A former Aurora Police Division college useful resource officer is dealing with prison prices after allegedly sending inappropriate texts to a 16-year-old woman whereas he was nonetheless on the pressure, in keeping with court docket information and the woman’s lawyer.
Egide “DJ” Ndagije, 26, was charged with three counts of official misconduct in March over allegations of wrongdoing that occurred whereas he was working as the college useful resource officer at Aurora Central Excessive College, court docket information present.
An Aurora Police Division inner affairs investigation discovered that Ndagije took a photograph of a lady with out permission, despatched inappropriate texts to the woman and used a regulation enforcement database to search for the woman and her members of the family.
He resigned from the Aurora Police Division on Oct. 26 in lieu of termination whereas the investigation was ongoing, company spokesman Matthew Longshore mentioned in a press release Tuesday. Ndagije was employed in March 2021 and have become a faculty useful resource officer in August 2022.
Court docket information don’t element the precise allegations that led to the prison prices towards Ndagije, and say solely that he “knowingly dedicated… an unauthorized train of his official perform and/or violated a statute or lawfully adopted rule or regulation referring to his workplace.”
However textual content messages offered by Matthew Haltzman, a Fort Collins lawyer, present Ndagije exchanged inappropriate texts with Haltzman’s shopper, a then-16-year-old woman who met the officer when she was a pupil at Aurora Central Excessive College.
The woman, who JHB isn’t figuring out as a result of she is a minor, mentioned she met Ndagije as a sophomore on the college, and grew near him, spending free intervals in his workplace. He typically purchased lunch for her and her buddy, and so they seen him as a “trusted grownup,” the woman advised The Publish in an interview Tuesday. She is now 17.
When her household moved to Fort Collins, he gave her his private cellphone quantity, and advised her she may at all times name if she wanted assist.
A number of months later, she did. The woman texted Ndagije for assist in October when her teenage ex-boyfriend was harassing her, in keeping with 29 pages of textual content messages reviewed by The Publish.
A series of textual content messages
Over the course of two days, Ndagije answered the woman’s questions on authorized steps she may take to cope with the harassment, then moved the dialog into extra private territory, asking the woman about her intercourse life, about what she was doing for the time being, how nicely she slept and the way she handled stress, in keeping with the textual content chain.
Ndagije advised the woman he was her “buddy,” and warned her to not inform Fort Collins police or anybody that they have been texting. He inspired her to maneuver their dialog to WhatsApp — which makes use of end-to-end encryption — and at one level advised the woman she “appeared nice” and didn’t must drop extra pounds.
“You’re a grown girl,” Ndagije texted on Oct. 1, adopted by a number of face-palm emojis and considering face emojis.
“Not but,” the woman responded with a laughing-while-crying emoji. “I’m solely grown once I begin paying my very own payments, is what my mother says.”
“Come onnn I be having alot of (expletive) in my head,” Ndagije responded, with extra laughing-while-crying emojis. “She nonetheless (p)ays for all of your payments and garments?”
“Yeah duh I’m solely 16,” the woman answered. “I’m the youngest so I’m spoiled.”
“She even buys you panties???” the officer texted with a thinking-face emoji, in keeping with the messages reviewed by The Publish.
“Mmm that’s not applicable DJ,” the woman answered with a laughing-while-crying emoji.
The messages made the woman uncomfortable, she mentioned Tuesday. “Like he was making an attempt to benefit from my vulnerability,” she mentioned. “It simply made me sick, I trusted that individual, I used to be very near him.”
An lawyer for Ndagije, Don Sisson, declined to touch upon the prison allegations Tuesday.
A spokesman for the 18th Judicial District Legal professional’s Workplace couldn’t present further element on the prison prices. Ndagije is due in court docket for an advisement on Could 31.
Can not work as a police officer
The interior affairs investigation into Ndagije started when the woman alerted her dad and mom to the texts, and so they reported the exchanges to Aurora police. Then-chief Artwork Acevedo additionally requested the Colorado Bureau of Investigation conduct a prison investigation into the officer, Longshore mentioned.
The interior investigation revealed that Ndagije had taken a photograph of the woman with out her data whereas she was visiting him in his workplace at Aurora Central Excessive College. Throughout a type of workplace visits, Ndagije additionally appeared up the woman’s private info, in addition to that of her household, in a regulation enforcement database to indicate her the way it labored, in keeping with the investigation.
The interior affairs probe additionally discovered objects in Ndagije’s bag that ought to have been submitted to the property and proof unit, in keeping with a abstract of the investigation.
Ndagije can not work as a police officer in Colorado. He misplaced his Peace Officer Requirements and Coaching certification on March 15 after the board discovered he was untruthful throughout the inner affairs investigation.
A spokesman for Aurora Public Faculties, Corey Christiansen, didn’t reply questions from The Publish about whether or not the college alerted dad and mom and college students to the allegations towards Ndagije.
“We take all experiences of misconduct severely and wish to emphasize that security is our high precedence,” he mentioned in a short assertion.
Haltzman mentioned that to his data, the college by no means warned dad and mom concerning the allegations. He suspects further ladies have been focused and thinks extra victims might come ahead.
“Taking a look at these textual content messages, this seems to be a person who has engaged in these actions earlier than,” he mentioned.
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