Ohio cop with lengthy disciplinary record back on the job in Tuscarawas County

MIDVALE, Ohio — Newly minted Mayor Brian "Doug" Cross ran his campaign on a pledge to address what he says are issues within his tiny village's police department.

Cross, however, said he had no idea until after the November election that one of the department's most recent hires, David Cimperman Jr., has a checkered work history that began decades ago up the road in New Philadelphia and which became the focus of a 2019 USA TODAY report on police officers who had risen to the rank of police chief despite having a lengthy history of misconduct.

"It's unbelievable," Cross said in December after reading the 2019 article headlined "Tarnished Brass: Fired for a felony, again for perjury. Meet the new police chief."

Added Cross, "I don't even understand how he can have a job as a police officer."

Midvale Police Chief Brian Anderson, who has known Cimperman for years, said he believes the 59-year-old deserves another chance and that the veteran officer's alleged misconduct wasn't nearly as bad as the article and former employers made it out to be. Anderson in July hired Cimperman as a part-time officer to work 32 hours a week for $18 an hour.

Anderson in December promoted Cimperman to full time, giving him a $2-an-hour raise and full benefits. All but one member of Midvale Village Council approved the promotion.

"I am very concerned," council member Donna Kohler said.

Kohler voted against the promotion after voting in July to hire Cimperman part-time. Since her initial vote Kohler says she's learned more about Cimperman's past.

Who is David Cimperman Jr.?

Cimperman's career in law enforcement began in 1988 with the Sheffield Village Police Department in Lorain County. He worked with the Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Housing Authority Police Department from January 1991 to June 1994 before being hired as a full-time officer for the New Philadelphia Police Department.

In a two-year period, Cimperman left his loaded shotgun on the seat of his police cruiser with the door open. The next year, he chased after a motorcyclist who had failed to lower the visor on his helmet, a minor infraction, at speeds reaching 115 mph, only to crash the new police cruiser upside-down in a creek, according to the 2019 USA TODAY report. A supervisor had told Cimperman to get the driver's license plate number and end the pursuit. Cimperman would later say he never got close enough to the motorcyclist to read the plate. He was slapped with a 10-day suspension even though New Philadelphia's mayor at the time had wanted him fired.

In 2001, state investigators found that Cimperman paid a private company to reprogram three of his own radios to work with the city's radio network, which violates state and federal laws. He told the head of the company that the radios were for the department, but he used them to make untraceable calls using the radio network. New Philadelphia attempted to fire Cimperman after he pleaded no contest to a charge of unauthorized use of telecommunications property, according to the 2019 USA TODAY Network report, but was placed on probation for a year instead after an arbitrator overturned the decision. The state initially stripped him of his license to be a police officer, but also reconsidered its decision months later and reinstated him.

His guilty plea to the criminal charge allowed him to avoid a felony record, which is grounds for an automatic license revocation. The court sealed the case, keeping it out of public view, because he had no prior criminal record. It wasn't until the USA TODAY Network sued that Cimperman's record was unsealed.

Two weeks after being reinstated, Cimperman was fired by New Philadelphia again, this time for giving what one county prosecutor called "perjured testimony" for testifying that he entered a rental property without a search warrant. Inside the building, Cimperman found equipment for growing marijuana. He told officials at the time he had seen signs of a burglary outside the property, which would be grounds for entering the property without a warrant. As in his first firing, an arbitrator agreed there was enough reason to believe Cimperman's account of a suspected burglary and reinstated him.

But even after writing a letter to his colleagues in the New Philadelphia Police Department, telling them he was doing "many things to set things right" and wanted "a fresh start," as the 2019 reporting indicated, Cimperman still violated the department's time-off policy, didn't turn in traffic tickets, failed to show up in court for the trial of an accused sex offender, drove recklessly and became the subject of an internal investigation over "irregularities in the inventory" of surplus military equipment donated to the department. Then-Chief Michael Goodwin threatened to file charges against Cimperman if he didn't retire. In 2012, Cimperman left the force.

After New Philadelphia, Cimperman continued finding work

Cimperman worked part-time jobs at small departments in Apple Creek (Wayne County), Linndale Village (Cuyahoga) and West Farmington (Trumbull) over a three-year period. At the same time, according to the 2019 report, Cimperman worked for the Ohio Lottery Commission, inspecting slot machines, but was disciplined for "following a female gaming mechanic in a way that went beyond a normal work relationship and using a shower reserved for casino performers," according to the report, which cited employment records. He was put on leave in 2016 for not showing up for work. Cimperman, by that time, had already been hired as the police chief for the tiny Amsterdam, Ohio, Police Department, in Jefferson County.

Then-Amsterdam Mayor Gary Pepperling told reporters in 2019 he called only the references Cimperman listed on his application, and that Cimperman "looked good on paper" — a position Pepperling would come to regret.

