Sheriff Butler, speaking at a Warren County High School function.
In October 2022, while employed by the news outlet Royal Examiner, I began looking into the large uptick in police officer decertifications after Virginia implemented more stringent laws.
Just 81 law enforcement officers lost the ability to work in Virginia because of unacceptable job conduct between 1999 and Feb. 2021.
Since then, the numbers have risen sharply. According to a Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services report, 99 sheriff, police, or jail officers across the state were decertified from March 1, 2021, to Nov. 4, 2022. That compares to 82 decertified officers in the more than 20 years between 1999 and 2020.
While attending a decertification appeal hearing as part of my research, I learned that the Warren County Sheriff had testified as a character witness for the officer.
The following story was written over the course of nearly three months and was ready for publication in early December 2022. However, the publisher, Mike McCool, refused to use the story. Less than a month later, I was terminated.
I spoke at the Jan. 17, 2023, meeting of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, as a private citizen, because I felt the information gathered was important for county residents to know.
I have no agenda, other than informing the public, despite accusations on the contrary. The Jan. 17 meeting was simply the first time I was in town when a meeting was scheduled.
The following is the story written for the Royal Examiner, though it was never published:
Warren County Sheriff’s testimony at former fellow officer’s decertification hearing reveals details about his own departure from Herndon Police Department
This newspaper has learned that Warren County Sheriff Mark Butler was facing two internal investigations that were poised to result in his likely termination from the Herndon Police Department (HPD) at the time of his resignation in September 2019. According to Herndon Chief of Police, Colonel Maggie A. DeBoard, Butler was the subject of two Internal Affairs investigations for untruthfulness and falsifying police reports.
DeBoard wrote in an email, “Mark Butler can certainly assert his own personal reason for resigning, but I can confirm it was done without warning and coincided with his ongoing internal investigations regarding truthfulness and falsifying police reports.”
The information regarding Butler’s resignation from the Herndon Police Department came after Butler served as a character witness at a September 23, 2022, decertification hearing for former Herndon police officer Claudio Saa.
DeBoard said of information concerning Butler’s past Herndon departmental status being made public, “We released it in that public decertification hearing due to Mark Butler’s unexpected role as a character witness for the appellant.”
Butler asserted to Royal Examiner in a September 2019 video interview with reporter Roger Bianchini that he resigned to go “all in” on his campaign for Warren County Sheriff. That interview, which occurred on September 26, 2019, was posted on the Royal Examiner website.
Butler said that after talking to his family they made a decision to be “all in” on his campaign. He told Bianchini, “After I saw our entire local government be arrested, something hit me.” He asserted that if others here were giving of their full time and efforts, he needed to be campaigning full-time to earn a job here.
But DeBoard was clear in her email that Butler’s resignation appeared timed to avoid the internal investigation of “sustained violations” proceeding to a conclusion, which could have led to his termination from the department. I cannot, however, provide you with additional details of his internal investigations beyond what was presented in the (Saa) decertification hearing,” she wrote in the email.
Butler’s testimony at the September hearing was not open to the public, but Saa’s appeal hearing on October 13 was open to the public. This reporter attended that meeting via Zoom as part of an investigation into decertified officers in the region. It was during that open appeals meeting that Herndon Police Lieutenant Jaysyn J. Carson asserted that Butler was not a viable character witness for Saa, citing Butler being the focus of two internal affairs investigations at the time he resigned from the department.
Carson also introduced a pre-recorded statement from Herndon PD Captain Steven Pihonak, who testified that Butler “never supervised Saa” and that Butler was a “road dog”, meaning a patrol officer, and that he “never knew any issues regarding Saa’s performance” before stating that Butler “abruptly resigned” after being called in during his shift to answer questions from Internal Affairs (AI) investigators.
Not only did Butler serve as a character witness for Claudio Saa, but he brought his former co-worker, then decertified, to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office on September 12 and September 14 to teach a class on MS-13 gangs.
This reporter, on October 20, 2022, submitted a FOIA request for information regarding Saa’s two-day teaching stint at the WCSO, regarding the fee he was paid by Warren County. On October 21, Major Jeff Driskill responded, “The request for payment was submitted by our office to the County for payment. The Purchase Order and Request Form would be used, and the payment is pending. I cannot answer on how long this takes because it is a county government function. Once the process is completed, I can provide what you ask.”
However, Driskill never provided the requested information. This reporter later learned from the Warren County Finance Department that the County issued a check to Saa for $2,000 on October 19 for two days of teaching the class.
Asked about the practice of having a decertified officer train current law enforcement staff, Herndon Chief DeBoard stated, “I cannot imagine a scenario where I would bring a decertified officer into my agency to provide training for my officers and staff. When an officer is decertified, it is for serious issues. Allowing former officers who have committed acts of this nature and can no longer serve, have no place in providing training to current officers. I would not expose my officers to a trainer who has been decertified and I don’t know of any (agency) that would either.”
This reporter reached out to Sheriff Butler, who stated on Monday, November 28, “I believe in decertification. I believe it is a new program and all programs have bugs to work out. I was asked to be a character witness for an individual that has performed law enforcement at the highest of levels for over two decades. All I stated was in all the years I have known the man, his integrity was never questioned, and many officers would say the same.”
However, Butler declined to go on the record regarding the two-pronged internal investigation ongoing at the time of his resignation from the Herndon Police Department.
About The Author
