BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — Norman Pittlekow, a convicted sex offender, told a judge, prosecutors and everyone else in the courtroom that he and his wife were able to run from police in September 2015 because his friend and former detective Luis Tejada helped him. Tejada said it’s not true.
Tejada is charged with being an accessory to the crime. Monday was his preliminary hearing.
“We were buddies,” said Pittlekow at the Calhoun County Courthouse. “We hung out. We shot pool.”
Pittlekow testified that he helped Tejada with housework and felt closer to him than any of the other officers he knew. Eusebio Solis, Tejada's lawyer, questioned their friendship and asked if he was also an informant.
"If he had questions he wanted answers to, yes I answered them," Pittlekow responded.
Pittlekow said that he and Tejada were friends for over a decade and it was out of that friendship that Tejada, who was with Albion Public Safety at the time, tipped him off that child pornography charges were coming against he and his wife Nicole Jacob. So they fled, Pittlekow said, all the way to Georgia. He spoke to Tejada along the way until the detective told him to stop calling. He and wife surreneded in November 2015.
Over the summer, Pittlekow testified that Tejada helped him escape. Since then charges were brought against Tejada, who’s out on bond. If the preliminary hearing heads to trial, Tejada faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
