On September 13, 2019, Ottawa Police Staff Sgt. Will Hinterberger was suspended as part of an investigation into missing police files.
The Ottawa Citizen reported on Hinterberger’s past duties, as well as his romantic relationship with the mother of suspected ISIL sympathizer Tevis Gonyou-McLean, who was arrested by the RCMP last August.
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 learned, though the exact time frame is unclear. It’s not known what the nature of those files are.
On September 30, 2019, Staff Sgt. Hinterberger was arrested by Ottawa Police when they searched his home after obtaining a search warrant.
Hinterberger faces the following criminal charges:
- sexual assault
- forcible confinement
- breach of trust
- unauthorized possession of a firearm
- distributing an intimate image without consent
Ottawa Police say all 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 November 2019 Hinterberger was arrested again, this time for violating several bail conditions related to his initial charges. He now faces an additional nine charges for breaching his conditions of release “by allegedly violating several court orders.”
The Ottawa Citizen reports the breaches began on November 10th and continued to November 20th, 2019, but a publication ban prevents them from identifying which conditions were breached.
According to Ontario’s Sunshine List, Staff Sergeant Will Hinterberger made $130,895 in 2019.
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