The Associated Press
JOHNSTOWN, Penn. (AP) - The city’s police chief was being investigated for allegedly using his office computer to access pornography when he resigned this week, a city official said Friday.
Police Chief William Clark, who was hired to right the troubled Johnstown police department a year ago, turned in his resignation Tuesday, saying in a letter to City Manager Jeffrey Silka that he could not find a suitable home in Johnstown to comply with the city’s residency rule.
On Friday, city council members confirmed that, on Wednesday, Silka called a closed-door meeting to tell them there had been an investigation into “inappropriate material” found on the chief’s office computer.
Nancy Malloy, a city councilwoman, told The Associated Press that Silka informed her that the material was pornography. Two other council members reached Friday said they were only told it was inappropriate material and nothing more specific.
Efforts to reach Clark by telephone at his mother’s home outside the city - where he has been staying - were unsuccessful on Friday. In an interview with the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat published Friday, he denied visiting any pornographic Web sites via his office computer. He said, however, that others had access to his computer.
He also said he knew nothing about any investigation until after he turned in his resignation. “If there was an internal investigation, it ended when I walked out the door,” he told the Tribune-Democrat.
He said his inability to find a suitable home in Johnstown led to his resignation.
Johnstown has a policy against the personal use of city computers.
Clark took over the department a year ago after the previous chief was forced to resign due to what some city leaders described as mismanagement. An earlier study into the department called it “dysfunctional.”
“I was totally shocked and very disappointed,” said Councilman Nunzio Johncola, who noted he did not know what the alleged inappropriate material was.
Johncola said it doesn’t make sense to him that the chief would leave because of the residency rule when City Council was supposed to take up his residency the day after he resigned.