Paso Robles city manager accuses Cal Coast News reporter, associate of extortion
Paso Robles city manager Ty Lewis filed a police report Monday alleging Cal Coast News reporter Karen Velie and her associate, Glenn O’Hagan, tried to extort him, he told The Tribune.
Lewis said he received an email from Velie on Friday questioning him about several lascivious allegations he said are unfounded and untrue, including that he traded sex for dropping charges against a woman’s son during Lewis’ tenure as Paso Robles’ police chief.
Then, at 1 a.m. on Saturday, O’Hagan sent Lewis a “threatening” message on Nextdoor, a neighborhood social media app, Lewis said.
On Monday evening, a judge issued an emergency protective order against O’Hagan, requiring he not contact and stay a minimum of 100 yards away from Lewis for at least a week, records obtained by The Tribune show.
“I’m worried for my family’s safety and my safety,” Lewis told The Tribune.
Lewis believes Velie and O’Hagan are working together to extort him into admitting to crimes he did not commit — or Cal Coast News will publish a story containing false rumors. He told The Tribune he believes Velie’s and O’Hagan’s actions amount to extortion under the penal code, and he also accused O’Hagan of stalking.
In August, Lewis accused both O’Hagan and Velie of being part of a conspiracy with Paso Robles City Councilmember Chris Bausch to spread false stories with the ultimate goal of ousting Lewis from his position as the city’s top administrator.
“This is a long-standing history of false accusations and rumors and whatever type of defaming information that Cal Coast News and Karen Velie and Glenn O’Hagan have been trying to manufacture to get me to lose my job,” Lewis said.
The Paso Robles Police Department confirmed to The Tribune that it was investigating the allegations but did not share additional information.
The accusations from Lewis come as Karen Velie publishes a three-part series on Cal Coast News labeled “Eye on Ty,” about the city’s manager’s allegations that Velie and Councilman Chris Bausch are conspiring to force him from office.
Velie and O’Hagan did not respond to multiple calls, texts and emails seeking interviews for this story. The Tribune also emailed both specific questions but did not receive responses.
Cal Coast News reporter accuses former police chief of trading sex for dropped charges
According to emails shared with The Tribune, Velie reached out to Lewis on Friday with several questions he characterized as “salacious.”
The first question asked Lewis whether he agreed to help a local cannabis businessman obtain a permit if the council denied the application, which Lewis told The Tribune was false and also impossible.
The city manager does not have authority to approve a permit the council has denied, he said.
On Tuesday, Velie published a story about the local business and its owners, detailing their history in Paso Robles. The owners told The Tribune several of the accusations in the story are not accurate.
In her questions to Lewis, Velie then pivoted to a series of inquiries dating back more than a decade to his time at the Police Department.
“Because you have alleged Bausch is the reason there are allegations of misconduct related to parties you allegedly attended where people took their clothes off, I am looking into past issues,” the email from Velie continued.
Velie asked Lewis whether he witnessed Lisa Solomon, the ousted former Paso Robles Police chief, sexually harass former officer Brennan Lux in a hot tub. She then told Lewis that the former officer reported Lewis had retaliated against him — an allegation she repeated on Dave Congalton’s Hometown Radio show on KVEC on Dec. 19.
Solomon was relieved of her command in 2012 following Lux’s complaint accusing her of sexual harassment and a lawsuit over alleged traffic-ticket quotas. Lux’s lawsuit against Solomon and the city was dismissed in 2013 due to noncompliance with discovery.
When reached by The Tribune on Tuesday, Lux said that Velie contacted him once about two months ago to ask whether Lewis attended a team-building training in 2007. Lux told Velie he did and said Velie did not ask questions about what happened with Solomon or whether Lewis retaliated against Lux.
But Lux was definitive in his response to the retaliation question.
“Ty Lewis did not retaliate against me,” Lux said, adding that Lewis was in charge of the investigation into misconduct. “I think he did his job.”
Velie’s next question was, “Were you ever in hot tubs alone with naked women who were not your wife while you were married?” — another false rumor, according to Lewis.
Then Velie asked Lewis to respond to a claim he traded sex with a woman in exchange for dropping criminal charges against her son. Lewis said this accusation was “completely fabricated and untrue.”
“I deny it categorically,” he told The Tribune.
The final two accusations in the email are about Police Department parties “where people took their clothes off.”
The first alleges Lewis followed a naked Solomon jumping into a pool and the second alleges dispatchers would display naked photos on department computers following the parties.
Both are untrue, he said.
Lewis said he did not respond to Velie.
Solomon did not respond to requests for comment.
City manager receives threatening email from man who planned to conduct a citizen’s arrest
Early Saturday morning, about nine hours after Velie sent her email, Lewis said he received a message from O’Hagan.
“U (sic) left me zero alternative. If you won’t tell the truth about what you have done, then I think it’s time to show the community. You’re going to wish you never took my son,” O’Hagan told Lewis, referring to a child welfare case that occurred while Lewis was a commander at the Paso Robles Police Department. “For my son’s birthday I’m going to expose you as the fraudulent criminal you are.”
The boy, who is not O’Hagan’s son, was removed from his custody in 2017, according to O’Hagan’s Facebook posts.
At the time, O’Hagan was charged with criminal threats, cruelty to a child by endangering health and being under the influence of a controlled substance, but all three charges were ultimately dismissed. Court records show O’Hagan completed competency court relating to the charges.
O’Hagan has an extensive criminal history dating back to 1994, according to court records and the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office case database. They include drug charges, driving violations and one domestic violence charge. The domestic violence charge was dismissed at the request of the victim in 1995, records show.
O’Hagan’s most recent charges occurred in 2019 and include misdemeanor violating a protective order related to children and misdemeanor drug charges. TRecords show, but O’Hagan pleaded no contest to both charges in 2020.
Lewis said he believes the boy’s birthday is Christmas Day, and he felt O’Hagan was threatening him related to that date.
Lewis said Velie and O’Hagan have a history of working with one another, but he wasn’t sure if O’Hagan was an employee or an associate. The Tribune obtained a Sheriff’s Office report that showed Velie and O’Hagan working together previously.
According to O’Hagan’s Facebook posts, he also has Cal Coast News decals and a “press” decal on his vehicle.
“He and Karen apparently work together in her reporting business,” Lewis said. “It appeared to me that Karen Velie’s salacious questioning of me for whatever news story that she’s doing was also related to Glenn O’Hagan’s threat to reveal to the community my corruption.”
It’s not the first time O’Hagan has threatened him, Lewis said. Most recently, O’Hagan allegedly planned to perform a citizen’s arrest of Lewis at a City Council meeting in August.
O’Hagan reached out on social media with threatening private messages periodically since August, Lewis said, but has sent threats for years accusing Lewis and the Paso Robles Police Department of kidnapping his child relating to the child welfare case.
In 2019, one of O’Hagan’s Facebook posts showed, an alert was issued at the San Luis Obispo County Department of Social Services office against O’Hagan because of his “threatening language in social media posts and emails to staff about CWS and social workers.”
“If Glenn O’Hagan comes into any DSS office, call 911 immediately,” the alert said, according to his post.
O’Hagan also posted public social media messages that appeared threatening toward Lewis and Lewis’ family, Lewis said.
Because of the emergency protective order, O’Hagan is not allowed to contact Lewis at all — including electronically — or be within 100 yards of Lewis.
This story was originally published December 24, 2024 at 3:05 PM.
