I-TEAM: Holland Police officer suspended after making bogus phone call to get a man out of work

HOLLAND, Ohio (WTVG) - A village of Holland Police officer is set to serve his third day of a 14-day suspension this week. He got in trouble for making a phone call while off duty, but it wasn’t just a typical phone call.

Holland Officer Anthony Teniente was pretending he had a person in custody, all to get that person out of going to work for the day.

The call came before 6 a.m. back in December and it caught Nicholas Short off guard. It was a police officer calling about one of his employees and it set off a long chain of events. Now a police officer is serving a suspension.

This actually begins with a voicemail from Officer Teniente. It says this: “This is Officer Teniente. I was calling in regards to ******. If you could give me a call back, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.”

The I-TEAM is withholding the name of that employee, but he worked for Short in December when the call was made.

“Tried to call him back. No answer. Left him a message. I was pretty vague on my information because he was pretty vague on his information,” said Short.

Short finally got hold of Officer Teniente. He was told his employee was in custody but not being charged. Officer Teniente was mostly alerting Short that the employee would not be at work.

“It’s still to this day. It’s a month later and it’s still dwelling on me every day, like how did this happen,” asked Short.

Turns out the entire story was bogus and became an investigation by the Holland Police into their own.

Chief James Piotrowski found officer Teniente violated four department policies: Misuse of authority by identifying himself as a police officer off duty and representing that the man was arrested, restricted use of technology because, according to the report officer Teniente accessed a license plate reader camera and was showing it to civilians. He even admitted he could put the employee’s plate into the system and have him stopped, even if it was described as a joke.

Officer Teniente was also found to have violated department standards of conduct and ethics.

“I caught onto it really quickly, but I still worried about him for a really long time,” said Short. “I have to believe it. I have to believe he’s really an officer and not knowing if this officer is actually holding him.”

Caught up in all of this was Short, believing at one point his employee could have been held against his will. The employee was fine and did talk to the Holland Police. In an interview transcript, he said: “He reported me as missing and put a BOLO out on my license plate. He said if I go through any red light cameras, they’re gonna trigger it and they’re gonna come pull me over.”

When asked if he felt like he was being held against his will, the man answered: “I felt like, I mean, I probably could have left at any time. I just didn’t wanna get pulled over, stopped for any kind of reason and harassed.”

Officer Teniente spoke with Holland Police about all this. He admitted he was drinking that day and made the phone calls. He told his sergeant, “The employee joked that I should call his boss to prank him, he said his boss knew he hung out with cops.”

When pressed about the entire incident, Officer Teniente was asked: “You identified yourself as a police officer, claimed the employee was detained, misused the departmental system, and allowed intoxicated individuals to drive your vehicle. The boss believed that the employee was in serious trouble; his mother was driving from Indiana. The Sheriff’s office and the chief become involved. Do you see problems with this?”

Officer Teniente responded: “Yes, sir. A lot of problems.”

According to all the interviews, the officer and this employee were not friends; they just frequented the same bar and that’s how they got connected that morning. Holland’s chief gave Officer Tentiente a 20-day suspension. 14 to be served now and the other six held, if any other problems occur. Those suspension days happen periodically between now and the middle of March.

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