By Travis Crum
Charleston Gazette
MARION COUNTY, W.V. — A former Marion County Sheriff’s deputy alleges he was forced to resign earlier this year after the sheriff discovered he is gay.
However, Sheriff Joseph N. Carpenter said he has no problem with the former officer’s sexuality and the resignation came on the heels of battery allegations against the officer.
Jason Jones, 33, said he made a mistake when he went home with a 21-year-old man after the two had been drinking heavily at a Fairmont bar in March. The man later accused Jones of inappropriately touching him. Jones contends nothing objectionable or forcible took place between the two men.
Jones said the day after the alleged battery occurred, Carpenter asked him to resign as a deputy, without asking for his side of the story. Jones said that is because Carpenter “does not like gay people.”
Carpenter, however, said Jones’ sexuality is not the issue and the situation would have been handled the same if the people involved had been heterosexual. He said Jones resigned after allegations were made of “battery and inappropriate touching in a provoking nature.”
However, the allegations were never investigated by an outside agency because Jones peaceably resigned, Carpenter said.
Coming out
Jones was hired by the Marion County Sheriff’s department as a deputy in September 2010. Previously, he was a military police officer in Iraq from 2008 to 2009. He also served in the same position in Panama in 1998 and Kosovo from 1999 to 2000.
During his time in the military, Jones kept his sexuality a secret for fear of being discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a former military policy that prevented gay and lesbian service members from serving openly. The policy was repealed in September.
Jones said he wanted to keep his sexuality hidden from his new employer at least until he completed police academy training. He wanted his fellow cadets to get to know him first before being pegged as the “gay guy,” he said.
He couldn’t keep that part of himself hidden for long after a 911 dispatcher began asking him out for dates in December 2011.
“I went out with her a few times, just friends, but she kept hugging on me, stuff like that. She kept wanting to take it physical,” he said. “In the past, I’ve handled it badly. You have sex with the girls to throw off the gay trail or just quit talking to them. I was worried because as a cop, your dispatcher would hand you every [bad] call.”
By the beginning of February, Jones had to tell her the truth.
“I told her, ‘if you want to be friends, that’s cool, but if you are looking for anything else, you are barking up wrong tree.’ ”
She handled it well, he said, and agreed to be just friends.
The ‘mistake’
Jones said he was en route to a Morgantown bar for St. Patrick’s Day when he received multiple phone calls and text messages from the female dispatcher. She told him she invited a big group of people to drink at a bar in Fairmont and wanted him to join, he said.
“At the time, I was in the process of buying a house in Marion County. I thought, I’m moving back to Fairmont, I better start making friends there.”
He changed his plans and headed to the Fairmont bar. He said it was just him, her and her 21-year-old male fried, who also was a 911 dispatcher - not the big group he was expecting.
During a night of heavy drinking, Jones said interactions between him and the male dispatcher became more flirtatious. He said he didn’t ask the man about his sexuality and assumed he also was gay.
Jones said the man invited him home after the bar closed.
“I thought maybe he’s being discrete about it. I asked him if he brought guys home and he said it was no big deal because he brought guys home before,” he said.
After being dropped off, Jones said he met the man’s roommates and they went upstairs to watch a movie in his room.
The man gave Jones a pair of shorts to change into.
“We both got in bed,” Jones said. “There were two beds made up right in the next room. I didn’t think anything of it.”
Jones said they began touching each other. Things were progressing sexually, Jones said, when the man suddenly declared that he had a girlfriend and was uncomfortable.
The man jumped up to smoke a cigarette outside.
Jones said at that time he got a call from the female dispatcher.
“She said, ‘He’s freaking out,’ ” Jones said.
The woman came and picked him up.
“It was a mistake going there,” he said.
The resignation
The following morning Jones said he got a call from Sheriff Carpenter.
“I knew what it was about,” he said.
At the department, he said Carpenter pulled him into his office. The man had called another police department to complain about him. A deputy at that department then called Carpenter.
Jones said Carpenter told him that he “may or may not be under investigation.”
“I told him that I’m open. I live a gay life. Once I told him that, he wouldn’t look me in the eye. The only time he looked at me, he gave me a look of hatred.”
Jones said Carpenter gave him two options.
“He said you can quietly resign and whatever reason you want to give at your next job, we will go along with that. Or you can stay in the sheriff’s department, but I’m going to suspend you and have an outside investigation.”
Carpenter said he doesn’t remember if he promised Jones that he would support him if he went to another department. He said he did not suggest firing Jones.
“By him signing a resignation, that was like him leaving on good terms,” Carpenter said.
He asked Carpenter what would happen if he was cleared by the investigation.
“He just laughed and said he would fire me anyways for conduct ‘unbecoming of an officer,’ ” Jones said.
Jones signed his resignation citing “personal reasons.”
Jones said Carpenter kept comparing him to a former Marion County deputy who was arrested in 2009 for sending sexually explicit pictures to a minor.
“He said I used my position as deputy to make the man go home with me,” he said. “I am a military police investigator. I’ve been around guys younger than me. I don’t get inappropriate with people.”
Carpenter told the Gazette-Mail Jones resigned because of the allegations made against him, not because of his sexuality.
“That has no bearing or concern on anyone here,” Carpenter said.
He said when he pulled Jones into his office to speak to him, he immediately told Jones about the allegations.
“He was the one that threw [being gay] out there. It doesn’t matter if you’re male, female or not. The law is still the same,” Carpenter said.
He said Jones has told “three different” versions of his story.
“None that I heard are true,” he said. “I don’t want to make him a liar but he’s not going to make me liar.”
Carpenter said he does not want to see Jones get hurt by telling his story.
“I told him, ‘You’re gay, that’s fine. You’re not the first gay person I’ve ever met or that I’m friends with. It’s not an issue.’ ”
The fact of the matter, Carpenter said, is that allegations of misconduct were made against Jones.
“All I can say is that he did come in, did sign his resignation. If he’s making other things up, that’s his thing. Being gay has nothing to do with anything.”
Copyright 2011 Charleston Newspapers