Glenville police arrested Scotia police Officer Douglas Wilkinson, 23, on one count of criminal sexual act in the third degree, a felony, on Thursday, April 19.
The investigation started when a 16-year-old male came into the Glenville police department with a harassment charge against a 17-year-old.
The investigation found that both individuals had been in Wilkinson’s apartment at 133 Saratoga Road in Glenville and Wilkinson had engaged in sexual acts with the 16-year-old male.
Glenville police Sgt. Stephen Janik said so far in the investigation it doesn’t appear that this was a predatory act; rather that the 16-year-old allegedly consented in the sexual act.
Janik said under state law it is illegal for anyone over the age of 21 to have sexual contact with anyone 16 and under.
The big picture here is Mr. Wilkinson was a police officer for a year, knows the law and should know better. This is a case of poor judgment by Mr. Wilkinson, Janik said.
Janik said he is also upset about the bad image of local police officers this incident has caused.
`It is unfortunate that we have hundreds of great police officers that do a great job throughout the community. Now not only the victim but other police officers are affected by the public’s outlook on them,` he said.
Wilkinson has been a member of the Scotia Police Department since January 2006 and was suspended without pay following his arrest.
Scotia police Chief John Pytlovany said Wilkinson was the newest member of the Scotia Police Department. As such, he always worked with another officer of higher ranking.
Pytlovany said Wilkinson had gone through eight months of training and had only been out on his own for seven months. In that time, Pytlovany said it looked like Wilkinson was developing into a good police officer.
According to Pytlovany, becoming a Scotia police officer is not easy. A candidate has to have 30 college credit hours to take the civil service exam and then an extensive background check including criminal history, past employers, psychological and physical exams.
Pytlovany said there was nothing in Wilkinson’s background that signaled this type of behavior.
During Pytlovany’s 10 years as Scotia’s police chief, he said nothing like this has ever happened, and the department is currently taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
`Since we just went through all of this fairly recently, we are currently evaluating our procedures so this type of thing wouldn’t happen again,` Pytlovany said.
Wilkinson was arraigned in Glenville Town Court and released on $30,000 bail.
Anyone with further information regarding this case is asked to contact the Glenville police chief at 384-0123.“
