his response to me — which I was very taken aback by – but he said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I stopped going there, too.’”
Moryc alleged Ziesman was unable to report the conduct up the chain of command as a result of the troopers had been conscious of his extramarital affair with a county dispatcher and would use that in opposition to him.
Ziesman didn’t reply to messages left for him on the Lakeview Put up.
‘Learn to accommodate’
Wendy Murphy, a professor at New England Regulation in Boston and chief of the Girls and Kids’s Advocacy Undertaking on the faculty. (Courtesy Photograph. WLNS)
Distancing from such hypersexualized conditions is a standard response for workers, mentioned Wendy Murphy, a professor at New England Regulation in Boston and chief of the Girls and Kids’s Advocacy Undertaking on the faculty.
“It’s a learned behavior,” she mentioned. “Sooner or later {that a} lady thinks to herself, ‘I know I’m imagined to complain about this. I do know it’s unlawful. I realized this in, , our coaching on what Title 7 [federal civil rights law] forbids. … However the final time I complained about it, I, , didn’t get any extra time pay or, or one thing like that occurs to them the place they know rattling properly that’s as a result of they filed a grievance.’ They suffered indirectly of their job.
“So, women learn to accommodate. They learn to look the other way, or if they find it intolerable, they learn to avoid situations, and that makes it a lot harder for them to work with men. Work alongside men. It makes it harder for women to develop that trust that you really have to have with your partners and your colleagues when you are in law enforcement.”
Moryc mentioned she was explicitly advised to not be like one other feminine trooper who had left the submit after complaints of the inappropriate sexual setting had been lodged. Troopers accused that feminine trooper of submitting these complaints, however a subsequent investigation of Moryc’s issues revealed that the feminine trooper had not filed a grievance. Another person within the Put up had. There are not any obtainable paperwork on the result of the complaints alleged to have originated with the opposite feminine trooper.
Distancing from such hypersexualized conditions is a standard response for workers, mentioned Wendy Murphy, a professor at New England Regulation in Boston and chief of the Girls and Kids’s Advocacy Undertaking on the faculty.
“It’s a learned behavior,” she mentioned. “Sooner or later {that a} lady thinks to herself, ‘I know I’m imagined to complain about this. I do know it’s unlawful. I realized this in, , our coaching on what Title 7 [federal civil rights law] forbids. … However the final time I complained about it, I, , didn’t get any extra time pay or, or one thing like that occurs to them the place they know rattling properly that’s as a result of they filed a grievance.’ They suffered indirectly of their job.
“So, women learn to accommodate. They learn to look the other way, or if they find it intolerable, they learn to avoid situations, and that makes it a lot harder for them to work with men. Work alongside men. It makes it harder for women to develop that trust that you really have to have with your partners and your colleagues when you are in law enforcement.”
Moryc mentioned she was explicitly advised to not be like one other feminine trooper who had left the submit after complaints of the inappropriate sexual setting had been lodged. Troopers accused that feminine trooper of submitting these complaints, however a subsequent investigation of Moryc’s issues revealed that the feminine trooper had not filed a grievance. Another person within the Put up had. There are not any obtainable paperwork on the result of the complaints alleged to have originated with the opposite feminine trooper.
Moryc mentioned her issues concerning the hypersexualized nature of the Put up escalated when she realized of potential prison exercise involving Moreno and his intercourse movies. Particularly, a feminine regulation enforcement agent advised Moryc she believed the agent had been secretly videotaped whereas having intercourse with Moreno.
Moryc mentioned her issues concerning the hypersexualized nature of the Put up escalated when she realized of potential prison exercise involving Moreno and his intercourse movies. Particularly, a feminine regulation enforcement agent advised Moryc she believed the agent had been secretly videotaped whereas having intercourse with Moreno.
Shared movies investigation
Isabella County FOIA response Moreno criminalDownload
In early 2020, a feminine regulation enforcement agent working for a county within the Lakeview Put up’s service territory – which encompasses Gratiot, Ionia and Montcalm counties – turned conscious Moreno might have had movies of the 2 of them having intercourse, a prison report obtained by the 6 Information Investigates Staff states.
