IAPE Evidence Blog

The News Her­ald (Panama City, Florida), STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
BYLINE: Andrew Gant, The News Her­ald, Panama City, Fla.

Lynn Haven, FL

May 31 — LYNN HAVEN — A man cleared of a 2008 cocaine charge is being reim­bursed for the cash police seized from his home and later lost from an evi­dence room.

San­ti­ago Igle­sias, now 61, had $8,410 reported con­fis­cated in Novem­ber 2008 when police arrested him on cocaine and other charges. About a year later, after pros­e­cu­tors dropped the drug charge, a judge ordered the money returned.

Police could find only $5,490 of it and acknowl­edged $2,920 — 29 $100 bills, three $5 bills and five $1 bills — went missing.

On Sun­day, attor­ney Bill Price, who has rep­re­sented Igle­sias in the past, said he has been informed he will be receiv­ing a check this week on Igle­sias’ behalf. He also appar­ently will be get­ting a 50-piece set of chef’s knives and a gun seized in the case.

Lynn Haven attor­ney Rob Jack­son con­firmed the check and prop­erty are on the way, as ordered.

The state Depart­ment of Law Enforcement’s inves­ti­ga­tion into what hap­pened remained “active and ongo­ing” Fri­day, accord­ing to depart­ment spokesman Mike Morrison.

Igle­sias, liv­ing in a halfway house in Pen­sacola since his release from fed­eral prison camp, was glad to hear of the reim­burse­ment Sun­day but said he still plans to file a civil rights vio­la­tion in fed­eral court. He said police actu­ally seized even more cash from him than they recorded in inventory.

Igle­sias first was released from prison in 2007 after serv­ing time for a cocaine traf­fick­ing oper­a­tion based in Colom­bia. He admit­ted to “doing the logis­tics for a drug oper­a­tion” but said he never sold or dealt drugs himself.

When Lynn Haven police arrested him in 2008, he went back to prison on a vio­la­tion of his super­vised release.

Pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges of cocaine pos­ses­sion and pos­ses­sion of forged iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, but a mis­de­meanor drug para­pher­na­lia charge remained.

“The Lynn Haven Police Depart­ment, I think, has more cred­i­bil­ity issues than I have at this point,” Igle­sias said when asked if he thinks peo­ple will believe him about the addi­tional miss­ing cash.

He said he “more than likely” will file a civil rights vio­la­tion in fed­eral court. Last Mon­day, he already had filed a motion to com­pel in the 14th Judi­cial Cir­cuit, ask­ing Cir­cuit Judge Dedee Costello to hold the police depart­ment in con­tempt if he didn’t get his prop­erty back.

Price, whom Igle­sias said he fired ear­lier this month, indi­cated there is no way to prove any­thing else disappeared.

“I don’t doubt that he’s earnest, that there may be some items that they did not inven­tory,” Price said, but unfor­tu­nately if those items were not inven­to­ried by Lynn Haven, then nobody’s going to know.”

Fel­low attor­ney Way­lon Gra­ham, who rep­re­sents Sgt. Larry Thomas, the for­mer police super­vi­sor Igle­sias has accused of involve­ment in the money’s dis­ap­pear­ance, repeated his ear­lier posi­tion on what hap­pened: No one can tell.

“It was a loosey-goosey oper­a­tion where they didn’t have good con­trols,” Gra­ham said. “Who knows where the money is?”

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Ledger (Lake­land, FL), METRO; Pg. B1
BYLINE: By SUZIE SCHOTTELKOTTE

Lake Wales, FL

Lake Wales police say they can­not find lineup pic­tures used to iden­tify defen­dant Leon Davis.

BARTOW — Author­i­ties may have lost the pho­tos used in a lineup that led to mur­der defen­dant Leon Davis’ arrest, and his lawyers now are ask­ing a judge to exclude that eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion dur­ing Davis’ upcom­ing mur­der trial.

In a motion filed Fri­day, defense lawyer Bob Nor­gard said pros­e­cu­tors haven’t pro­duced the photo pack in which Bran­don Greis­man iden­ti­fied Davis as the assailant in a Decem­ber 2007 attack that left two Lake Wales women dead.

Davis, 32, faces five counts of first-degree mur­der in the worst series of killings in Polk County his­tory. He is charged in the death of the two women in Lake Wales, the death of the pre­ma­ture son born to one of those women and the slay­ing of two con­ve­nience store clerks in Lake Alfred a week earlier.

Absent the photo pack, Nor­gard argued, his client would be denied the right to due process and to con­front wit­nesses against him.

Lake Wales police detec­tives con­ducted the photo lineup, and Chief Herb Gillis acknowl­edged Fri­day that the photo pack is missing.

“We are search­ing every cor­ner of the evi­dence room and going through every report in this case to find that photo pack,” he said. “We are, how­ever, con­fi­dent in Greisman’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Davis.”

