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A board of RCMP adjudicators on Tuesday shot down a claim that B.C. RCMP brass improperly offered to withdraw sex-related conduct charges against a female officer if she agreed to drop a civil suit involving the RCMP.
Const. Susan Gastaldo and Staff-Sgt. Travis Pearson are accused of having sex in a police car during work hours and exchanging intimate messages via an RCMP Blackberry in 2009, while Gastaldo worked for Pearson in the "Special O" surveillance unit, in and around Burnaby.
Gastaldo has filed a civil suit in B.C. Supreme Court alleging that Pearson used his power and her vulnerable mental condition to sexually assault her at his home and coerce her into ongoing sexual relations.
On Tuesday, the RCMP board of adjudicators ruled the "global resolution" offer on the civil suit and conduct hearing that was made to Gastaldo by RCMP conduct prosecutor Gregory Rose was not an "abuse of process" and that her cross-examination should continue.
Rose attempted to discredit Gastaldo's testimony that she was coerced into her actions by Pearson. He read from a long exchange of text messages between Pearson and Gastaldo on Aug. 1, 2009. At the time Gastaldo testified she was looking forward to Pearson's imminent departure on a two-week vacation, in order to try to break off the relationship.
In the exchanges, the pair talk about their children and spouses, yoga classes and health concerns, and they text salacious sexual scenarios, including one in which Pearson asks Gastaldo to "pee" on him.
The two also write that they "love" each other, and Pearson sends pictures of babies to Gastaldo.
"Where should a 39-year-old male in love with a beautiful Italian princess go in his free time?" Pearson wrote to Gastaldo, while apparently in a mall shopping before his planned vacation. "Show me some sexy Susan [pictures] so I can push my cart with my penis."
Gastaldo joked about meeting a Lower Mainland RCMP inspector known to her and Pearson in a yoga class.
"[The inspector] was in the class ... ha ha. He giggled when the teacher said everyone has a fem side."
Gastaldo testified that Pearson said he wanted to have a baby with her, and that she put him off but replied with messages that would "appease" him.
"I miss you. I'd love to make a family with you. I like shopping," Pearson wrote.
Gastaldo replied: "Me three."
Rose pushed Gastaldo to explain why, as an officer in "Special O" - aware of "covert" evidence gathering techniques including bugging homes and planting video recorders in vehicles - she didn't use them to snare Pearson, if he had truly assaulted her and coerced her?
"My faith in the RCMP ... [is lost]," she said. "The system that was going to help me didn't work. How can I say a [covert technique] could have worked?"
