Topics / LAW ENFORCEMENT : Officer, Demoted After Fathering a Child With Colleague, Files Bias Claim : Pasadena police are also investigating whether Sgt. Paul Gales fixed a traffic ticket for another girlfriend.

A former Pasadena police lieutenant, demoted to the rank of sergeant after he fathered a child with a female officer, has filed a $5-million claim against the city.

In a matter that police officials say is unrelated to the Sept. 2 demotion, the department is investigating the same man, Sgt. Paul Gales, for allegedly fixing a traffic ticket for another girlfriend.

In his claim, which also targets Police Chief Jerry Oliver and other top police officials, Gales, a 13-year veteran of the department, said that police investigators unfairly probed into his personal life, that Oliver and other supervisors unjustly accused Gales of lying about the number of times he had consensual sex with the unidentified female officer who became pregnant, and that police initiated the ticket-fixing investigation as a way of retaliating against Gales for objecting to the demotion.

“Here is a man who has given 13 years of public service as a police officer, and his career is being destroyed over something in his personal life that Jerry Oliver disagrees with,” Gales’ attorney, Joe C. Hopkins, said of the paternity investigation that brought on Gales’ demotion.

Oliver, who authorized the demotion, was not available for comment. Gales also could not be reached for comment.

Hopkins said Gales has assumed financial responsibility for the child, who is now 8 months old. The mother, a lower-ranking officer, has not been disciplined in any way.

Gales also claims that police officials withheld pay increases and overtime pay and had threatened to fire Gales if he appealed his demotion from lieutenant to sergeant, a $13,000-a-year cut in pay. Gales said in his suit that police pried into his sex life and singled him out because he is African American.

Police Cmdr. Bob Huff, who is also a target of Gales’ claim, said the female officer involved in the paternity investigation was not directly supervised by Gales and said there are no department rules prohibiting fraternization among officers. Because the investigation is not yet closed, and because it involves personnel issues, Huff refused to say what prompted Gales’ demotion in the absence of such regulations.

Huff said the ticket-fixing probe was started after police received an anonymous letter accusing Gales and another officer.

Police are looking into whether Gales used his influence as a police supervisor to have a traffic ticket issued to Dollicia Evans, Gales’ girlfriend, dismissed, Huff said. Huff would not name the second officer or describe how the alleged ticket-fixing was supposedly carried out.