Knutsen had worked at BSO for nearly five years, earning $53,060 annually, when he was let go in February. The internal affairs file, released Monday to the Sun Sentinel, details how the agency confirmed its suspicions by placing a tracker on the deputy's patrol car.
"I'm not a bad person,'' he told BSO investigators in a sworn statement. "I just sometimes do dumb things.''
Knutsen, who couldn't be reached by the newspaper for comment, admitted to BSO investigators he was guilty of "poor decision making,'' the file says. But he told them he mostly hung out in The Booby Trap's kitchen, eating and watching TV with the head cook, a man who filled in as a father figure after the 2009 passing of Knutsen's dad. At The Cheetah, he said he was visiting a friend at the parking valet stand or helping move patrons out safely at closing time.
Knutsen denied having sex or "any involvement'' with the female strippers and said he was "there to see my friends."
According to the BSO file:
Knutsen became a target of investigators after an unidentified complainant told the Sheriff's Office that Knutsen was hanging out at full-nudity, full-bar strip clubs while on duty. The allegations included claims he had female strippers in his patrol car and that "sexual activity was taking place,'' accusations never substantiated.
Knutsen worked the overnight shift, from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Investigators at BSO took a look at the calls he'd handled at the clubs in question. There were only a few.
Then they stuck a tracker onto Knutsen's squad car, and Knutsen's career at the agency was on the path to termination.
Over a five-week period starting in October, Knutsen's fondness for the strip clubs was confirmed. Here's what the investigators found:
Week one: Out of 36 work hours, the deputy spent 10 hours, six minutes and 28 seconds at The Booby Trap and The Cheetah III in Pompano Beach.
Week two: Knutsen worked 44 hours, and spent 10 hours, 37 minutes and 48 seconds at the strip clubs, including about 20 minutes at a third club, Allstar's, which investigators said was a favorite spot in Deerfield Beach for strippers to visit after the nude clubs closed.
Week three: His work hours totaled 36, and of those, he spent eight hours, 59 minutes and 44 seconds at the clubs.
Week four: His 32-hour work week included five hours, three minutes and 30 seconds at the strip clubs and the after-club.
Week five: Knutsen put in 36 work hours, of which 10 hours, 20 minutes and 26 seconds were at the three establishments.
Investigators started digging into his dispatch records, and found that time and again, Knutsen was dispatched to calls, claimed on the radio or in his paperwork he'd shown up, but actually never left The Booby Trap.
Some of the calls were minor: suspicious vehicle, disturbance, suspicious person, trespassing.
But one was a disturbance with a weapon on Northwest 21st Street in Pompano Beach. Knutsen reported he arrived as a backup to another officer at 10:58 p.m. and left the scene at 11:47 p.m.
"According to the GPS tracking device,'' the investigative report says, "Deputy Knutsen was still stationary at The Booby Trap.''
Confronted by investigators, Knutsen acknowledged he often visited the clubs, but he said he didn't go into the main floor area unless there was a law enforcement reason.
At The Booby Trap, the club he visited the most, he said he'd become best friends with the club manager Borzo "Bo" Yazdanfar. And he said the head cook, Harry Havelos, had become a father figure to him and "would often feed him,'' investigators wrote in the summary report.
When faced with the GPS data, Knutson explained each call he'd claimed to have responded to. He said some came from locations that had histories of bogus or unfounded 911 calls.
Each time, he gave a variation of the response he gave about the disturbance with a weapon:
"Um, just a, um, once again, bad decision on my part.''
Knutsen apologized, asking investigators to talk to Yazdanfar and Havelos, who he said would vouch for him.
They did, telling investigators he'd been visiting the club since 2009 but that he parked in back, and often sat in the patrol car filling out paperwork. They said he didn't spend time in the main club area.
But they also said he brought his supervisor, Sgt. Kristi Daly, with him. Havelos told investigators she was there about half the time.
Daly is now under BSO investigation
ORIGINAL SOURCE
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