Gables policewomen say they were ‘used as pawns’ to take down chief in viral pool photo
What was supposed to be a morale-building event among coworkers turned into a career nightmare for about a dozen women on the Coral Gables police force.
A photo from a pool party that went viral led to a multi-year internal investigation, which was recently completed with no disciplinary action taken.
On Aug. 3, 2017, an anonymous poster uploaded the photo to Instagram. It shows 14 female officers, most wearing swimsuits, in and around a swimming pool. Police Chief Ed Hudak, in uniform, stands in the back row.
The photo caption said, in part: “As you can see, he is in full uniform at a female only party in which sex toys (female in front of Chief) are being handed out to party goers... In videos that are to follow, you will hear the disgust and embarrassment from people at the party as we are being visually raped by our boss. At this point we are too afraid to initiate a complaint against him as he is the Chief.”
The caption was written to appear as if one of the women who attended the party had posted it, but each one told investigators they had no involvement in making the photo public.
A final report summarizing the nearly five-year internal investigation, obtained by the Miami Herald through a public records request, determined that none of the women felt threatened by the chief. They disputed all of the Instagram post’s claims, including the assertion that they were holding sex toys in the photo, saying the plastic objects in their hands were water guns. An independent investigation cleared Hudak of any formal violations in 2018. He remains the police chief in Coral Gables.
The investigation sought to identify who uploaded the Instagram photo but was unable to find that person.
In a Sept. 6 memo, Hudak agreed with the investigation’s findings that Detective Andy Johnson and Lt. Walter Phillip Thomas violated the department’s rule for gossip when, on the day the photo was posted, they contacted other male officers, asked them if they had seen the post, then guided them on how to find it. The two officers did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.
Neither will face discipline.
Thomas, who was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant during the course of the investigation, knew about the post within minutes of it going live, according to the final investigative report. In his role as a supervisor, he failed to prevent or correct any “sexually harassing or discriminating behavior by engaging in the spreading of the Instagram Post,” the investigation found.
Internal Affairs Cmdr. Rudy Gonzalez, who inherited the investigation from his predecessor in 2019, said it was unlikely for any disciplinary action to hold up in arbitration because of procedural errors — mainly that none of the male officers who were interviewed, including Johnson and Thomas, were informed that they were the subject of an investigation at the time they provided their first sworn statements beginning in late 2017.
It wasn’t until the spring of 2022 that the two were interviewed as “subject officers.”
“There were a lot of things we could have done differently to avoid all of these pitfalls,” Gonzalez told the Miami Herald. “The long and short of it was, in a whodunit situation, you really need to call everybody as a subject.”
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The recently completed investigation offers a glimpse into the impact that the incident — which was widely covered by the media — had on the women’s professional lives.
In dozens of interviews with investigators, the officers said the social media post damaged their careers and reputations. Some tried unsuccessfully to get it removed from Instagram. Many lost trust in their colleagues, and sensed coworkers whispering behind their backs. Others feared for their personal safety as a result.
The women said they were collateral damage in an effort by unknown individuals to take down the police chief.
“They used us as a pawn, our — our bodies,” Officer Theresa Luaces told internal affairs investigators in a 2018 interview. “And they took advantage of the fact that we were dressed in bathing suits. ... They put words in our mouth and feelings and spoke on our behalf, and they were false.”
The incident changed her “whole demeanor,” she told investigators. “I don’t know who to trust.” Luaces declined to comment to the Herald.
A ‘morale-building event for female officers’
It was 10 a.m. on a Wednesday when the guests began to arrive at Officer Kelly Denham’s home. A few weeks prior, on the Fourth of July, Denham passed out handwritten paper party invitations to fellow Coral Gables women police officers.
The 2017 party was building off an event from the prior year, which the officers had hoped would become an annual gathering. Denham told investigators that she selected that specific time so the younger officers could attend. The point of the party, she said, was to “come together as women in our profession.”
Throughout the late morning and early afternoon, the guests trickled in. Beer, wine and food were served.
“It was just supposed to be a day with the girls in the pool in the backyard having some food, and that was it,” Officer Melanie Aguirre told investigators.
Denham’s neighbors — a married couple and their 9-year-old daughter — also attended the party. Along with Denham’s husband, they were the only ones not with the police force.
In the afternoon, Hudak made a brief appearance after someone at the party called and asked him to drop by, according to the 2018 independent investigation.
Initially, the party attendees had agreed to leave their cellphones on a counter so that no photos would be taken, the women told investigators.
But once Hudak arrived, the group agreed to take a photo together.
“We were all elated and happy to have a photo with the chief of police,” Sgt. Lauren Poole told investigators.
READ MORE: Chief’s photo with bikini-clad cops broke no rules. He got reprimanded, anyway
By the next morning, July 20, Officer Karla De La Milera sent the photo to a group chat with most of the women who were pictured in it. She told investigators the group had previously agreed that any photos from the event would remain “as private as possible.”
But by early August, what was supposed to have been a “morale-building event for female officers within the department” turned sour, Sgt. Melissa DeJong told investigators.
“She further stated that she was more upset for the younger female officers because she was there to help welcome them, support them and nurture them in their careers,” Gonzalez wrote, summarizing DeJong’s statement. “Instead, it turned out to be an anti-woman thing, an anti-female police thing and was intimidating. It defeated the purpose of the function itself and possibly made it so female police officers would not get together again.”
‘People were whispering’
The women’s formal complaint to internal affairs alleged that an anonymous individual violated the department’s social media and sexual harassment policies by sharing “libelous, degrading and offensive statements” on Instagram and the online law enforcement forum, LEO Affairs.
Through Denham, a public information officer who also hosted the party, the 12 women in the photo who still work for the Coral Gables Police Department declined to comment to the Herald.
But their sworn statements show how the effects of the social media post spilled into their workplace, where about 8 out of 10 officers are men.
Sgt. Rhonda Jenkins told investigators that she had a sense that “people were whispering.”
“When you’re walking down the hallway, you wonder who’s seen it, who didn’t see it, and what they’re envisioning,” she said.
Sgt. Beth Schultz was one of two women in the photo wearing a T-shirt. She recalled a male officer approaching her in the Roll Call room and asking: “Why weren’t you in your bikini?”
At least four of the women told internal affairs that the event made them fear for their personal safety — such as worrying that colleagues wouldn’t respond to life-threatening situations.
“Officer Denham stated that she felt threatened because if the poster was a member of the CGPD, would he or she back her up when she needed backup?” Gonzalez wrote in summary. “Would the poster be supervising her?”
Officer De La Milera suspected politics were at play. She described a group within the police department that had “incredible animosity toward the Chief, that will do anything to harm him.”
Poole told investigators that the situation “made her question who her peers are.”
“She stated that whoever was responsible for this was trying to make the female attendees appear as victims,” Gonzalez wrote. “She stated that they were ‘being used as a pawn to go after the Chief and make us that person’s demise.’ ”
Two officers — Luaces and Aguirre — transferred to the Miami-Dade Police Department as a result of the incident. The Herald was unable to reach Aguirre for comment.
Luaces told investigators that the incident robbed her of future opportunities, such as being an undercover cop.
“I can’t speak on anybody else’s behalf, but they — it’s not only sexual, but they jeopardized my job,” she said. “They posted a picture of us in bathing suits that maybe we didn’t want everybody in the world to see.”
This story was originally published October 31, 2022 at 2:54 PM.
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