Former Billings Officer Loses Police Certification After Sex Scandal

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A former Billings police officer who resigned after it was learned he had sex with a city employee at City Hall has lost his police certification.
Paul LaMantia did not contest the Public Safety Officer Standards and Training Council's Oct. 1 decision, The Billings Gazette reported Thursday.
LaMantia had previous disciplinary issues, including interjecting himself into calls about two intoxicated transients causing disturbances in downtown Billings in January 2012, apparently in an effort to be jailed to get warm. Investigators say LaMantia drove the transients outside the city limits and left them on the side of the road while temperatures fell to 20 degrees (minus 7 Celsius), endangering their lives.
LaMantia also was the subject of a May 2015 internal affairs investigation for an off-duty assault on a Laurel police officer who was a former partner in an unsuccessful business.
A partner or family member assault case filed against the same Laurel officer in 2016 was later dismissed after the alleged victim testified that when LaMantia delivered her a subpoena to attend the officer's trial, LaMantia urged her to testify.
LaMantia was placed on unpaid leave for a week for the sexual misconduct. He resigned on May 23.
Two other officers disciplined for sexual misconduct, Clint Anglin and Matthew Edwards, have another month to decide whether to accept a proposed 30-day suspension and a five-year probationary period during which they could not earn any additional law enforcement certificates. They also would have to surrender their POST certifications if they left the Billings Police Department during the probationary period.
The police department earlier suspended Anglin and Edwards for two weeks without pay for having sex with the same city employee, in separate instances, while on duty. The POST discipline is separate.
The three officers declined to comment through their attorneys.
The sexual misconduct, which occurred in separate incidents between 2013 and 2016, was discovered through an unrelated investigation into drug thefts from the police evidence locker.