A Denver sheriff’s deputy accused of punching a person in a wheelchair whereas on obligation in 2019 — in a lawsuit town has now settled — was additionally arrested on accusations he punched one other man in a wheelchair in December.
The Denver City Council accredited the $325,000 settlement within the case over the 2019 incident involving Deputy Jason Gentempo, now 44, throughout a gathering Monday.
Gentempo, who has been a sheriff’s deputy since 2005, is now on investigatory go away from the sheriff’s division following his arrest within the newer matter in December. Both of his circumstances additionally concerned allegations that different legislation enforcement officers tried to cowl up or change the factual data of the occasions.
During the incident in 2019, Gentempo was transporting inmate Serafin Finn from a Denver hospital to the jail when Finn spit at him. Gentempo then punched Finn, who was handcuffed and in a wheelchair, within the face, knocking over his wheelchair, a video of the incident reveals.
Gentempo was cleared of any wrongdoing within the incident, in accordance with inside investigation paperwork.
In December, the Denver Police Department arrested Gentempo and his spouse, Sgt. Carla Gentempo, after they have been accused of assaulting one other man in a wheelchair whereas they have been off obligation. The couple discovered {that a} 17-year-old they knew was at a Denver house the place they believed there was a “sexual torture chamber,” in accordance with affidavits filed in that case.
Jason Gentempo advised investigators that he believed the person within the wheelchair met the teenager in a chatroom and took the teenager to his dwelling, the place he confirmed them “sexual bondage items” and put among the objects on the teenager with their consent, an affidavit says.
When the Gentempos drove to choose up the teenager, the person in a wheelchair, who’s paraplegic, met them in entrance of his house constructing. The Gentempos then beat the person in an assault that was captured on surveillance footage, the paperwork say. They have been arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault.
The man within the wheelchair, whose identification was redacted in court docket data, advised The Denver Post in December that he didn’t do something sexual with {the teenager} and refuted the deputies’ characterization of a “sexual torture chamber.”
A Denver police officer is accused of making an attempt to cowl up that assault. Officer Henry Soni, 26, was the responding officer who reviewed surveillance video of the assault and gave the person within the wheelchair a case quantity, in accordance with an affidavit. He then did not file a report or enter the surveillance video as proof within the case.
In official data, Soni wrote that the person within the wheelchair “does not want to file a report at this time.” The officer’s body-worn digital camera footage of his response to the person’s dwelling was robotically logged into the police proof storage system as being related to an assault name, however Soni manually modified the footage the subsequent day to be categorised as “All Other/Non-event,” in accordance with an affidavit.
Soni was arrested on suspicion of making an attempt to affect a public servant, forgery, proof tampering and misconduct. He was additionally accused of on-duty sexual assault in an unrelated case. In December, he was suspended with out pay, pending the result of the felony investigation.
Internal investigators discovered Gentempo improperly saved his firearm in 2021 and that he disobeyed guidelines associated to his body-worn digital camera in 2024, disciplinary data present.
A former metropolis worker additionally accused town of altering factual stories associated to the 2019 incident involving Gentempo to assist lesser self-discipline than what was really helpful by the Public Integrity Division. The worker, Brittany Iriart, had investigated Gentempo’s case whereas working as an investigator within the division’s administrative investigations unit.
Staff author Shelly Bradbury contributed to this story.