Pepperling fired Cimperman in May 2018 because he wasn't showing up for work. County dispatch records showed Cimperman and other part-timers who would occasionally work for the village were only on duty about once every two weeks, according to the 2019 USA TODAY Network report.

But Cimperman had also been the subject of an internal report over allegations of improperly handling evidence, including marijuana and seized drivers' licenses that were found unsecured in his office. Cimperman fired the sergeant who had written the internal report.

The village's former chief, who returned to the position after Cimperman's exit, later found an unidentified handgun in the trunk of the department's police cruiser.

State investigation into security firm

Before Cimperman's tenure ended in Amsterdam, investigators for Ohio Homeland Security, which is responsible for overseeing private investigator and security companies in the state, had started inquiring about a private security firm Cimperman had been running called APD Security.

Pepperling and other village officials discovered more alarming issues in the weeks it took them to clear out Cimperman's office, including forms that Cimperman allegedly used to add 37 officers to the police department's roster throughout 2015 and 2016. Cimperman had previously worked with more than half the officers while others had little experience. But few of those officers actually worked for the village, and Pepperling, the mayor at the time, told reporters in 2019 that he signed off on no more than five of the 35 forms that contained his signature. Those forms had been submitted to the state. Pepperling said at the time that his signature had been forged.

Cimperman was being investigated for using the Amsterdam Police Department as a "front," as Pepperling called it at the time, to run APD Security, which was apparently a play on Amsterdam Police Department, a state investigator told reporters at the time.

Security firm cleared

The Ohio Department of Public Safety confirmed on Oct. 4 that in 2018 its state Homeland Security division had conducted an investigation into Cimperman and APD Security. It charged two men whose names had been on the Amsterdam Police Department roster for violating a state law that prohibits a person from engaging in private investigations or security service businesses without a license. Cimperman was not charged.

Anderson, the Midvale police chief, said he spoke with a state official, whose name he said he could not remember, and was told about the investigation into Cimperman's activities. The official also told him, he claims, that there was nothing preventing Cimperman from continuing to work as a police officer in Ohio.

But Anderson said he was also trusting his own instincts about Cimperman and their two-decade connection.

Anderson asked Cimperman to join department

Anderson and Cimperman have a long history of working together, so when other former officers Anderson approached about the part-time job in Midvale turned him down and an advertisement failed to generate eligible applicants, he turned to Cimperman.

"I actually called Dave and asked him if he'd be interested in coming on full time for me, and he said, 'I can't do full time, but I can do part time,'" Anderson said in September.

"I had three or four people call that were either in the (police) academy or planning to go into the academy, and that doesn't work," said Anderson, who advertised the position in The Times-Reporter. "They're just not eligible. They have to be OPOTA certified. They have to have state testing and all that. The thing is, I've even called the state on Dave. And as far as I am concerned, I mean, if he was not able to be a police officer, why doesn't the state pull his card?"

Anderson worked with Cimperman at the nearby Barnhill Village Police Department in 2004 or 2005 to 2007. Cimperman worked part time in Barnhill from 2004 to 2009, at the same time he was a full-time officer in New Philadelphia. Anderson was with the Barnhill department from 2005 through 2009.

Later, Anderson worked a security detail for Cimperman when Cimperman was police chief in Amsterdam.

They've helped each other in other ways. Anderson runs a firearms training company called Code 40 Tactical that provides concealed carry weapons permit classes. Cimperman worked for Anderson's business "a couple of times" as a firearms instructor. Cimperman "got me a job working for Bronze Stone Security in Akron, but that didn't last long," Anderson added.

Anderson, though, also said that it was his opinion that the top brass in the New Philadelphia Police Department had a "vendetta" against Cimperman, which is why Anderson didn't bother calling anyone from the department about Cimperman before hiring him.

"If it was so bad," Anderson said, "why did Philly have to give him his job back?"

Besides, Anderson said, former Midvale Mayor Larry Kopp, who was in office through the end of 2023, signed off on Cimperman's hiring. Kopp, a former police sergeant in New Philadelphia, had worked with Cimperman.

Kopp did not return several calls seeking comment for this article. Cimperman did not return messages left for him at Midvale Hall and on a social media account.

'Guess who's back in town?'

Robert Everett, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Tuscora Lodge No. 4 in Tuscarawas County, said he was approached by someone around the time Midvale hired Cimperman in July.

"Guess who's back in town?" the person said, Everett recalls.

Everett never worked with Cimperman and does not know him personally, but he acknowledged that Cimperman's reputation was well known.

Acknowledging the difficulty of the profession and the intense scrutiny its officers come under, especially in recent years, Everett said he tries to project a positive image of police work whenever he can, including in this instance.

"I just hope and pray to God that when he is there, he is doing the best he can possibly do to serve the people of the community of Midvale," Everett said. "That's what I hope. I hope the best for Midvale. I hope the best for the police department."

Matthew Rink can be reached at mrink@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Ohio cop with lengthy disciplinary record back on the job in Midvale