That data, verified by paperwork from the Isabella County Prosecutor’s Workplace and MSP’s inner reviews, was verified by Moryc and that feminine agent.
6 Information Investigates Staff agreed to not determine the girl or the company for which she labored on the time to permit her freedom to debate delicate data.
Moryc and the agent advised 6 Information they believed these movies had been shared with fellow troopers within the squad room in late 2019.
Moryc mentioned the regulation enforcement agent advised her that she had a “friends with benefits” relationship with Moreno. For his half, Moreno characterised the sexual interactions between himself and the girl in the identical means.
The lady advised 6 Information in a cellphone interview that she obtained the primary inkling there may be a video of her having intercourse with Moreno when a trooper from the Put up referenced a tattoo she has on her rib cage, a tattoo that nobody would have seen until they’d seen bare photos of her. She mentioned the trooper who had referenced it wouldn’t inform her how he knew concerning the tattoo.
However she was involved sufficient, she mentioned, to speak in confidence to Moryc, who had develop into an off-the-cuff acquaintance by way of their shared work. The previous regulation enforcement officer advised 6 Information that Moryc listened to her issues.
The lady mentioned that on Feb. 20, 2020, she advised Moryc she was ready to file a proper grievance in opposition to Moreno. Consequently, Moryc reported the state of affairs to her Put up command.
The following day, the agent was interviewed by detectives from MSP. That very same day, Moreno was suspended with pay from the Put up, and a search warrant was executed on his dwelling, an MSP prison report revealed. The report reveals two iPhones, a laptop computer, exterior exhausting drives and different digital storage gadgets had been seized from Moreno’s dwelling in Cedar Springs.
A supplemental report offered by the MSP Laptop Crimes Unit in Grand Rapids detailed that six of the eight gadgets seized from Moreno’s dwelling contained sexually specific photos and movies. On one of many iPhones, digital forensic examiners discovered an app referred to as Vault. The Apple retailer describes Vault as a technique to “hide photos and videos.”
The app contained 243 sexually specific photographs and 20 movies, the CCU report disclosed.
“Multiple videos have been tagged that contain sexual activity for possible identification of the females,” a CCU investigator wrote of movies recognized within the Vault app.
Investigators, the report revealed, took no motion to determine any lady apart from the regulation enforcement agent concerned.
Going through 4 complaints
Michigan State Police Communications Director Shanon Banner. (Courtesy Photograph, MSP. WLNS)
6 Information Investigates requested MSP spokesperson Shanon Banner if detectives had tried to substantiate the identities of any of the ladies within the movies and photographs recognized by the CCU investigator. She didn’t reply.
A few of the different digital storage gadgets contained photos and movies of Moreno engaged in sexual exercise, the reviews mentioned. The precise variety of movies and photographs found because of the search warrant and forensic examination of Moreno’s gadgets is unclear.
On Sept. 11, 2020, the Isabella County Prosecutor’s Workplace declined to deliver expenses in opposition to Moreno for eavesdropping, the cost that will deal with his having photos with out the consent of one other. An inner investigation by MSP discovered he had violated departmental insurance policies, paperwork obtained by the 6 Information Investigates Staff revealed.
Isabella County reviewed the prison case as a result of Montcalm County prosecutors recused themselves. In spite of everything, that workplace labored intently with Moreno, who patrolled Montcalm County on the time of the investigation.
Banner of MSP mentioned Moreno had confronted 4 complaints throughout his time at MSP. In a type of complaints, the allegations had been decided to be true, or “founded.” The opposite three had been closed as “unfounded.” Banner didn’t clarify if the complaints in opposition to Moreno had been sexual in nature or in the event that they arose from the prison grievance.
She additionally didn’t reply to questions as to what, if any, self-discipline Moreno confronted for the one “founded” grievance.
Moreno, who’s stationed on the Hart Put up, didn’t reply to a cellphone message left on his MSP-issued mobile phone. There isn’t any publicly obtainable electronic mail deal with for Moreno, and requires him had been transferred by the Hart Put up’s major quantity.
