Chico police Sgt. Michael Williams began having “a lot” of sex on duty just a couple of months after he was demoted from lieutenant for engaging in sexual relations with a subordinate, according to Williams’s former girlfriend.
The ex-girlfriend’s timeline, provided to a police investigator, means Williams was having sex on the clock nearly three years before leaving the payroll of the Chico Police Department. Her revelations suggest the department’s disciplinary action failed to curb his behavior and may have instead provided increased opportunities to escalate misconduct that continued uninvestigated for nearly two years.
The ex-girlfriend’s account is contained in investigative reports obtained under a Public Records Act request. Williams did not respond to a message seeking comment on his ex-girlfriend’s account.
Williams was fired by Chico PD in January of this year after he was accused of having on-duty sex with five women in 2023. The scandal was first reported by the Chico Enterprise-Record. One of the women told her story exclusively to ChicoSol.
Another woman, Williams’s ex-girlfriend, divulged to an investigator in April 2024 that they had sex “a lot” while he was working, dating back more than two years —into the first quarter of 2022.
Williams had been stripped of his lieutenant’s stripe and busted back to sergeant just a couple of months earlier, in December 2021, after having sex with the subordinate, according to police records. Though it provided other documents, the Police Department has denied Public Records Act requests to release redacted investigative reports that would reveal details of that relationship—and how it was handled by then-Police Chief Matt Madden.
Williams went on leave citing a job-related injury in November 2023, shortly after being informed he was under investigation for department policy violations related to the on-duty sex allegations. In response to a Public Records Act request, the City claimed it is prohibited by law from saying whether Williams received his regular compensation while on leave. According to Transparent California, Williams’s total compensation in 2023 (the most recent year available) was nearly $250,000, including a salary of $155,000, benefits costing $44,000, and about $50,000 paid toward his pension.
Williams may have collected his full compensation for 14 months, meaning taxpayers would have paid more than $290,000 while he was doing no police work and under investigation for serial sexual misconduct.
In addition, in June, the City agreed to pay Williams another $37,608, the equivalent of his salary for three months, in return for dropping an appeal of his termination. The nine-page agreement, signed by City Manager Mark Sorensen, includes a “no disparagement” clause in which the City agreed “it shall not directly or indirectly make disparaging statements … (about) Williams’s professional or personal reputation or character by word or act.”
After leaving Chico PD in January, Williams voluntarily surrendered his state police officer certification in May. A month later, he went to work for a Bend, Ore., residential program for at-risk youths — in other words he was again working with a vulnerable population. Some of the women he was accused of exploiting were vulnerable because of circumstances or health, and a police captain would later refer to “vulnerable victims” in a memo about the case.
The Enterprise-Record reported that Williams separated from the youth camp, J Bar J Youth Services, on Sept. 19, the same day the E-R published its expose. In a text message to the woman who told her story to ChicoSol, Williams had described his job there as a “program manager.”
Williams, who joined Chico PD in 2014, had an unusually rapid rise through the ranks, springboarding from police officer to lieutenant within just a couple of years when Mike O’Brien, now a Chico city councilmember, was police chief. The department’s school-resource sergeant at one point, Williams also developed its drone program. His LinkedIn account says his job included “mentoring junior officers for optimal performance.”
The Internal Affairs investigation that led to Williams’s firing found that his sexual behavior spiraled after he was demoted. As a sergeant again, Williams patrolled Chico in a SUV with “Supervisor” on the side. In reviewing GPS records, investigators documented that Williams’s patrol vehicle was frequently parked near the women’s homes. He also repeatedly accessed their information on police computers, a records check by Chico PD found.
“Perhaps his rank protected him” from normal departmental and community scrutiny, said Seth Stoughton, an ex-cop who directs the Excellence in Policing & Public Safety program at the University of South Carolina.
Investigators said Williams handled a domestic violence case, which involved a woman with whom he later had on-duty sex, in a suspicious manner. Williams’s incident report recommended a felony charge against the woman’s former boyfriend for aggravated domestic violence. What made the case abnormal was not so much that Williams, as a sergeant, wrote four reports about it, but that he also provided the supervisor’s required approval for each report.
“Why did he seemingly exclude all other officers and supervisors from the investigation?” asks a Chico PD report.
Stoughton, the police expert, was asked about Williams writing and approving his own reports.
