Published: August 04, 2009 11:47 pm      

Former police officer charged with child abuse

CATLETTSBURG — One of the former Ashland Police Department officers who left the force after being implicated in a 2005 sex scandal and who subsequently sued the city, the police department and others has been charged with felony child abuse and domestic violence.

Jason K. Deerfield, 29, of Rush, is accused of hitting his former wife and of hitting and biting his 4-year-old son, according to court records. He is charged with first-degree criminal abuse and fourth-degree assault.

The abuse charge is a Class C felony that carries a prison sentence of five to 10 years. The assault charge is a misdemeanor.

Deerfield was arrested on July 25. Both of the charges against him stem from events that allegedly occurred on that same day.

According to reports filed by Boyd County Sheriff’s Deputy John Daniels, the arresting officer, Deerfield’s ex-wife, Tara Deerfield, told him she and her former husband got into a quarrel after she went to his house to pick up their son.

The dispute was over Tara Deerfield supposedly having a new boyfriend, the report states. It escalated until Jason Deerfield “became very angry and hit (his former wife) in the arm,” Daniels wrote. The blow caused Tara Deerfield’s arm to become red and swollen, according to the report.

Later, as Tara Deerfield was giving her son a bath, she noticed the boy had bruises on his lower back and what appeared to be teeth marks on his left arm, Daniels wrote. When she questioned him about the injuries, he told her his father had instructed him to say he’d been bitten by a dog.

However, the boy went on to say that “Daddy bit him while telling him to tell him who was at Tara’s house, meaning what guy,” Daniels wrote.

The youngster also told his mother he had gotten the bruises when his father “whooped” him, the report states.

Daniels photographed the injuries of both Tara Deerfield and her son, according to the report. The marks on the boy’s arm appeared to have made by human, not canine, teeth, he wrote.

Jason Deerfield was lodged in the Boyd County Detention Center. He was released July 28 after his father posted 10 percent of his $25,000 bond. He was to appear Tuesday in Boyd District Court for a domestic violence hearing.

The arrest report listed Deerfield’s current occupation as “unemployed.”

Deerfield was one of nine APD officers suspended in August 2005 for refusing to take polygraph tests. The department had sought the tests as part of its internal investigation of claims made by a then-23-year-old woman named Jessica Thomas, who, following her arrest on drug and assault charges, alleged she had engaged sexual relations with multiple officers while they were on duty.

Deerfield and four of the other officers resigned from force rather than take polygraph tests. Another, Rodney Bowling, was fired after a hearing before the Ashland Board of City Commissioners. The others served suspensions and retained their jobs.

Deerfield, Bowling and two of the other former officers, Jeff Christian and David Bocook, later sued the city, the APD, former Police Chief and current Mayor Tom Kelley and other current and former city officials, claiming they’d been mistreated.

In June, Special Judge Lewis D. Nicholls dismissed most of the ex-officers’ claims, effectively validating the city’s position that the investigation was handled property. The only claims Nicholls allowed to stand were slander allegations against APD Lt. David Slone and against Thomas.