WILTON – Ed Leahy, a longtime town police officer, voiced frustration Friday over a paid suspension from his job pending the outcome of an investigation by Wilton Police Chief Dennis Brown and other town officials.

Leahy, and the town’s two other full-time officers, Terry Warren and Robert Cole Jr., were suspended for an indefinite period and for an undisclosed reason Tuesday night by the town’s Board of Selectmen.

Precisely what he, Cole and Warren were being investigated for was not made clear in a “generic letter” they received from town officials prior to the enactment of the suspensions, Leahy said.

“For all I know,” he said, “I could have been daydreaming at these investigations and that’s the charge.”

When asked if he was given any idea how long the suspension would continue, Leahy said he has a program that he has done in the schools since 1987, and when he asked what to do about those, he was told to cancel the March 19 and 20 programs.

On Tuesday, Leahy and his wife attended a two-hour Wilton Board of Selectmen’s meeting hoping to discover what he was under investigation for to no avail, Leahy said.

Leahy said he believes the investigation revolves around complaints from the District Attorney’s office involving the Wilton Police Department’s handling of certain criminal investigations involving juvenile victims.

District Attorney Norm Croteau said his office was not directly involved in the officers’ suspensions, but he did bring to the attention of town officials several problematic investigations handled by the officers.

“The town isn’t really communicating with us because that’s their bailiwick,” Croteau said of the suspensions. “We essentially met with the chief and the town manager and essentially went through specific investigative reports on specific cases and pointed out certain issues that we had in terms of the investigative reports… it could have been timeliness of response, it could have been thoroughness of the investigation or whatever,” Croteau said.

Earlier this year, Croteau ordered the department to turn over all criminal investigations involving juvenile victims to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department but said the concern he raised with Wilton officials extended beyond that.

“The issues that we raised were just covering the gamut, it didn’t focus on just those kinds of cases. It focused on any case no matter what it was, whether it was a juvenile case, or whether it was a case with a juvenile victim or whether it was a case with an adult victim.”

Croteau said there were a number of reports completed by the three officers that were so poorly done that prosecutors in his office were limited in their ability to obtain convictions of some crimes. Croteau said he couldn’t say precisely how many cases were involved, but it was more than two or three problematic cases.

“It was several, it was enough in number to raise some concerns, some generic concerns, some systemic concerns that we had in regards to investigations and things of that nature,” Croteau said.

Based on the advice of town attorney Lee Bragg, town officials have been told not to give out any information, even the names of the officers involved in the suspension, Town Manager Peter Nielsen said Thursday.

“We have no idea yet as to the length of the suspensions,” Nielsen said, “although we want this resolved as quickly as possible.”

In the absence of the suspended officers, the department is relying on other available officers and outside agencies, including the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and the Maine State Police.

The town has been advertising for a fourth full-time officer through a Maine Municipal Association online marketplace listing, and candidates from this post are currently undergoing oral boards with Brown, Nielsen said.

The process the town employed in placing the officers on paid administrative leave was somewhat troubling to him, said Jim Carson, president of the Portland-based Teamsters Union Local 340. The 4,000-member union represents more than 500 police officers in Maine, including the Wilton officers.

“We don’t know what the charges are at this point or whether there is any truth to this,” Carson said. “The whole thing is weird because it doesn’t normally happen this way.” Usually police officers are disciplined with unpaid suspension, but a forced leave with pay was a sign that either something significant was brewing or the issues in Wilton were “a tempest in a teapot,” Carson said.

“Usually giving somebody administrative leave with pay indicates they are looking to do something more serious because you can’t fire somebody twice,” Carson said. “But it may also indicate they are not sure of themselves and they are simply going to take the officers off the street until the investigation is complete so nothing further can be alleged against them.”

Freelance writer Greg Davis in Wilton contributed to this report.