Report: Dover mayor’s actions were ‘nasty politics’ but not illegal

Why Should Delaware Care? Questions over what exactly transpired between the City of Dover’s mayor, police chief and police union have dominated the city’s political discourse over the past year. A partial release of findings from an outside investigation into the controversy provides some answers.

Despite Dover officials voting this week not to release the findings of a third-party investigation into the conflict between city leaders and the local police union, the city released a portion of the report on Thursday afternoon.

City council’s decisive vote at a meeting Tuesday night not to publicize the report was underpinned by concerns that sharing the findings could lead to a lawsuit.

Nonetheless, council leaders ultimately shared part of the report with Spotlight Delaware on Thursday, citing intense public interest in the investigation.

The nine pages of investigatory findings include different accounts by Mayor Robin Christiansen, Dover Police Chief Thomas Johnson and leaders of the local police union, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge #15, of an incident last fall in which Christiansen allegedly told FOP leadership to attack two city council members for being critical of the police department.

The report concludes that Christiansen’s requests for police union leadership to reveal details about the personal lives of Councilmen Brian Lewis and Roy Sudler may have been a “low blow and constitute nasty politics,” but his request did not violate any city or state ethical codes.

The released pages do not, however, include other findings from the investigation related to the union’s allegations about Johnson’s leadership and work behavior.

These allegations include that Johnson created a poor work environment for his officers, and had committed employment contract violations by driving a city-owned vehicle to family vacations and working a second job as an adjunct instructor at Penn State University while he was supposed to be on duty in Dover.

The new information also comes after Spotlight Delaware appealed the city’s denial of a Freedom of Information Act request for the full investigatory findings to the Delaware Department of Justice (DOJ), and after recent public division among city officials over how to proceed with the findings.

Dover City Council voted last fall to hire 21st Century Policing Solutions, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, to undertake a third-party investigation into the police union’s complaints.

The investigation cost the city $50,000 and was completed in mid-June, according to documents obtained by Spotlight Delaware.

Christiansen gave permission to release the full report during the Tuesday meeting because he said he has “nothing to hide.”

But Johnson did not consent to the city releasing the files. City council members told Spotlight Delaware they were worried that releasing the entire investigation, particularly the parts addressing Johnson’s personnel files, could open the city to a lawsuit. So, they only shared the portion of the investigation that addresses the allegations made against Christiansen.

City Council President Fred Neil said on Thursday afternoon the City Council decided it was “up to the mayor or the chief to decide whether to release it.”

Because Christiansen gave permission on Tuesday night to publish the section about him, Neil said, the council proceeded with making that section public.

While Dover City Attorney Dan Griffith has argued the portion of the report relating to Johnson is exempt because it contains law enforcement investigatory files, Spotlight Delaware still has a pending DOJ appeal for the full report. The DOJ will likely rule on the appeal by mid-October.

What was revealed?

The Dover City Council hired 21st Century Policing Solutions last year after the police union accused Mayor Christiansen of telling union members to “attack the integrity” of Lewis and Sudler, two Dover councilmen, because they had previously been critical of Johnson’s leadership of the police department.

The section of the report released on Thursday confirms that Christiansen did tell two police officers during a meeting in June 2025 to “publicly attack” Sudler and Lewis.

Various accounts of the situation, as told by Christiansen, Johnson and the two union leaders, Robert Roswell and Jordan Miller, differ in terms of how involved Johnson was in Christiansen’s request that the union target the councilmen.

The different recollections of the situation also appear to mirror the loyalties of the people involved: Christiansen and Johnson described Johnson as not having been involved in the discussion, while the officers interviewed said their chief seemed looped in on Christiansen’s suggestion.

The report also states that Christiansen held a separate meeting with Tim Mullaney, the union president, where Christiansen told him to “go public with unsavory details about Council members Lewis’s and Sudler’s personal lives.”

Regardless of the disputed details, the investigation concludes that Christiansen did not violate local or state ethical codes. Rather, the report concludes, he was engaging in “political speech,” protected by the First Amendment.

“Everyone involved in the meetings,” the report states, “all understood the Mayor’s requests as coming from one political actor, the Mayor, to another political actor, the FOP Lodge 15.”

Despite having said at a previous meeting that he was in favor of the report being published, Christiansen told Spotlight Delaware on Thursday afternoon that he wished city council had waited to release the full investigation, including the findings about Johnson’s alleged misconduct. He added that the full report “vindicates myself and the chief.”

Johnson did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday afternoon.

Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.

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