The regulation enforcement agent who had complained advised 6 Information that these investigators labored to forestall a prosecution within the case.
First, she mentioned, they advised her repeatedly and aggressively that the video of her having intercourse with the trooper can be made public and performed again and again. She mentioned she didn’t need that to occur.
If she had been to say no to push this ahead on prison expenses, the movies can be deleted, and they might disappear endlessly, she recalled investigators telling her.
Regardless of this assurance, the 6 Information Investigates Staff realized in December that the movies stay on file with and are nonetheless maintained by the Isabella County Prosecutor’s Workplace as a part of the recordsdata associated to the investigation of Moreno. An official in that workplace advised 6 Information that the sexually specific movies are password-protected.
Secondly, utilizing a number of Fb conversations between the girl and Moreno, investigators concluded she had consented to the video recording.
The lady mentioned investigators solely offered parts of the communications to prosecutors. She mentioned the total thread confirmed she had refused to be recorded. The dialog, she advised 6 Information, was a ploy to get Moreno to confess the existence of the movies.
“It was not me actually agreeing to the recording. It was me getting him to admit it,” she advised 6 Information.
Moreno advised investigators the girl had consented to the recordings as a result of she was attempting to vary their “friends with benefits” association to one thing extra severe.
Moryc’s ‘special’ project
By the point a prosecution choice was made in that case, Moryc had been on particular project for months, investigating sexual abuse and cover-up allegations within the Grand Rapids Catholic church.
That project had diminished the issues she had whereas working within the Lakeview Put up within the first two months of 2020, she mentioned.
As she had grown extra remoted from her friends in Lakeview, she mentioned she feared members of the squad wouldn’t present backup to her whereas she was in a harmful state of affairs in rural Montcalm County. Backup was typically 20 to 45 minutes away, and that’s with a trooper touring with lights and sirens on.
With the particular project, Moryc mentioned, she was not in speedy worry for her life.
Her colleagues, nonetheless, had been expressing discontent that Moryc had been given the particular project. Sgt. Robert Metivier advised an MSP PSS investigator throughout an interview in 2023 that there was “jealousy.”
“I know a lot of it was, you know, she gets to work at home. We get to come, you know, we still got to come in and do it,” Metivier mentioned throughout the recorded interview that 6 Information obtained from Moryc.
Display snap of the textual content request to Michigan State Police Sgt. Robert Metivier looking for remark. This was his response.
(WLNS)
Metivier, reached by textual content, referred the 6 Information Investigates Staff to the MSP’s authorized division for remark.
Investigating Moreno
pornography watching gender discrimination investigation from Moryc complaintDownload
On Sept. 25, 2020, Moryc participated in Skilled Requirements Companies’ investigation into Moreno’s conduct. Throughout that interview, Moryc mentioned she disclosed what she referred to as “the harassment I had been through.”
Official portrait of Michigan State Police Inspector Matt Williams. (Courtesy MSP. Obtained by FOIA. WLNS)
She alleged the investigator, Particular Lt. Matt Williams, advised her, “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all that. … This is my last case I’m trying to wrap up before I start my new position.”
It wasn’t till November 2024 that Moryc realized Williams had initiated an investigation into her issues about harassment. That investigation didn’t end in any of her claims being substantiated, together with allegations of intercourse movies being performed within the squad room throughout work occasions.
That’s regardless of two troopers’ affirmation to investigators that Moreno had seen intercourse movies within the squad room, and each mentioned they’d been proven or heard the movies in September 2019.
Investigators requested one other feminine trooper, who had left the Lakeview Put up – and whom Moryc mentioned she was advised to not “be like” as a result of she had allegedly filed a grievance for sexual harassment in opposition to the squad – was requested if she had skilled sexual harassment. She advised the investigators, “No.”
However she additionally, after conferring with a sergeant, advised investigators that whereas she hadn’t filed a grievance, one other individual had. Investigators offered no data as to when such a grievance had been made. Additionally they didn’t examine that allegation within the closing report on Moryc’s grievance.
A overview of the investigative reviews by 6 Information Investigates revealed that the feminine trooper was interviewed for two minutes. The recording was paused for 8 minutes whereas she conferred with the sergeant, and the interview continued for two minutes. The size of her recorded interview was 4 minutes, with half of the time spent consulting with the sergeant.
Along with the one feminine trooper, eight males had been interviewed throughout this investigation, between Oct. 1 and Oct. 9, 2020. Three of these males had been thought-about “principals” within the investigation, which means they had been the targets of the allegations. 5 of the lads had been witnesses.
The length of the interviews with the 5 male witnesses is unclear from the report, however the document reveals three had been interviewed individually on Oct. 1. The primary interview started at 6 p.m. that day. The second started at 6:26 p.m., and the third was initiated at 6:59 p.m. The 2 different interviews occurred on Oct. 5, 2020, with the primary starting at 9:09 a.m. and the second at 7:33 p.m.
In every of the summations of the male witness interviews, the Investigator wrote the identical assertion:
“I asked [REDACTED NAME] if he ever witnessed other members of the squad or of the post engage in behavior that would reasonably make a female trooper feel uncomfortable, harassed, or discriminated against. advised that he had not. I asked if had ever heard any other troopers make disparaging comments about women in law enforcement advised that he had not.”
‘Unfounded’ complaints
That very same day, Oct. 5, 2020, two of the principals – or topics of the investigation – had been interviewed as properly. The primary of those two interviews started at 9:48 a.m. and ended at 9:59 a.m. – 11 minutes complete. The second started at 6:21 p.m. and concluded at 6:36 p.m. – quarter-hour complete. The third principal was interviewed Oct. 9, 2020, starting at 9:12 a.m. His interview concluded at 9:57 that day, 45 minutes complete.
The investigation was formally closed on Nov. 19 with the claims being “unfounded.”
Murphy, the regulation professor, reviewed this data for six Information.
“The legal standard is ‘sex-based words or conduct that is unwelcome & offensive,’” she wrote in an electronic mail. “The test is subjective as well as objective, so use of the word ‘reasonably’ is improper, as if it asks only what the observer thinks of as reasonable; it ignores how a female trooper subjectively experiences the event. And use of the words ‘uncomfortable,’ ‘harassment,’ and ‘discrimination’ in the questioning are silly because uncomfortable is not part of the legal standard and discrimination and harassment are legal jargon that need to be defined so people can answer. It’s like asking, ‘Were you ever raped?’ Most people would say ‘no,’ but if you ask, ‘Were you ever made to have sex when you didn’t want to?’ most people say ‘yes.’”
No responses
6 Information requested the MSP’s Banner how the investigation into allegations of a sexually hostile office could possibly be unfounded when two troopers had already advised a prison investigator they’d heard or seen the video of the previous regulation enforcement agent performed by Moreno within the Lakeview Put up.
She didn’t reply.
Banner additionally didn’t reply to an inquiry as to why the interviews with every witness had been so quick, or why the feminine witness had a male sergeant together with her who referred to as for an 8-minute pause to seek the advice of together with her.
Williams didn’t reply to an electronic mail looking for remark.
Dozens of emails and cellphone calls to county prosecutors, troopers and command employees recognized within the reviews have gone unreturned.
On July 1, MSP Col. James Grady III advised 6 Information Investigates the company takes allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination “seriously.”
“The Michigan State Police has a long-standing tradition of demanding the highest possible standards of professional conduct from its enlisted and civilian members. All allegations of misconduct are aggressively investigated,” Banner mentioned in a press release.
HELP IS AVAILABLE
Should you or somebody is experiencing home or sexual violence, there may be assist.
If you’re in speedy hazard, name 911 or your native regulation enforcement company.
For assist associated to home violence, name: 1-800-799-7233
For assist associated to sexual assault, name: 800-656-HOPE (4673)
6 Information Digital Content material Supervisor Duncan Phenix contributed to this report.
