October 1, 2019
An Ottawa police staff sergeant who has been suspended by the force amid an internal investigation into missing police files was charged Monday.
Staff Sgt. Will Hinterberger was arrested by his own police service after a search warrant was executed at his house.
Hinterberger, who has a background in sensitive cases, has been suspended since Sept. 13.
He now faces multiple criminal charges, including sexual assault, forcible confinement, breach of trust, unauthorized possession of a firearm and distributing an intimate image without consent.
Hinterberger was a patrol supervisor prior to his suspension but previously worked in the professional standards section, the unit that investigates officer misconduct. He also previously worked in the security intelligence section, where officers triage local terrorism cases as well as gather information about and monitor incidents of hate and extremism in the city.
The alleged missing files date back to Hinterberger’s time in both of those units, this newspaper has previously reported. It’s not known what the nature of those files are.
Police said Monday that the charges relate to off-duty incidents between 2015 and 2018 and that the investigation is ongoing.
Hinterberger was released on a promise to appear in court.
The officer had, in recent years, been involved in a romantic relationship with the mother of a man with suspected ties to ISIL who was the subject of an RCMP terrorism investigation. It’s believed the two met in Hinterberger’s capacity as a police officer when the woman went to Ottawa police with concerns about her son.
Her son was arrested by the RCMP in August 2016.
National police arrested him on suspicion that he would engage in terrorism, after his mother handed over recorded audio conversations with her son. He was charged with uttering threats for allegedly vowing to avenge the 2016 death of ISIL supporter Aaron Driver, who was killed in a confrontation with police in Strathroy, Ont.
Federal prosecutors dropped the uttering-threats case against the man and stayed the charge in January 2017.
He was eventually released on a terrorism peace bond that required him to wear an ankle bracelet.
Both the RCMP and Ottawa police came to know about the relationship during the national force’s ongoing investigation into the woman’s son and the various breaches of his court-ordered conditions.
His mother told the National Post in an interview after the peace bond was signed, and after she ceased being a Crown witness in the case, that she first went to Ottawa police with concerns after her son began texting about the New World Order and Illuminati. Ottawa police performed a mental health screening but didn’t think he needed hospitalization, she said.
The RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team took over the case from Ottawa police and contacted her in May 2015 about being a witness against her son.
Hinterberger never faced discipline for the relationship or its circumstances, nor was he ever alleged to have acted improperly as a police officer as a result. The OPS security intelligence section, in which he once worked, did liaise with RCMP on files. Local police are responsible for triaging terrorism reports as Hinterberger himself told this newspaper in 2015, one year after the shooting on Parliament Hill.
“A lot of information can be generated at the local level,” Hinterberger previously said.
Hinterberger was also the patrol staff sergeant who accidentally sent out a confidential report on an active homicide investigation — complete with names and phone numbers of key witnesses — to an email distribution list that included dozens of reporters in September 2018. Hours later, Hinterberger sent a follow-up email asking that none of the information be used.
“This morning, internal police documents containing confidential and personal information related to an ongoing homicide investigation was unintentionally released to the media email list,” Hinterberger wrote.
“The document contains information that, if published, could jeopardize the safety of individuals in our community and compromise the ongoing investigation. We ask that the media not publish any information contained in those documents and immediately destroy/delete those documents. We would further ask that you confirm that this has been done this morning.”
The inadvertent disclosure angered the family of slain Mohamad Mana, but Hinterberger was never disciplined for the release, which the service found to be accidental.
syogaretnam@postmedia.com
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