CAL Fire probe didn’t find sex on fire trucks but 16 firefighters have been place on leave
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Cal Fire officials put 16 workers on administrative leave Monday after receiving preliminary results of an investigation into allegations that firefighters had sex with prostitutes at the Fire Academy in Ione.
The allegations surfaced after Orville Fleming, a former Cal Fire battalion chief, was arrested in May on suspicion of murdering his girlfriend, 26-year-old Sarah Douglas. Authorities said Douglas worked as a paid escort when she and Fleming met two years earlier.
Fleming’s wife, Meagan Fleming, reported that her husband and other firefighters had sex with prostitutes at Cal Fire’s training academy in Ione and that she had seen a videotape of Douglas having sex with firefighters on fire trucks.
Cal Fire placed 16 fire academy workers on paid administrative leave Monday after the estranged wife of a slaying suspect accused his firefighter colleagues of having videotaped sex with prostitutes on department property.
The suspensions involved violations of state or department policies mostly by academy instructors, but they were not related to the sex allegations, saidDaniel Berlant, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“Nothing substantiated the allegations of a sex tape,” Berlant said.
The investigation began in May after fire academy instructor and battalion chief Orville Fleming was charged with murder in the death of a former escort who became his girlfriend.
Fleming’s estranged wife told Sacramento County sheriff’s investigators and reporters then that she had viewed a video showing the victim, Sarah June Douglas, 26, having sex with her husband and other firefighters on fire trucks.
“The investigation has already determined that allegations of a sex tape are unfounded,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Janet Upton said. Nor was there any use of prostitutes or other improper sexual activity on state time or equipment, she said.
“The extent of those violations, we won’t know until that full report is done within the next week. After that’s done and we start to get that documentation in then we’ll know what proper steps to take forward,” said Cal Fire Public Information Officer Daniel Berlant.
Those 16 Cal Fire firefighters have been placed on paid leave, which is standard protocol, according to Berlant.
We have reached out to Meagan Fleming but haven’t heard back. Action News has learned the 16 firefighters are all assigned permanently to work at the Ione Fire Academy, so this means they’re an instructor in some sort of capacity.
