A Polson police officer is on administrative leave and facing both an internal and criminal investigation after a weekend incident at Swanee’s Bar & Grill.

Polson Police Chief Wade Nash said officer Cory Anderson allegedly was involved in a disturbance at the bar late Saturday night. Lake County deputies responded to a report of an assault at the bar at 11:15 p.m., according to a dispatch log.

“We placed him on administrative leave Monday morning,” Nash said. “We’re going to go ahead and proceed with an internal investigation alongside the criminal investigation. Once we do those we’ll know a little more on what’s going to happen.”

Lake County Sheriff Jay Doyle said Tuesday that the criminal investigation, which was initiated by his department, has been passed on to the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office to avoid any conflict of interest, since Anderson is a former Lake County deputy.

Doyle said his deputies had taken some initial statements but he could not comment on the specifics of the incident “because it may be part of the investigation,” and a Missoula County investigator was supposed to be coming in that day.

He said Anderson was not arrested.

Anderson has had a checkered past at both agencies in Lake County, having most recently been ordered to attend ethics training and undergo a chemical dependency evaluation after a Montana Public Safety Officer Standards and Training investigation.

That investigation led to a complaint that cited Anderson’s “history of alcohol abuse, culminating in a number of alcohol-related incidents,” before giving several specific examples.

On Sept, 21, 2002, the complaint states, Anderson crashed his girlfriend’s vehicle into another vehicle while coming around a curve. It notes that the crash was “alcohol related.”

The complaint also alleged that Anderson punched a woman during an argument at a wedding reception in Dillon on Feb. 10, 2007. The responding officer noted that the victim was distraught, crying, and visibly shaken emotionally.

“She was holding an ice pack to the left side of her mouth; and there was blood on the ice pack and on her mouth, shirt, pants, and shoes,” the complaint reads.

Anderson reportedly claimed she had first kicked him in the groin and that he struck her in retaliation. The victim and a witness allegedly did not indicate that she had kicked him.

He was arrested and charged with partner or family member assault, but the charges were later dismissed.

The complaint further alleges Anderson intimidated a woman into being frightened to speak about investigations into Lake County law enforcement officers on June 23, 2010, and that he was kicked out of a Beaverhead County bar for public intoxication while he was a police officer.

In addition, the original version of the complaint also referred to an incident in which Anderson “was the operator of a boat in an alcohol-related boating accident in 2004 which resulted in death.”

That took place Aug. 14, 2004, on Flathead Lake. Anderson was piloting the boat towing 38-year-old Polson resident Laura Todd on an inner tube when, while the boat was crossing its own wake, she was thrown and killed.

Anderson was found to be under the influence of alcohol, but was not tested until two and a half hours after the accident, at which point his blood-alcohol level registered at .055 percent.

An accident summary from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks stated that the alcohol test was performed by Anderson’s “friends” from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

It also indicated that a Flathead County investigator had concluded that Anderson was “probably legally intoxicated at the time of the incident.”

It went on to note that a Lake County deputy responding to the accident who would have been there in a timely manner was called off by then-Sheriff Bill Barron. By the time the deputy arrived, Anderson and other witnesses were gone.

Anderson “has a history of drunken behavior at parties,” according to the Fish, Wildlife and Parks report.  

Anderson did not respond to a phone message left for him Tuesday.

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.