“Supervisors are supposed to provide both oversight and formative feedback, ensuring that officers’ reports are clear, comprehensive, and accurate,” Stoughton replied. “It isn’t appropriate to approve your own reports because doing so precludes what can be a critical second set of eyes.”
Recorded interviews released
In response to a Public Records Act request, Chico PD released redacted recorded interviews with four of the women who claimed to have had sexual relations with Williams.
In spring 2024, with Williams several months into his leave, his former girlfriend contacted Lt. Peter Durfee, whom she had known for many years. She was working in Sacramento at the time but residing on weekends at Williams’s Chico home.
The ex-girlfriend told Durfee she came forward after feeling manipulated into having anal sex and later finding on a computer some screenshots of extensive messaging between Williams and a female. The messaging seems to have been with the woman who told her story to ChicoSol.
Williams is “an absolute liar,” the ex-girlfriend twice told Durfee.
According to the ex-girlfriend’s account, Williams had been drinking “quite heavily” for three days and, on March 31, “was screaming and yelling at me to get out of his house” by 10 a.m. the next day and texting “over and over and over.” The woman responded that she needed more time. Williams showed up apologetically the following day and asked her not to move out. She told him she needed to think about it and went to shower.
“He came in the shower with me, and that’s when he said he wanted to have anal sex, and I let him,” she told Durfee. “I didn’t want to, but his behavior was so out of control, and then, all of a sudden, he was like, ‘Stay. Don’t leave.’ And we proceeded to have anal sex.”
Another of the women with whom Williams was alleged to have had on-duty sex was described as severely mentally ill with a history of numerous arrests. Reports indicate she informed 11 different law enforcement officers about her sexual relationship with Williams.
Chico police officer Austin Jones might have been the first officer
informed of Williams’s sexual activities. In June 2022, a woman told
Jones she was sexually involved with Williams. Jones did not report the
claim at the time, which was a misstep, said Stoughton, the police
expert.
“That’s an important allegation to pass up the chain of command or to Internal Affairs,” said Stoughton. “It sounds problematic, and potentially inappropriate, and while the information may be inaccurate, an agency can’t make that determination without investigating.”
Eighteen months later, in December 2023, officer Jones overheard a different woman, a sexual assault victim, tell a nurse that she had been involved with a Chico PD lieutenant. He at that point reported both claims, reports say.
Williams’s on-duty sexual activities apparently occurred first with the former girlfriend, and then with women he originally encountered both on and off duty.
“In this investigation, it is particularly troubling to note an apparent escalation of misconduct of a similar nature to previous discipline,” Capt. Jeramie Struthers wrote in a memo dated July 7, six months after Williams’s firing. “Sgt. Williams no longer has the means to abuse his position as a police sergeant to exploit citizens, especially potentially vulnerable victims seeking the protection of police.”
At the time Struthers wrote that memo, Williams — who the City of Chico contractually promised never to disparage — was working with at-risk youths in Oregon.
On Nov. 2 ChicoSol clarified the paragraph about officer Austin Jones to identify which party told him, according to documents, of Williams’s sexual activity.
Dave Waddell, a professor emeritus in journalism at Chico State, contributes regularly to ChicoSol about law enforcement.
It is absolutely shameful that this case did not go to trial and he was let go with back pay.
THE SCANDAL DEEPENS. Why are residents of Chico so blindly supportive of your “peace officers”? CAN’T YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH? You should all be protesting at the police department right now, demanding TRANSPARENCY! It appears that mentally unfit Chico police officers are being protected by both law enforcement administrative leaders and Chico political kingpins. Do you want rogue officers—those with potential psychological issues, sexual addictions, or tendencies toward violence—patrolling your streets? Were the Butte County Grand Jurors misled all these years about these problematic officers, or were the Jurors condoning these practices?
This is absolutely sickening and I agree with you Scott why aren’t we protesting against this sick behavior of this kop why haven’t he been arrested and charged Chico community wake up where are you let’s organize a protest.
Another investigation is needed!
Rewarding sexual predators, especially supervisors, with an additional 3 months salary is totally ludicrous. An independent investigation, instead of inhouse, should have occurred eliminating bias. The police chief and city manager are protecting and promoting the good old boy system and misogyny in our city government.
No reasonable person would disagree.