A trooper with the Washington State Patrol is claiming the city of Bainbridge Island violated his privacy rights and hurt his law enforcement career after he was rejected for a job with the Bainbridge police department.

Jermaine Walker, a 32-year-old trooper with the State Patrol, filed a $300,000 damage claim against the city in May.

In the claim for damages, Robert Kim, Walker’s attorney, said city officials illegally shared private information with the Washington State Patrol about Walker that Bainbridge had obtained after he sought a job with the island department.

Walker applied for a position with the Des Moines Police Department, and the Bainbridge department, in 2014.

Walker was a front-runner for one of the open positions in the Bainbridge department late last year, but he was eventually rejected as a candidate after Bainbridge officials learned troubling details about his past as a police officer.

Those details emerged after Walker took a polygraph test for the Des Moines department on July 7, 2014 with Everett Polygraph Services in Everett.

According to a Washington State Patrol investigator’s crime log, obtained by the Review through a public records request, Walker — during pre-polygraph questioning — said he had written “false and misleading speed affidavits” from 2007 through 2013 and had lied in court when he had testified that he had tested his radar equipment and video camera before and after his shifts.

“Trooper Walker also disclosed that he failed to report to the WSP that a trooper took alcohol from a collision scene,” the investigator’s case log noted.

Officials with the Des Moines department did not offer Walker a job.

When Bainbridge began checking Walker’s background, they learned the trooper had also applied for a position with the Des Moines department but wasn’t hired.

Bainbridge Detective Scott Weiss contacted Des Moines to find out why, and was told by a sergeant in the department about the polygraph test and Walker’s statements.

Earlier this year, at a Kitsap County sheriff and police chiefs’ meeting in January, Bainbridge Police Chief Matthew Hamner told Capt. Chris Old of the Washington State Patrol that Walker had been placed on Bainbridge’s hiring list and was a finalist for a position.

Hamner also said, according to a case log of the WSP’s investigation into Walker, that Bainbridge’s hiring committee was excited about Walker as a job applicant.

Things soured, however, after Bainbridge officials learned about the polygraph test and that Walker reportedly never followed the procedures for checking his radar gear and had not been truthful in court.

Hamner told Capt. Old he was surprised nothing ever became of Walker’s statements.

“Chief Hamner said as a part of [Bainbridge Island Police Department’s] background [check] he would have thought the WSP knew about Walker admitting to lying in court but found out that the WSP never investigated it,” according to Old’s notes on the investigation.

That appeared to quickly change after Old’s conversation with Hamner at the chiefs’ meeting.

The State Patrol launched an internal investigation, and contacted the Des Moines and Bainbridge departments for copies of the polygraph test report.

The city of Des Moines refused to release the report and said the pre-employment questionnaire  and records had been sealed, and they were bound by state rules to keep that information confidential.

Bainbridge — which had gotten the records from Des Moines after Walker signed a form authorizing the release of the information — eventually agreed. Bainbridge also gave the WSP an email that the Bainbridge department received from Walker on Jan. 13 that attempted to “mitigate” the information in the polygrapher’s report.

Walker was disciplined at the close of the State Patrol’s internal affairs investigation, which Kim, Walker’s attorney, said was “dubious” and based on “private and ill-gotten information.”

In the damage claim, Kim said Bainbridge should have kept all of Walker’s pre-employment background information report as private and confidential.

“Trooper Walker’s personnel file at WSP has now been tainted and will affect career advancement within WSP and his ability to lateral to another agency in the future,” Kim said in the claim.

Kim said Bainbridge officials were “obviously fairly flippant with the information and clearly had no understanding of the laws surrounding such information and its protected and private nature.”

Kim also noted that when Walker asked Bainbridge for his application file, the information that was released contained private information, including medical information, of another unrelated candidate.

“BIPD clearly has issues with record keeping and maintenance of such information,” Kim said, and added that Walker’s reputation had been damaged and his career “irreparably harmed” by the city’s release of the information.

Walker’s claim against the city of Bainbridge was made on May 18 and received by the city the following week. Records on the claim were released Tuesday by the city in response to a public records request by the Review.

A damage claim is usually a required first step before a lawsuit can be filed against a city or county.

City spokeswoman Kellie Stickney said Bainbridge’s insurance pool, the Washington Cities Insurance Authority, has rejected Walker’s claim for damages.

It’s not clear if the records dispute will result in a lawsuit against the city. City council members have met repeatedly in closed-door sessions in recent weeks to talk about litigation issues.

“At this time we have not received any indication that Mr. Walker is going to pursue further action,” Stickney said Wednesday.