ST. LOUIS 鈥 A 蜜芽传媒 police officer is facing a felony charge that accuses him of faking a doctor鈥檚 note saying he had to quarantine for two weeks.
Charging documents say that on Dec. 1, Ronald E. Vaughan emailed a workers compensation specialist at the police department saying that he had to quarantine. Told he had to have a doctor鈥檚 note, Vaughan sent one about 13 minutes later from Metro Cardiovascular Inc., saying that Vaughan had to quarantine until Dec. 14 and was under a doctor鈥檚 care, the charges say.
But the note had areas 鈥渂locked out in white, as if they had been pasted over an old note, and did not match the rest of the letter,鈥 the charging documents say.
An investigator interviewed the doctor and his staff, who said they had not provided the note and that the 鈥渨hite blocks of text鈥 pertaining to Vaughan had not been prepared by them. The charges do not allege a motive for the faked note.
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Vaughan, 34, was charged Thursday. He could not be immediately reached for comment Sunday.
Vaughan has faced challenges to his honesty before.
In 2013, defense lawyers claimed that a video showed him planting drugs during an arrest. A judge tossed out the drug evidence, but the police union and prosecutors supported Vaughan, saying the video was misleading.
A federal jury found in favor of the officers.
Also, lawyers for the family of Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, dispute the official version of his 2015 death: that he pointed a handgun at Vaughan and Officer Kyle Chandler before they opened fire. Vaughan and Chandler were executing a search warrant at the time at a home in the 1200 block of Walton Avenue.
Then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce to support a charge against the officers.
