Mecklenburg DA chides Pineville for police corruption case, but won’t bring charges
Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather announced Wednesday that he will not bring criminal charges against a Pineville Town Council member accused of improperly meddling in police affairs to protect his officer son.
Longtime Pineville council member Les Gladden was censured by his colleagues on Oct. 11 and banned from meeting alone with police or any other town employees after an investigation revealed that he had interceded in an internal probe involving his son, former Pineville Police Officer Ryan Gladden.
The younger Gladden had been accused of showing up at a police department SWAT team investigation drunk on duty and continuing to drink.
The internal investigation of the incident found that Les Gladden intervened in order to minimize punishment and that he fostered “a pervasive fear of retaliation.”
While Merriweather said Les Gladden’s actions appear inappropriate, they fell short of a crime of obstructing the investigation.
Yet, in his six-page letter to the State Bureau of Investigation, which had investigated the Gladdens at the request of Pineville Police Chief Michael Hudgins, Merriweather criticized the town for enabling Les Gladden’s actions.
“ ... the remaining questions of impropriety raised here by the appearance of nepotism and undue political influence within the Pineville Police Department are deeply concerning,” Merriweather wrote.
“The recent censure of Town Councilman Les Gladden and the Council’s attempt to bar him from all interference in police affairs certainly indicates that the Town Administration in Pineville is now doing its part to restore accountability and impartiality to its oversight of law enforcement.
“But the fact that such conflicts of interests were allowed to persist within a police department — and, at times, were seemingly cultivated by town administration — is of grave concern to this office, which depends on law enforcement as a critical partner in upholding fair and objective justice.
“Had it not been for Chief Hudgins insisting these matters be independently reviewed, first by a contracted internal investigative agency and then by the State Bureau of Investigation, one wonders whether these institutional failures would have been ultimately remedied.”
Merriweather singled out a decision by Town Manager Ryan Spitzer to arrange a meeting last April with Hudgins so Les Gladden could speak “about (Ryan Gladden’s) personnel challenges from his dual interests ‘as a father and a Councilman,’” according to the letter.
Though Spitzer later denied any knowledge of Les Gladden contacting officers involved in the subsequent internal investigation of his son, “it is not surprising that such blurred lines of protocol ultimately led to uncomfortable moments throughout the internal investigation of Ryan Gladden,” Merriweather wrote.
Les Gladden, a nine-term council member, did not immediately respond to an email from The Charlotte Observer seeking comment, nor did Spitzer.
During a later interview with the SBI, Les Gladden confirmed that he had talked to two officers involved in his son’s inquiry but denied any attempt to exert improper influence.
“Was my choice of words correct? Probably not,” Gladden said, according to Merriweather’s letter.
“It was disturbing to me to see them turning their back on somebody so close to them and so close to me ... then yeah, I was pissed off.”
Hudgins, the target of many of Les Gladden’s behind-the-scenes machinations, declined to respond to Merriweather’s findings.
“This is such a sensitive topic, and a lot of information has been shared or is known,” Hudgins said in a Wednesday email. “It is best, for our police department, that no other comments be made.”
Gladden shooting
The SBI investigation also examined a June 4 incident in which Ryan Gladden fired a gun inside his home while his estranged wife and child were inside. The shooting has never been reported before.
The wife told friends and police conflicting stories on whether she felt threatened by the officer, later telling investigators that she was more worried about her husband’s safety than her own.
Les Gladden later told the SBI that his son had been drinking that night and had inadvertently fired a shot while dismantling his weapon for safety reasons. According to Merriweather’s letter, the council member later came to his son’s house and repaired the bullet holes. No bullet was ever found.
“SBI opted not to examine the scene, upon learning that it had been subsequently altered or repaired by Les Gladden.”
Merriweather said his office did not believe it had sufficient probable cause to charge Ryan Gladden with a crime.
Ryan Gladden’s actions
According to personnel records, Ryan Gladden, an eight-year Pineville police veteran, resigned Sept. 13, a month before the Town Council voted to censure his father.
Les Gladden pressured Pineville police to hire his son in 2013 despite his history of prescription-drug abuse. When Ryan Gladden became drunk while on duty last year, the council member insisted that his son be promoted, according to an October report by the Town Council.
Ryan Gladden’s disciplinary records reveal that his last 18 months as a police officer in Pineville, a south Mecklenburg town of about 11,000, were tumultuous ones.
On March 17, 2021, for example, he was suspended from the police department’s SWAT team and put on a year’s probation. Gladden’s disciplinary files, which the Observer obtained through a public records request, do not say why.
But according to the town’s investigative report, which was released the night of Les Gladden’s censure vote, March 17, 2021, also was the day that an on-duty “Officer 1” attended a SWAT demonstration “while under the influence of and actively consuming alcohol.”
“He blew at least a 2.0 on his partner’s alcosensor,” the report states. “He also drove his police cruiser in this condition.”
Ignoring what appears to be a blatant conflict of interest, Les Gladden injected himself fully into the decision of how his son’s case was to be handled.
According to the Town Council report, which followed an investigation by the security and management consulting firm US ISS Agency LLC, the elder Gladden requested multiple meetings with Spitzer and other town staff to discuss his son’s situation.
The council member not only lobbied for Ryan Gladden to keep his job but also argued that his son be promoted, the report claims.
Behind the scenes, according to the report’s findings, Les Gladden threatened or intimidated other Pineville officers, warning some that he was maneuvering to have Ryan Gladden’s superior officer terminated.
Hudgins, who became Pineville police chief on Dec. 30, 2020, acknowledged to the Observer that he is the “superior officer” identified in the report.
As punishment for his drinking on duty, Ryan Gladden eventually was demoted from corporal to officer for three months and suspended without pay for two weeks, along with his earlier suspension from the SWAT team and his year-long probation, records show and Hudgins confirmed.
This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 10:27 AM.
