SPD employees described several incidents that made them uncomfortable, including a 2am call to a park in North Bend and a request for makeup wipes in Diaz’ official city vehicles. 

By Erica C. Barnett

Newly released records from the investigation into alleged misconduct by former police chief Adrian Diaz include previously unreported interviews with two staffers who were close to Diaz.

Mayor Bruce Harrell fired Diaz in December, six months after removing him as chief, after concluding he violated SPD policies by having an “improper… intimate relationship” with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins, failed to disclose the relationship, and lied about it to investigators. Diaz created a position, chief of staff, for Tompkins, who resigned amid allegations of dishonesty in November.

PubliCola obtained the investigation records, which include interviews with a member of Diaz’ security detail, Tay Gray-McVey, and his executive assistant, Tricia Fuentes, through a public disclosure request.

Investigators found that Diaz had violated SPD’s policies on dishonesty, professionalism, avoiding or disclosing conflicts of interest, and improper personal relationships, and that Tompkins had not only lied to investigators but falsified evidence by disguising her handwriting in an effort to prove that she didn’t write a love note to Diaz on an Star Wars-themed birthday card.

Diaz, who is married to a woman, went on a local right-wing talk show last June to announce that he was gay, using this claim as a defense against the affair allegations as well as several harassment and hostile-workplace lawsuits by women in the department.

In his interview, which took place in January, Gray-McVey described several incidents that helped confirm his belief that Diaz and Tompkins were having an affair.

In one incident, Gray-McVey described driving out to a park in North Bend, where Tompkins lived, at around 2:00 in the morning to provide a jump to Diaz’ city-issued Chevy Tahoe, which had a dead battery. As he worked to get Diaz’ truck up and running, he said he noticed Tompkins was sitting in the passenger seat. Gray-McVey said he never spoke with Diaz about Tompkins’ presence, but told the two people present at the interview, “I’m sure we, all three of us, can figure out what two adults are doing in a park after hours in a car.”

Shortly after the encounter, Gray-McVey said, Tompkins gave him a bottle of Crown Royal with a note saying “‘Thanks for saving the day,’ or something to that effect.”

Gray-McVey also mentioned two incidents that involved Tompkins’ heavy makeup. According to Gray-McVey, before Tompkins was hired but while Diaz was spending significant time with her, the police chief began requiring all his cars—the one he drove and the ones driven by his security detail—to be with makeup removal wipes. “I think they [were] used to remove the makeup that might be on him,” Gray-McVey said.

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During a convention in San Diego, Gray-McVey continued, Tompkins escorted Diaz back to his hotel after a night of drinking with other police chiefs from around the country. The next morning, when he walked by Diaz’ room, he noticed a stack of towels on a cart outside the room, including some that were visibly smeared with makeup. They could have been someone else’s towels, Gray-McVey conceded.

Gray-McVey said his experience working for Diaz while Tompkins was in the picture, which he said began well before Diaz hired her, was stressful and contributed to a “rough patch” in his life.

Fuentes, who also worked directly for Diaz as a senior executive assistant, also described the stress of being viewed as disloyal by Diaz, telling investigators her previously positive relationship with her boss began to change after she questioned his request to notarize Tompkins’ hiring documents personally, a request that fell outside the normal hiring process and was something she didn’t ordinarily do.

Later, she said, after Diaz became “obsessed” with finding out who was spreading rumors about him and Tompkins, he asked her and another staffer to start using WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app, instead of text messages to communicate with Diaz and other SPD staff. City employees’ texts are subject to public disclosure, both on their city-issued phones and on personal cell phones if they pertain to city business, and employees are not supposed to use encrypted apps to get around public disclosure laws.

Fuentes, who previously worked on public disclosure requests, recalled to investigators that during a closed-door meeting, Diaz said, “‘The media is making a lot of requests for text messages, so… if you guys could download WhatsApp, that’s how I want to communicate from now on.'” Fuentes said she told Diaz using WhatsApp to evade record requests would violate public disclosure law, and that she would continue using text messages instead. Diaz said “‘that’s fine’ … But from then on, again, I felt a shift in our relationship and the openness.”

For instance, Fuentes recalled, Diaz changed the way he dealt with public disclosure requests for text messages. Previously, she told investigators, “I’d usually stand in front of [Diaz or a deputy or assistant chief] and I’d say, ‘Okay, give me your phone,’ and I’d … do the search, and show them.'” Over time, though, that changed, and Diaz “just handled it himself. … He’d have me still type up the form with, ‘Oh, there was nothing responsive,’ and then he’d sign it.”

On one occasion, Fuentes said, Diaz found out about a records request seeking information about his schedule and told her “I need to find out who this guy is. … “He said, ‘Well, I’m being followed and I believe that that requester knows Jamie’s ex-husband.’ It was just—I couldn’t follow. It was like this long conspiracy theory.”

Fuentes corroborated previous SPD accounts that Diaz became convinced that someone was planting listening devices in his office, and said he “became obsessive on the rumors” about him and Tompkins—sometimes spending “a lot of his workday” in his office with Tompkins discussing who might be spreading rumors about them. “That’s not the normal behavior of a chief of police, especially when we’re in a time when we were having you know such short staffing and crime and all that,” she told investigators.

Around that same time, she said, the way Diaz talked in her presence became more “crude”—she said he talked about how Tompkins was “constantly being sent dick pics,’ [and] I was like, Why is he telling me this?” Diaz also commented frequently on Tompkins “looks… and her makeup and her hair,” and “about her not leaving her house unless she’s got her hair and makeup done. .. I just remember thinking that was kind of a weird—a weird, out-of-nowhere thing.”

On another occasion, he said “something incredibly crass”—after egging Fuentes on to agree that one of her coworkers looked good in his new suit, Fuentes said Diaz told them the coworker “was over with me at the mayor’s office today and the mayor whispered, ‘I’d fuck him in that suit.'” Asked about this account, a spokesman for the mayor’s office said “this absolutely didn’t happen,” and noted that Diaz was fired for dishonesty.

Records reveal that Diaz, who was prohibited from talking about the investigation into his alleged misconduct, was formally admonished last October for sharing information about the case in violation of a direct order from then-interim police chief Sue Rahr. An investigative supervisor with the OIG warned him that failing to follow orders or violating investigative protocols could result in additional misconduct charges.

Diaz, through his attorney, declined to respond to questions. “This matter involves ongoing litigation, and the individuals you reference below are fact witnesses in the case. For those reasons, we will not be answering questions or providing comment at this time,” attorney Joseph P. Corr said. “That being said, Chief Diaz continues to deny any wrongdoing in connection with his former employment with the City of Seattle and/or his relationship with Ms. Tompkins.”