KUSA – Prosecutors in Jefferson County believe a veteran Boulder Police detective emailed a warning to a suspect in an internet luring case over the summer. The detective now faces a variety of charges including a felony count of accessory to internet luring.
Detective Jack Gardner, 56, has been with the Boulder Police Department since 1998. A Friday morning press release from the Boulder Police Department indicates Det. Gardner has been placed on unpaid administrative leave "pending the outcome of the internal personnel investigation."
"We take these allegations very seriously," said Boulder Police Chief Greg Testa in the release.
Prosecutors believe Gardner alerted, via email, Kahlil Hill Peckham in July to not show up to a meeting at the Pearl Street Mall with a person Peckham believed to be an underage girl. Peckham has since been arrested on suspicion of internet luring and sexual exploitation of a child.
Boulder Police began online conversations, according to court documents, with Peckham in May. Posing as an underage girl, a Boulder Police officer arranged to meet Peckham at the Pearl Street Mall in early June.
An arrest affidavit for Gardner says he was assigned to Internet Crimes against Children, the unit investigating Peckham. The court documents note "Gardner was inadvertently excluded from the operations plan that was developed," to apprehend Peckham, adding Gardner was upset he was left out.
On June 5, Boulder Police prepared to meet with Peckham, but he replied back to the "underage girl" saying someone had warned him not to meet the girl, according to investigators.
The email read, according to the arrest affidavit, "WARNING!!! DO NOT MEET TODAY W/13 YOA GIRL!!."
Investigators say they learned the email originated on June 5 between 12:54 p.m. and 1:06 p.m. from within a secured, undercover router in use at the Boulder Police Department. Gardner's arrest affidavit says it came from the account "morgan12hoops." a Gmail account Gardner admitted he set up during a class at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in May.
Court documents say Gardner told investigators he left the account open on his computer around the same time the email was sent. He proposed that "another unknown person took that opportunity to send the warning message to Khalil Peckham while he was away from his desk," according to the court records.
Interviews with 21 staff members working in the same bureau "determined that no one was seen in Detective Gardner's work area" besides Gardner, documents say.
9News contacted Gardner's stepson, Ben Romsdahl. He told 9News in a phone interview Gardner "has never done anything malicious in his entire life."
"He is a very sensitive, kind, gentle person," Romsdahl said. "He is the last person in the world that should be going through something like this." Romsdahl added "(Gardner) won Detective of the Year last year. He's been working with kids for so long. All he wants, all he wanted to do, was to go back and help them."
Acting on suspicion the email might have originated within the police department itself, the Boulder Police Department along with the Boulder District Attorney's Office asked for the assistance of the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office.
Gardner posted bond on Thursday and is expected back in court on Oct. 8. Peckham is in custody and is scheduled to be advised Friday.
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