Steven Fletcher
gloucestertimes.com
A Gloucester-based U.S. Coast Guard enforcement officer is facing charges that he illegally recorded an interview with other Coast Guard officials who were carrying out a separate in-house investigation.
The charges against Robert Mehlhouse, who lives in Salem but is assigned to Coast Guard Station Gloucester, officials confirmed, stem from an incident in December 2010, and went before Gloucester District Court on Friday.
Mehlhouse, 30, faces charges of illegally recording a Coast Guard Investigative Services (CGIS) interview, according to a Gloucester Police Department incident report.
According to the report, Coast Guard investigators asked Gloucester Police to pursue charges against him, and they have charged him with unlawful wiretapping, possessing a device to carry out a wiretap, and planning to disclose what the device recorded.
The Gloucester District Court record states the charges were initially continued without a finding to 2013 and 2012 by Judge Joseph Jennings. The Commonwealth dismissed the third charge.
According to the police report, Coast Guard investigators, with Gloucester Detective Thomas Quinn, interviewed Mehlhouse on Dec. 7, 2010. Gloucester police had been called in to assist the Coast Guard, and the interview was held at the police station library.
According to the police report, Coast Guard investigators were speaking with Mehlhouse as a witness in a probe regarding another member of the Guard. That member, the report indicates, allegedly said he has been part of the Red Devils, a group that police and the Coast Guard describe as an "outlaw" motorcycle gang.
The police report did include the name of the subject of the Coast Guard probe. But Quinn's affidavit stated that he also served, or is serving, at Coast Guard Station Gloucester. There was no indication as to any specific charges pending against the other Coast Guardsman or the motorcycle group.
According to the police report, investigators told Mehlhouse they weren't going to record the interview, and regulations preclude any secret recordings. The Coast Guard, under a federal government restructuring in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security.
Part-way through the session, the police report indicates, investigators found that Mehlhouse was secretly recording the talks, and Quinn — according to the report — found a black digital voice recorder in Mehlhouse's pants pocket.
Quinn also took a cellphone that Mehlhouse said could record. Quinn set the phone on a table. Then investigators asked Mehlhouse why, and for who, he wanted to record the interview.
The incident report states that he told investigators he wasn't recording the interview for the other Guardsman. But, he said he spoke with that man before the interview, and planned to talk with him afterward.
At that point, the report states, the phone went off, and Mehlhouse, according to the report, received a text message from the other man, reading "where u at?"
Investigators then advised Mehlhouse that he could face wiretapping charges, and asked Gloucester Police to pursue charges for the unlawful secret recording of persons.
The investigators, according to the report, also made clear that the Coast Guard felt this was a serious violation.
Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevengdt.