Congratulations to Sergeant Joshua Virnig and Officer Jordan Conley along with his K9 Partner Maverick

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The East Wenatchee Police Department (EWPD) is pleased to highlight a couple of career spotlight moments for Sergeant Joshua Virnig and Officer Jordan Conley.

Both were nominated by Sergeant Cory Bernaiche with the Columbia River Drug Task Force for awards presented at the Washington State Narcotics Investigation Association yearly conference.

Sergeant Joshua Virnig

Sergeant Joshua Virnig received Washington State Narcotics Investigation Association Detective of the Year for 2025. Sergeant Bernaiche highlighted a few stand-out cases in his nomination letter. The first case noting Virnig’s assistance and coordination with a confidential informant that led to an arrest as well as the seizure of drugs and $68,000. Another case was a several month-long investigation into an illegal marijuana grow. This case came to an end with a multi-agency response where the main suspect was arrested, 3,214 plants were seized and the grow was shut down. The plants seized came to a value of approximately $3 million dollars.

It is through his leadership and dedication that EWPD needed Virnig to return to patrol as a Sergeant in the patrol division. While this new promotion cut his time short in the Drug Task Force, Sergeant Virnig displayed impressive investigation skills throughout his almost 4 years, leading to many successful investigations.

Officer Conley and K9 Maverick

Officer Conley and his K9 partner Maverick, received Washington State Narcotics Investigation Association K9 of the year for 2025 highlighting the numerous deployments for East Wenatchee PD as well as outside agencies. K9 Maverick was deployed and assisted outside agencies 23 times in 2025. He was deployed within EWPD 39 times, bringing his total deployments to 67, which led to 46 arrests. K9 Maverick was responsible for locating 213.6 grams of Methamphetamine, 326.7 grams of fentanyl, over 1600 fentanyl pills and 922 grams of Cocaine. K9 Maverick’s direct work led to getting these dangerous drugs off the streets.

East Wenatchee Police Department is proud to have Sergeant Virnig, Officer Conley, and K9 Maverick a part of our team. This work reinforces one of the agency slogans “One Team, One Goal” showing that teamwork and dedication to community safety are at the forefront of this department.

Congratulations to Sergeant Virnig, Officer Conley, and K9 Maverick!