A two-day hear­ing on Norgard’s motion is sched­uled to begin June 7.

Greis­man, who said he was shot in the nose when he con­fronted Davis in the street within min­utes of the attack, has tes­ti­fied that he iden­ti­fied Davis from the photo pack while in the hos­pi­tal under­go­ing treat­ment for his injuries. He said he hadn’t known Davis before that, and hadn’t yet seen pho­tos of him in the media.

Davis, 32, is sched­uled to stand trial in July on three counts of first-degree mur­der for the Lake Wales attack.

Author­i­ties allege he intended to rob the Headley Nation­wide Insur­ance office in Lake Wales, where he had his auto pol­icy, and when clerks Juanita Luciano and Yvonne Bus­ta­mante said they had no money, Davis doused them in gaso­line and set them on fire.

Luciano was six months preg­nant, and doc­tors were forced to deliver her son that night. He died three days later, and the two women died within two weeks of the Dec. 13 attack.

The state is seek­ing the death penalty if Davis is convicted.

Davis faces two addi­tional first-degree mur­der charges for an unre­lated shoot­ing at a BP con­ve­nience store a week ear­lier. That trial is sched­uled for February.

Ear­lier this week, Nor­gard filed a motion seek­ing to sup­press the state­ments Luciano and Bus­ta­mante made at the scene when they iden­ti­fied Davis, whom they knew, as their assailant. Nor­gard argued that the state­ments are hearsay evi­dence unless the women knew they were going to die at the time they made them.

A two-day hear­ing on those motions is sched­uled to begin Thursday.

[ Suzie Schot­telkotte can be reached at suzie.schottelkotte@theledger.com or 863 – 533-9070. ]

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

DailyComet.com
Link to Arti­cle
BYLINE: Ray­mond Legendre, Staff Writer

Assump­tion Parish, LA

THIBODAUX — As an inves­ti­ga­tion into poten­tial wrong­do­ing in its evi­dence room con­tin­ues, the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office announced Wednes­day that it has hired a for­mer State Police lieu­tenant to improve pro­ce­dures for stor­ing and main­tain­ing evidence.

Among his many duties, Thane Matis, a retired State Police lieu­tenant who has 28 years of law-enforcement expe­ri­ence, will install the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office’s newly pur­chased Jus­tice­Trax prop­erty and evi­dence soft­ware and enter the evi­dence data into the new track­ing sys­tem. He also will be asked to ensure the integrity of evi­dence from the time it is col­lected until a case goes to trial and tes­tify at tri­als about the chain of cus­tody of the evidence.

“The heal­ing process has begun, and we’re mov­ing for­ward,” said Assump­tion Sher­iff Mike Waguespack.

Matis is enter­ing a messy sit­u­a­tion that could result in crim­i­nal charges for his pre­de­ces­sor and have major impli­ca­tions for hun­dreds of drug cases in Assump­tion Parish.

Lt. Louis Lam­bert, who served as the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office’s evi­dence cus­to­dian for seven years, is being inves­ti­gated by the State Police after he allegedly “mis­han­dled” evi­dence in a drug case that was sched­uled to begin trial in April. Offi­cials have not released details as to how Lam­bert allegedly mis­han­dled the drugs or what type of drugs were involved.

Lam­bert, who is sus­pended with pay, has not been charged with a crime. That could change based on State Police’s inves­ti­ga­tory find­ings, Wagues­pack said.

It is still too early to pre­dict when State Police’s inves­ti­ga­tion will con­clude, said Sgt. Markus Smith, a State Police spokesman. “We want it to be com­pleted as soon as it can,” he said, “but we don’t want to rush it and miss some­thing that’s key.”

A sep­a­rate audit that could affect hun­dreds of drug cases in Assump­tion Parish also remains open. The Pub­lic Agency Train­ing Coun­cil, based out of Indi­anapo­lis, is per­form­ing an inven­tory on the items inside the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office’s evi­dence room in Labadieville.

The Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office is tem­porar­ily keep­ing evi­dence in a vault inside its main office in Napoleonville. That evi­dence will be moved to the agency’s crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions office in Labadieville once all inves­ti­ga­tions into Lambert’s con­duct are completed.

A deputy who has worked with evi­dence since alle­ga­tions against Lam­bert arose will assist Matis, Wagues­pack said. That deputy’s name was not imme­di­ately available.

“We’ve got our boots on the ground impli­cat­ing a new sys­tem,” Wagues­pack said. He added that he expected a com­plete re-inventory, an over­haul of pol­icy and pro­ce­dures and the instal­la­tion of a new evi­dence data­base within three months.

Staff Writer Ray­mond Legendre can be reached at 448‑7617 or raymond.legendre@houmatoday.com. Fol­low him on Twit­ter @cometcrime.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org