Records: Accused murderer, rapist Aguirre had troubled past as Pasco cop

Richard Aguirre, the former Pasco police officer accused of rape and murder, had a checkered past with the department dating back decades.

He was investigated in the 1980s for an alleged sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl and in the 1990s for secretly gathering the addresses, phone numbers and other private information of dozens of women from a records management system.

Aguirre was never prosecuted and received only verbal and written warnings, according to personnel records.

The Herald obtained part of the former officer’s personnel file through a public records request, which the city of Pasco initially denied several times before finally releasing the documents after the newspaper hired a lawyer.

Pasco Police Chief Bob Metzger declined to talk about Aguirre or any of the past internal investigations.

Aguirre — the onetime Officer of the Year in Pasco — is in custody at the Spokane County jail on $1.5 million bail as he faces a slew of charges in several cases, including murder, rape, voyeurism and tampering with a witness.

The veteran patrolman, who resigned from the force in April, was charged in June with the 1986 murder of Ruby J. Doss, 27, a prostitute who was strangled and beaten close in Spokane.

DNA evidence submitted by Aguirre during a 2014 Franklin County investigation into the rape of a woman at his Pasco home allegedly tied him to Doss’s death. He is charged with third-degree rape in that case.

Aguirre denies killing Doss, though he admitted to having sex with a prostitute around the time of her death, court documents said.

Girl denied sex with Aguirre

Records in the personnel file show Aguirre became embroiled in controversy in 1988, his first year with the police department.

A former Pasco officer learned from his daughter that Aguirre was allegedly having a sexual relationship with her 15-year-old friend, according to internal investigation reports.

Aguirre, who was 24 at the time, first met the girl while investigating an assault case and called her a few days later, the report said. He knew the girl’s age, but went to her house five or six times and took her out to eat several times.

The girl allegedly told a few of her friends that she was dating Aguirre, according to interviews given by the friends.

When interviewed by police, Aguirre and the girl admitted to holding hands and kissing, though both adamantly denied having sex, the report said.

Capt. Doug Chambers spoke to the girl and sent a report to Don Francis, the police chief at the time.

“(The girl) is lying through her teeth,” Chambers wrote.

The police sergeant investigating the allegation, Terry Trulson, determined there wasn’t enough evidence to prove a crime was committed, documents said.

He recommended Aguirre, who was a probationary officer at the time, meet with the chief and receive a verbal warning.

The sergeant also recommended that the report files be reduced to only a memo, so details of the investigation wouldn’t be available in Aguirre’s file. Part of the reason for the verbal warning and not a more severe punishment was that details of the investigation could be kept “in house” and not made public.

“My gut is to believe (Aguirre),” Trulson wrote. “I think that if (the girl) had gone to bed with (Aguirre), that she would have bragged about it to her friends and probably even told me she had. I also think (Aguirre) would have admitted it.”

Police chief questioned Aguirre’s integrity

A decade after Aguirre’s relationship with the teen, another investigation was launched in 1998 into his use of the department’s records management system.

Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller contacted Pasco police to report that Aguirre may have been misusing a system called Bi-Pin, which stores personal and vehicle information.

A former girlfriend of Aguirre’s told police she found an estimated 50 Bi-Pin printouts in Aguirre’s apartment, documents said. Nearly all of the printouts apparently had the personal information of girls and women between the ages of 14 and 40.

“(The ex-girlfriend) does not believe any of these Bi-Pin printouts were connected to any police investigation that Officer Aguirre was working on,” Chambers wrote in the investigative report.

Police tracked all the Bi-Pin inquiries made by Aguirre from the time of the investigation back to the start of 1997, documents said. They were able to establish a list of at least 35 names, which they used to question Aguirre.

Aguirre would also apparently use other officers’ names when making Bi-Pin inquiries, documents said.

Aguirre admitted to accessing the records system for his personal use, but he claimed he looked for vehicle information on cars he fancied or phone numbers of old friends, documents said.

However, documents show Aguirre used the system to research females he was interested in. Some of the inquiries were for former partners of women he was seeing.

One woman told investigators she met Aguirre after he apparently used the records system to look up her phone number.

“She stated that (Aguirre) phoned her one night at home and that she didn’t know him nor had she ever met him before, and she had no idea how he got her phone number,” wrote Capt. Dennis Kasparek. “She does not remember (Aguirre) saying how he got her number, but she remembers him mentioning that he had looked her up in the computer ...”

Kasparek determined Aguirre violated department policy by repeatedly accessing the records system for personal use and disseminating the information to others. He recommended Aguirre receive, at the very least, a written warning.

Chief Dennis Austin reviewed the captain’s report and determined Aguirre violated policy by abusing his position and making private information public.

“Both acts are serious violations of our rules of conduct and raises questions regarding your personal integrity,” Austin wrote. “Your conduct could have jeopardized the department’s ability for all officers to gain access to these systems and exposed the department to possible liability.”

But the chief decided to punish Aguirre by writing a letter of reprimand, which warned Aguirre that if he used police systems for personal use again, there would be more serious discipline.

Part of the reason the chief decided to only issue a letter of reprimand was that Aguirre apparently cooperated with the investigation and took responsibility for his actions, documents said.

A review of other records in Aguirre’s personnel file show he was involved in several crashes while on duty, for which he was “counseled” and reprimanded.

In one instance, Aguirre drove another officer’s personal motorcycle during an undercover drug operation despite not having the correct license. He ended up crashing the motorcycle and injuring himself.

In another accident, for which it doesn’t appear Aguirre was punished, he backed into a small child while leaving the scene of a call. The child was not injured.

This story was originally published October 3, 2015 at 8:28 PM with the headline "Records: Accused murderer, rapist Aguirre had troubled past as Pasco cop."