Inside the investigation: Akron detective quits amid allegations of sexual relationship with informant

The suspect in the back of an Akron police cruiser was desperately trying to think of ways to wiggle out of some serious charges. 

Officers had tracked the man down near Summit Lake. He was in a blue Nissan sedan, a car he was accused of just stealing from a man he allegedly strangled at the tail end of a night out at a Cuyahoga Falls bar and an Akron strip club.

In both the police-worn body camera video and the video from the police cruiser present during the man’s arrest, he immediately and repeatedly invoked the names of Akron detectives that he claimed he and his father knew, said an official who watched the videos.

Police records detail that the officer in the cruiser that night let the robbery and assault suspect call his mother from the back of the car, which was recording video. The suspect needed his mom to get a phone number from one of his other phones, he would tell her.

“In my phone, that’s under my bed – it’s under Nat, N-A-T, Natalie’s phone number,” he told his mom from the back of the Akron Police Department cruiser, according to a police document. “The one cop I was sleeping with. No, Natalie Tassone.”

The man’s mother would later tell an investigator from the APD’s Office of Professional Standards and Accountability (OPSA) — the department’s version of internal affairs — that she spoke with Tassone, a detective in the department’s narcotics unit, that night and again later about her son’s case.

The man, a confidential informant who worked with APD on drug cases, would later tell OPSA that Tassone provided the bond money that sprung him from jail after he was indicted on multiple felonies from the incident that night.

In my phone, that’s under my bed – it’s under Nat, N-A-T, Natalie’s phone number,” he told his mom from the back of the APD cruiser. “The one cop I was sleeping with. No, Natalie Tassone.”

Akron Police informant during phone call to his mother.

Records obtained by Signal Akron also show that Tassone, using her official APD credentials, listened in on 30 of the man’s phone calls during the nearly four weeks he was in jail last year, including at least seven calls in the two days prior to his release on bond. 

The Summit County Jail uses the ICSolutions “ENFORCER” system that allows law enforcement agents to covertly listen to “a virtually unlimited number” of inmates’ phone calls and visitation sessions, in real time and through recordings. 

Detective’s resignation shuts down internal affairs investigation

Tassone resigned from her job in the department’s narcotics unit last month amid allegations of a sexual relationship with a criminal informant, the suspect arrested near Summit Lake.

Tassone’s June 2 resignation abruptly shut down a six-week internal affairs investigation that was zeroing in on her relationship with the man, whose story to investigators changed from one of unwelcomed advances by Tassone to claims of a longer-term sexual relationship. A lieutenant wrote that the detective likely violated APD’s controlled source policy, which is intended to safeguard against personal relationships with informants.

Tassone’s one paragraph resignation letter admitted no wrongdoing and instead accused her bosses of discrimination, targeting and retaliation.

The name and identifying information of the informant at the center of the investigation is redacted in the APD report, but Signal Akron confirmed his identity through documents and sources outside of the APD. 

The informant, who was allegedly in a sexual relationship with the detective, has a long history of alleged and admitted violent assaults, domestic violence, robberies, drug possession and drug trafficking, according to 45 police reports from multiple agencies reviewed by Signal Akron. 

The man previously told another law enforcement agency that he robs people as a member of an Akron gang. Records show other members of that gang have been convicted of murder and other shootings — the gang’s leader once discussed killing an Akron police officer before a member set his sights on a civilian instead, according to prosecutors at the time.

Some of the informant’s previous criminal case files that were listed in a clerk of court’s system were sealed by an Akron judge immediately after Signal Akron attempted to inspect them at the courthouse.

The cases filed immediately before and immediately after three of the informant’s now-sealed cases were filed days after the man was connected to a car and credit card theft. Any trace of the files’ existence was scrubbed by the court. It’s unclear how many other cases are sealed, making it difficult to fully examine the informant’s criminal record or determine whether his informant status influenced the outcomes of his cases. 

