Longmont Police Chief Mike Butler said there is no reason to believe the arrest of one of his longtime officers will compromise the hundreds of cases he was involved with during a nearly three-decade career.

Jack Kimmett, a 28-year veteran of the force, was arrested Thursday afternoon after Longmont detectives
set up a sting operation in which they allegedly caught Kimmett delivering prescription Vicodin — a powerful pain medication — to a woman whom he helped become a confidential informant.

Kimmett was released from the Boulder County Jail just before midnight on Thursday after posting a $50,000 bond. His first court appearance is set for 2 p.m. Friday.

Kimmett faces possible charges
Officer Jack Kimmett (Boulder County Jail)
of felony drug distribution and misdemeanor charges of official misconduct and theft of less than $1,000.

No one answered the phone Friday afternoon at the officer's home in east Longmont.

Butler said Kimmett, who is on paid administrative leave, is a decorated officer who was once a detective but now works the day patrol shift. Records show Kimmett is assigned to a narrow strip of north Longmont. His patrol sergeant did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

“He's highly respected in our community and by other members of the police department,” Butler said. “We're disappointed and saddened by the circumstances.”

Butler said investigators have been looking into whether a conviction could affect cases Kimmett was involved with over the years.

“We were looking at other angles as well,” Butler said, but so far there's no evidence that any investigations were compromised.

Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett said he isn't aware of any specific cases involving Kimmett that could be affected by the arrest, but it remains a possibility.

“There are a number of post-conviction remedies available if a defendant or his or her lawyer believes there is an issue,” Garnett said. “We would agree to revisit a case only if it appeared that there was an irregularity that had resulted in an actual unjust result.”

An arrest affidavit shows that Kimmett became friends with a woman — whose name is being withheld by police — after he arrested her in 2002. 

Kimmett brought the woman to the police department's Special Enforcement Unit — which is responsible for vice and narcotics investigations — as a potential undercover informant. She became known as “Confidential Informant 02-20,” and worked to provide information to another detective, according to the court document.

Kimmett and the woman became close, detectives wrote, with the officer giving her money and paying for items like groceries and rent, even co-signing for her apartment in Longmont.

After receiving a tip from a parolee this summer, investigators sought out the woman and convinced her to wear a wire while meeting with Kimmett on Thursday. Detectives watched as Kimmett allegedly provided the woman with two Vicodin pills after he left work.

The woman told investigators that Kimmett regularly provided her with Vicodin pills that he took from his wife, beginning in 2005. The amount of the drug varied from four to 10 pills, four or five times a week, according to the affidavit.

She also told police that Kimmett would giver her tea bags, trash bags and other items that he allegedly stole from a local company where he was working off-duty security. She also provided police with department-issued tokens for a car wash that she said Kimmett gave her.