IAPE Evidence Blog

The Billings Gazette — Billings, MT — billingsgazette.com
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BYLINE: KAHRIN DEINES Of The Gazette Staff

Mus­selshell County, MT

Mus­selshell County Sher­iff Woody Weitzeil, shown in July 2009, is accused of mis­us­ing prop­erty from the county’s evi­dence room.
Photo by DAVID GRUBBS/Gazette Staff

The state Depart­ment of Jus­tice is con­sid­er­ing whether Mus­selshell County Sher­iff Woody Weitzeil improp­erly used prop­erty from his evi­dence room.

An inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tion has been com­pleted, and the case has been for­warded to the state’s Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vices Bureau to deter­mine whether charges should be filed, said Judy Beck, spokes­woman for Attor­ney Gen­eral Steve Bullock.

“Noth­ing will become pub­lic until if and when there are charges filed,” Beck said.

Weitzeil said he took an old, rusty action that had sat unused for about 15 to 20 years from the evi­dence room.

Over a period of sev­eral months, Weitzeil said, he cleaned the old J. Stevens Marks­man single-shot, break-open action and pur­chased parts to retro­fit it into a .22-caliber that could be kept in his patrol vehi­cle to kill wildlife, such as injured deer found on county road­ways and skunks.

“It was a piece of scrap iron,” Weitzeil said. “That’s all it was.”

Mus­selshell County Attor­ney Kent Sipe said that he referred the mat­ter to the state’s Divi­sion of Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tions in mid — to early April after Weitzeil told him about tak­ing an item from the evi­dence room that was described as a firearm with a sawed-off bar­rel and welded-on pis­tol grip.

“The admis­sion was that he’d taken it for his per­sonal use and wasn’t he enti­tled to it. … That was the state­ment that was made to me was wasn’t he enti­tled to a lit­tle piece of metal after 25 years,” Sipe said.

Weitzeil has been with the Mus­selshell County Sheriff’s Office since 1986. He became the sher­iff in 2004 after vot­ers recalled for­mer Sher­iff Mar­tin Mal­one, who was accused of mis­us­ing a county credit card and cell phone.

On Tues­day, Weitzeil, a Repub­li­can, faces chal­lenges from two other Repub­li­cans in a pri­mary elec­tion for the sheriff’s post. He is run­ning against Repub­li­cans Lyle Beauchamp and John White, along with Bert Holmes, an Inde­pen­dent candidate.

Weitzeil said he thinks the tim­ing of the inves­ti­ga­tion is suspicious.

“I find it very inter­est­ing that the county attor­ney would do this just before an elec­tion,” Weitzeil said.

Sipe said he relayed all infor­ma­tion about the issue to the state’s inves­ti­ga­tion bureau and did not con­tact the media about the mat­ter. He said he was con­tacted by DCI late Fri­day after the agency received a request for infor­ma­tion about the inves­ti­ga­tion from Billings tele­vi­sion sta­tion KTVQ.

“I made my refer­ral,” Sipe said. “It was an admis­sion that was made to me and that I was not com­fort­able with.”

State law requires that a peti­tion be filed with a court to destroy or appro­pri­ate phys­i­cal evi­dence from crim­i­nal cases or con­tra­band items seized from indi­vid­u­als. A court may then issue an order autho­riz­ing the item’s destruc­tion or use for law enforce­ment purposes.

Weitzeil said that, in this case, the action was never tagged as evi­dence. He said it had a short, sawed-off bar­rel attached to it and most likely was once used as a “druggie’s gun.”

“It was either going to get thrown in the garbage or just left there for­ever, so why not just turn it into some­thing the depart­ment can use?” Weitzeil asked.

Sipe said he was told by the sher­iff that the weapon was seized from an indi­vid­ual as an unlaw­ful firearm many years ago.

Con­tact Kahrin Deines at kdeines@billingsgazette.com or 657‑1392.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
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