Investigation into detective begins in April

A lieutenant with OPSA started gathering evidence about Tassone’s relationship with the informant in April, according to a report obtained by Signal Akron. 

It alleges that she instigated a sexual relationship with the man, that she helped pay his bond to get him out of jail after a felony assault and robbery arrest last year (unrelated to his work as an informant), and that, when Tassone got wind that authorities knew of their relationship in May, she chastised the man for discussing it.

“I’m the one who got you out of jail and this is what I get,” she texted the man as the probe was heating up, according to the OPSA file.

She later texted him that she loved him, according to the report. 

Tassone, who joined the APD in 2012, declined to comment for this story. The APD spokesperson did not respond to emails from Signal Akron seeking comment. 

Allegations investigated months after informant’s arrest

The allegations about Tassone and the informant were brought to Lt. Patrick Neumann in the OPSA by a man whose name is redacted in the report but who appears to have high-level knowledge of the inner workings of the APD.

The man told Neumann in April that Tassone was put into a performance improvement plan in January “due to not meeting expectations” as a narcotics detective and that she hadn’t “met her metrics” the month prior.

“He explained that she believes that the supervisors in her unit are out to get her,” Neumann wrote. “He explained that this allegation was being brought to OPSA in part due to her unfounded belief that her supervisors were against her.” (That belief was echoed in Tassone’s resignation six weeks later.)

The information about the alleged relationship, Neumann wrote, came to light when another detective was preparing the informant for another drug purchase. The informant’s felony trial was looming.

You know, like I’d sit in the car to talk to her and she’d put her hand on my leg. It started off down here, then it’d be up here.”

Akron Police Department informant describing during an interview what he said Detective Natalie Tassone did when she met with him in a car prior to a controlled drug buy.

Among the trove of records handed over to Neumann was a recording of an interview the informant had given a week prior to two people whose names are also redacted. 

The informant told them he “started getting the gist that she wanted to sleep with me” when he began working as an informant for Tassone. 

“You know, like I’d sit in the car to talk to her and she’d put her hand on my leg. It started off down here, then it’d be up here,” he said about Tassone meeting with him in a car prior to a controlled drug buy.

“She started calling me late at night. She gave me a different phone number. She said not to tell anybody she gave it to me, but I had her personal phone number. … Then she started calling me from that number late at night, sounding drunk. Like, hinting that she wanted somebody to come pick her up at the bar or wherever she was.”

The informant, in the recording, read off the phone number he had for Tassone, which matched her personal number listed in her personnel file.

The informant initially denied any physical relationship — he said Tassone only made advances toward him — but his story changed. He began divulging more and more information after Neumann began reaching out to him. At the same time, the lieutenant was gathering additional circumstantial evidence elsewhere. The informant shared text messages between him and Tassone, including a picture she apparently sent him of a house that matched her address in her personnel file. 

The informant eventually said they had sex multiple times over two to three months before he “ghosted her.” He described the layout of her house and the Circle-K store where he said they went to buy condoms before the first time they had sex.

Tassone becomes aware that the informant is disclosing their alleged relationship

The informant, for a period, stopped responding to Neumann’s calls and text messages.

“[Redacted] stopped into my office to inform me that he heard that Det. Tassone may have been in communication with [the informant] recently as a result of this investigation,” Neumann wrote on May 14. 

Days later, the informant texted Neumann that he couldn’t provide the phone records he had said he would send to prove his contact with Tassone. They were blank when he downloaded them, he claimed.

“Nothing I can do,” he wrote. 

Neumann wrote he was then told of the existence of the in-car video where the informant calls his mother to get the phone number of the detective he says he is sleeping with. 

On the same day Neumann watched the video, the informant called him back, sharing his most revealing disclosures to date.

I’m the one who got you out of jail and this is what I get.”

Text from Akron Police Detective Natalie Tassone to the informant she was allegedly having a sexual relationship with.

