Officer Accused Of Sex With Detainee Chief Of Home-Detention Program Charged With Making Advances, Molesting Woman

The Mercer Island police lieutenant who oversaw the department’s new electronic home-detention program was charged Friday with official misconduct, accused of sexual contact with one of the detainees.

Richard Rennie Smith, 45 - a 29-year veteran of the Mercer Island department - was released on his own recognizance and ordered to have no contact with the woman, identified in court papers as “J.F.”

Smith, scheduled for arraignment Aug. 25, denies any inappropriate sexual contact with the woman.

The charge, a gross misdemeanor, carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine, said spokesman Dan Satterberg in the King County prosecutor’s office.

Smith has been on administrative suspension with pay since June 26, Chief Jan Deveny said.

“That meant that his badge, handgun, ID card and all those were taken from him and he has had no police-officer authority since then,” Deveny said. “He has not been in the building since then and in fact has been ordered to stay away.”

The case was investigated by the Seattle Police Department at Deveny’s request. The Mercer Island department now is conducting its own internal investigation, the chief said.

The department’s electronic home-detention was begun earlier this year to monitor misdemeanor sentences, and Smith was put in charge. In April, J.F. was sentenced to 75 days home detention for a driving-under-the-influence conviction.

Smith accepted her into the program on May 5. Late that month or in early June, J.F. told Smith she’d had a fight with her boyfriend. Smith came over to check for bruises and gave her a hug that did not seem inappropriate, according to charging papers.

After that, however, Smith began asking J.F. if she had “had her hug today” and telling her she was “the prettiest little prisoner he had ever seen.”

Over time his conduct escalated, until he was fondling J.F. and digitally penetrating her, charging papers say. J.F. was repulsed but afraid resistance would result in her being dropped from the home-detention program and sent to jail. He once told her, “Be a good girl and you’ll get a good BAC” (blood-alcohol content reading).

On June 22, according to charging papers, Smith attempted to have sexual intercourse with J.F. She said she thwarted his attempts at sexual intercourse by citing the lack of a condom or mentioning his wife’s name, the papers said.

J.F. believes Smith had sexual contact with her seven or eight times and removed her clothing two or three times, according to charging papers.

In late June, the charging papers say, J.F. told her alcohol counselor about the sexual advances. The counselor called a lawyer, who went to prosecutors on June 23. The Seattle police investigation followed.

Neighbors said Smith visited J.F. 10 to 15 times, usually for at least half an hour.

When interviewed by investigators, Smith said his visits were never longer than 10 or 15 minutes. His records of the visits are sketchy, charging papers say.

“Investigation has revealed that no other prisoner on the home-detention program seems to have received the number of visits or the degree of supervision that J.F. received,” according to charging papers.