Retired Boise officer repeatedly raped a woman. He was one of 38 decertified last year in Idaho

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Scott Wayne McMikle, a 30-year-plus veteran of the Boise Police Department, was one of dozens barred from working in Idaho’s law enforcement agencies last year. Documents and statements obtained by the Idaho Statesman showed McMikle admitted to repeatedly raping a woman while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer.

It was one of the most severe cases among 38 Idaho officers decertified in 2022, and with a felony conviction involved, the circumstances behind McMikle’s decertification remained public.

Reasons the Idaho Peace Officers Standards and Training may decertify an officer range from misdemeanors and misconduct to serious felony counts. Every year, about 1% of the state’s 6,000 officers are investigated for potential decertifications, said Dan Smith, POST’s Office of Professional Responsibility manager.

In the past 20 years, more than 550 officers have been decertified, according to a Statesman database, which recorded any Idaho officers who were stripped of their certifications since 2002. But the reasons behind many of those decertifications remained hidden from the public — without criminal charges, an officer may opt to voluntarily get decertified without answering to an investigation.

That included former Ada County Sheriff Stephen Bartlett, who served as sheriff from 2015 to 2021 until his unexpected retirement. The details for Bartlett’s discipline have remained secret since he surrendered his certification.

When officers are under investigation, they are given the opportunity to participate in the training agency’s investigation. But if they don’t want to talk to investigators, their certifications could be voluntarily handed over, Idaho POST spokesperson Kelsey Woodward told the Statesman by phone.

In an “effort to save face,” some officers will surrender their certifications, Woodward said, because they may not want accusations to be made public.

Nearly half of the officers decertified last year relinquished their certifications. The Statesman requested investigative documents from over a dozen officers who were decertified in 2022 — including Matthew Lane, a Boise police officer who resigned from the department in May 2022. An undisclosed number of records were denied because they contained personnel information.

The only document obtained from POST regarding Lane’s discipline, a Final Order of Decertification, excluded any information about his dismissal. This was also the case for several other officers, including Aaron Teall, a former Ada County sheriff’s deputy, and three Idaho Department of Correction employees who were all decertified in mid-June.

One of the other officers who lost certifications last year was Lori Williams, who worked for the state’s correction department. She was decertified after she was convicted of driving under the influence for a second time and failed to report another alcohol-related conviction in 2009, according to paperwork filed by POST, which the Statesman obtained through a public records request.

Dustin Moe, who worked for the Meridian Police Department, was decertified after POST determined that he violated the department’s policies by “inappropriately” accessing confidential records, according to a report on the decertification decision. Details of Moe’s dismissal likely would have been kept hidden had he chosen to be voluntarily decertified.

After a decertification in Idaho, the officer’s name gets placed on the National Decertification Index. An officer may try to apply to a law enforcement agency in another state before the decertification is finalized, which can be a lengthy process, Woodward told the Statesman. Woodward said it’s important for hiring agencies to reach out to the officer’s previous employers and do their due diligence.

Any officer decertified in Idaho is allowed to reapply after 10 years, but Smith, who oversees all of the decertification investigations in the state, said it’s happened only once, because the law enforcement agency that would rehire the decertified officer must petition POST for the officer’s recertification. Smith added that POST can’t certify anyone who has been decertified in another state.

“We’re here to protect the officers and … I’m here to get rid of the cancer. There’s no cancer that I want in my profession,” Smith said, describing his role investigating officers. “Law enforcement is an honorable, ethical — should be — an honorable and ethical profession.”

Domestic violence crimes will lead to decertification

The “worst thing” an officer can do is lie and try to cover up a mistake, Smith said, which is a sure way to get decertified, versus owning up to the blunder.

“It’s possible to recover from those mistakes, like, ‘Whoa sir, this is what I did, I really made a mistake and I shouldn’t have and this is what I’m doing to fix that,’ ” Smith said. “No, they hide it and they cover it up and not tell the truth about it, and that’s where people get really jammed up.”

Aside from a felony conviction, several other factors will automatically decertify an officer, such as falsifying or omitting information to get certified or any misdemeanor conviction that involves domestic violence.

Smith said it’s “logistically impossible” for an officer who has been convicted of domestic violence to continue working in law enforcement because of an amendment to the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968, often called the Lautenberg Amendment, which prohibits anybody convicted of a misdemeanor involving domestic violence from possessing a firearm.

“If you can’t carry a weapon, how can you be in law enforcement?” Smith said.

In October, former Idaho State Police Specialist Derek James Emmert was convicted of battering his wife and placed on four years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to two misdemeanors: domestic battery in the presence of a child and disturbing the peace. He was decertified in February.

“We don’t want law enforcement officers who are abusers,” Smith said.

McMikle could spend up to 10 years in prison

McMikle, who retired in 2015, was charged with nine felony counts of rape and a single count of forcible penetration by use of a foreign object in 2021. He pleaded guilty in October 2021, according to online court records, to just one felony count of domestic battery with traumatic injury — while all other charges against him were dropped.

The Meridian Police Department opened an investigation into McMikle in December 2020 after he contacted the department and reported the sexual assaults, according to an investigation report obtained by the Statesman. In January 2022, 4th District Judge Cynthia Yee-Wallace sentenced McMikle to up to 10 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after five.

“To do the unspeakable things that I have done to the person that I love the most is unforgivable,” McMikle said during his sentencing hearing. “To think I was the one that inflicted that kind of pain crushes me.”

Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Katelyn Farley said McMikle, who had moved to Louisiana, submitted a letter confessing to raping a woman in 2008. Farley added that according to the police reports, McMikle said he was guilty of about 350 counts of rape.

“The facts of the case are extremely disturbing,” Farley said.

In McMikle’s case, he was an automatic decertification, according to the investigative report, because he was convicted of a felony. McMikle is at the Idaho State Correctional Center in Kuna, south of Boise. He could be eligible for parole in January 2027.