
DATE: Saturday, May 17, 1997                TAG: 9705170266

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   95 lines

FRIENDS DEFEND SUSPENDED DETECTIVE

To the friends and family of Chesapeake police Detective Robert Lunsford, it's the Richard Jewell story all over again.

An innocent man is named by the media as being a suspect in a hideous crime after he is identified by law enforcement officials as the target of an investigation. The man's daily existence is turned upside down. His personal life is made a ruin, his otherwise good reputation damaged beyond repair.

All this, yet no criminal charges have been filed against him.

``What the media did to Richard Jewell was totally unfair, and what the media did to Bob is totally unfair,'' said Cindy Fleisch, a longtime friend of Lunsford who gathered with a half-dozen others Friday morning to show their support at Lunsford's house in the Greenbrier section of Chesapeake.

``There is no way any of this could be true,'' said Teresea Brookens, Lunsford's former fiance and the mother of his 3-year-old daughter. ``He has just been torn apart by this.''

Thursday, Lunsford was identified as one of two Chesapeake police officers who were placed on administrative leave last month pending the outcome of an investigation into child pornography on the Internet. The other officer is Sgt. R.V. Williams. Neither officer has been charged.

Jewell, the security guard at the Olympics in Atlanta wrongly accused of the Olympic Park bombing last summer, suffered a personal ordeal that became symbolic of an overly zealous media. Despite weeks of nationwide headlines and television reports that implicated Jewell in the Olympic Park bombing, he was eventually cleared by the FBI of any wrongdoing.

Jewell, though, claimed that his life was forever damaged because of the irresponsible actions of law enforcement and the media.

Lunsford's supporters think the same thing is happening to their friend.

``It has devastated his career and humiliated our family,'' said Brookens. ``And it is not something he can just wake up one morning and it will all be gone.''

Chesapeake police said Thursday that two officers had been placed on administrative leave because of a pending criminal investigation, but they did not name the officers or disclose the nature of the investigation. The newspaper confirmed the names and the nature of the investigation through sources familiar with the case.

The two men were suspended in late April, according to Dave Hughes, a spokesman for the Chesapeake police. Hughes said that police are being assisted in the investigation by the FBI and that the case is also being reviewed by the Chesapeake commonwealth's attorney's office.

Lunsford, a 12-year veteran of the Police Department, refused to comment, saying police regulations forbade him from saying anything. Williams, the other suspended officer, could not be reached Friday.

Lunsford's friends said he first learned of the investigation about three weeks ago and was immediately despondent.

``I walked in the door one day and he was just crying,'' said Edward Winkelspecht, Lunsford's roommate. ``He kept saying that there was nothing he could say about this.''

``He just fell apart,'' remembered neighbor Sue Gibson, who talked to Lunsford three weeks ago when he first learned about the investigation. ``He said he couldn't talk about it, but that his life was over.''

The investigation was kept under wraps until Thursday, when Chesapeake police made the public statement.

To this day, his friends remain in the dark about the specifics of what Lunsford and Williams are suspected of doing.

``We don't know what is going on, other than there is an investigation underway that is very serious,'' Fleisch said.

Not knowing, though, has not shaken Fleisch's faith in her friend.

``I am a mother of a 10-year-old, and I would have no qualms asking him to take care of my child,'' Fleisch said.

``This is just to let people know that he is not a dreadful monster,'' said Brookens. ``He is a loving, caring man. These are just vicious rumors at this point. No charges have been pressed against him.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by TAMARA VONINSKI

Teresea Brookens, Robert Lunsford's former fiance, holds their

3-year-old daughter Jessica Lunsford while speaking to the media in

Chesapeake Friday.

WHAT HAPPENED

Chesapeake Detective

Robert Lunsford was

identified as one of two

officers placed on leave

pending investigation

into child pornography

on the Internet. Neither

officer has been