Officer placed on leave is cleared of wrongdoing

PROVIDENCE — The police officer who was placed on leave Friday amid questions about a tire and rim theft investigation had no involvement in any criminal activity, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Paré moved swiftly on Wednesday to exonerate Officer James Lewis, a five-year veteran of the force whose name was erroneously linked to the thefts.

“At this point, it appears he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever,” Paré said in an interview.

Reports on Tuesday linked Lewis to a tire and rim theft investigation in East Providence, where $80,000 worth of stolen rims were recently located.

But Lewis has no such link to the thefts, Paré said. In fact, the misunderstandings and unfounded suspicions began with the officer’s efforts to help someone he was mentoring, an aspiring police officer.

Police do not believe Lewis was involved in any criminal conspiracy, nor did he forward any information to known criminals, the department concluded later Wednesday.

This is what the investigation has determined so far, according to Paré: The woman Lewis was mentoring was involved in a car crash. The other driver didn’t want to get police involved and instead offered to settle the matter privately. The woman agreed, and the drivers traded registration information.

The woman then asked Lewis to provide her with information for the other car involved in the crash to make sure it was insured and registered. Lewis was well within his rights to provide this information, which was found in a law enforcement database on a mobile data terminal, Paré said.

“None, none whatsoever,” Paré said when asked if there was anything inappropriate about Lewis providing that information. “It happens all the time. Somebody needs information on a crash and the registration, we provide that all the time.”

The woman then forwarded the registration information — detailed in a screenshot from Lewis from the mobile terminal — to someone in East Providence who was going to repair her car.

The person the woman forwarded the registration information to turned out to be a suspect in East Providence police’s investigation of the rim and tires thefts, Paré said. So when East Providence police searched that suspect’s phone, they found he had information originally provided by a Providence police officer, initially raising questions.

East Providence police reached out to Providence police with what they’d discovered. Lewis was placed on leave Friday; it wasn’t until Tuesday that Providence police could reach the woman, who explained everything and exonerated Lewis.

Making the investigation more complicated, the woman’s legal name is not a name Lewis knows her by, so when police asked why he’d provided her with information — using her legal name — Lewis said he hadn’t done so. And the woman had also been out of the country and difficult to contact until Tuesday, Paré said.

Lewis was cooperative with the investigation, Paré said.

“The information that Officer Lewis provided is a common police practice and within the legitimacy of the work of a law enforcement officer,” Paré said in a statement later Wednesday. “At this point, we do not believe he was assisting a criminal enterprise whatsoever and he used the database to assist an individual who he serves as a mentor to within the community.”

Police officials said that, as of Wednesday night, Lewis had not yet been cleared to return to duty.