The man told Neumann that Tassone had given “his people” the money needed to pay his bond weeks after his arrest near Summit Lake last fall. He also told him that, before he had temporarily stopped responding to Neumann, that Tassone texted to let him know she was aware that he had been talking and that she felt betrayed. He shared those text messages with Neumann.

“The [expletive] prosecutor text me to say you said you date me,” she wrote, according to the report. She sent the informant a screenshot of her text conversation with an assistant Summit County prosecutor, who she said “called me out.” 

“I’m the one who got you out of jail and this is what I get,” she told him.

That prosecutor told Signal Akron that they never spoke directly with the man about the alleged relationship — the informant had a defense attorney the whole time who wouldn’t allow that to happen — but that they had watched the video of the informant from inside the car, where the man was attempting to leverage every connection possible. The prosecutor said the point of the text to Tassone was to give the detective a heads up that it could be played at the man’s trial.

A Supreme Court decision created what is known as the Brady rule, requiring prosecutors to disclose potentially exculpatory information (information that may help clear someone of blame or fault or help prove their innocence) to the defense, such as officers with credibility issues.

The informant’s defense attorney was aware of the alleged relationship and Tassone was not a witness in his criminal case, but the information could be relevant to the defense in any other case where Tassone might testify. The prosecutor declined to tell Signal Akron what they did with the information about Tassone after learning about it this spring, other than giving a heads up to the detective.

A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office told Signal Akron that “there have been no cases/trials where Det. Tassone was called to testify since we were notified on June 16, 2025 of her resignation by APD. Should she be called to testify in any pending or future cases, the prosecution will notify the defense of her resignation so that they can inquire further with APD as they see fit.”

The APD spokesperson did not answer questions about the department’s procedures for alerting prosecutors and defense attorneys about officer misconduct pursuant to the Brady rule. 

Investigation shuts down after Tassone resigns

At the end of May, Neumann’s investigation was reaching a boiling point. He discovered and watched the video of the informant from the night of his arrest. The informant was talking again and sharing text messages with the detective. Neumann had jailhouse records showing Tassone was monitoring the man’s calls from the Summit County Jail. The informant’s mom told Neumann she and the detective had talked about the criminal case.

The lieutenant was never able to talk to the detective he had been investigating for a month and a half.

My reason for resignation from the Akron Police Department is the ongoing discrimination, being targeted, and retaliated against by my supervisors in The Akron Narcotics Unit.“

From Akron Police Detective Natalie Tassone’s letter of resignation.

“On 6/2, I was informed by [Deputy Chief David] Laughlin that Det. Tassone had submitted her resignation. As a result, I concluded this investigation with no further follow up,” Neumann stated in his report.

It’s unclear exactly why the investigation was immediately shut down – OPSA policy dictates that “Investigations will be completed even if the officer resigns before its conclusion.”

Tassone’s resignation letter, obtained by Signal Akron, was short and cryptic — it is unclear how much she knew about the information OPSA had gathered. 

To Whom it May Concern,

My reason for resignation from the Akron Police Department is the ongoing discrimination, being targeted, and retaliated against by my supervisors in The Akron Narcotics Unit. I have attempted to address this problem for some time without resolve. Due to the stress and anxiety that accompanies these issues, I signed my resignation and two weeks’ notice on 06/02/2025. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Natalie Tassone

Police departments in Ohio are required to report to the state when officers leave, along with the reason they leave. The Ohio Attorney General’s office lists the reason for Tassone’s separation from the APD as “Resignation – Under investigation.”

OPSA concluded that there was a “preponderance of evidence” that Tassone violated the department’s controlled source policy, which sets rules for managing informants, by meeting with the informant without another officer present, by meeting with him outside her professional role, by “fraternizing” with him and by not logging all her contacts with him. 

“It is unknown if there are any additional violations,” Neumann wrote after closing the investigation. “Chief [Brian] Harding will ultimately determine the outcome of this investigation.”