IAPE Evidence Blog

The Asso­ci­ated Press State & Local Wire, STATE AND REGIONAL

Hawkins County, TN

The Ten­nessee Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion has arrested a Hawkins County sheriff’s deputy on theft and related charges.

The TBI said in a news release Thurs­day night that 42-year-old Brad Depew of Church Hill was booked into the Hawkins County Jail after a search war­rant was exe­cuted at his home look­ing for miss­ing nar­cotics and other evi­dence from the sheriff’s office.

He was charged with one count of bur­glary, one count of theft and one count of tam­per­ing with evi­dence.
The TBI said Depew was a night shift deputy.

Inves­ti­ga­tors said they received a request last week from the Dis­trict Attor­ney Gen­eral to look into miss­ing items fromthe evi­dence room in March.

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

Ven­tura County Star (Cal­i­for­nia), SECTION: VENTURA
BYLINE: Raul Her­nan­dez. rhernandez@vcstar.com 805 – 437-0264

Ven­tura County, CA

Grand jury mem­ber had job with sheriff

The state Supreme Court will con­sider whether to hear legal argu­ments to dis­miss an indict­ment against slay­ing sus­pect Joshua Gra­ham Packer because a mem­ber of the grand jury that indicted him was a civil­ian cler­i­cal employee of the Ven­tura County Sheriff’s Department.

Packer, 21, of Ven­tura is accused of mur­der­ing Brock and Davina Husted and their unborn child. On May 20, 2009, Packer allegedly entered the family’s house in a gated com­mu­nity in Faria Beach wield­ing a firearm and demand­ing money.

Packer was arrested a year later. His DNA was found on the visor of a motor­cy­cle hel­met found under Brock Husted’s body and under Brock’s fin­ger­nails, accord­ing to court documents.

Packer’s lawyers main­tain the indict­ment was based on grand juror bias and that Packer was denied due process.

Deputy Dis­trict Attor­ney Michelle Con­tois, who filed the prosecution’s response to defense lawyers’ writ of man­damus said the Cal­i­for­nia Supreme Court will decide by May 27 whether to accept and hear the case.

Packer is set for trial Sept. 12, but if the Supreme Court decides to hear the case, the trial could be delayed, she said.

Packer’s lawyer, Ben­jamin Maserang, with the pub­lic defender’s office, declined to com­ment on the filing.

In her writ­ten response, Con­tois said the grand juror was work­ing with the High Tech Task Force of the Sheriff’s Depart­ment, which ana­lyzes com­put­ers and other elec­tronic devices. Her pri­mary func­tion was pro­cess­ing pay­roll reports for the ‘nar­cotics side,’ she said.

Con­tois said in the peti­tion that Ven­tura County Supe­rior Court Judge James Cloninger was aware of the grand juror’s job. The juror had said she ‘might have received one com­puter’ from the Packer case and put it in the evi­dence room.

‘Based only upon on a spec­u­la­tive and the­o­ret­i­cal pos­si­bil­ity of bias, Packer seeks dis­missal of his indict­ment, an indict­ment which is unques­tion­ably sup­ported by prob­a­ble cause,’ Con­tois wrote.

Packer is charged with three counts of first degree mur­der and other felonies, includ­ing rob­bery, bur­glary and the spe­cial cir­cum­stances of com­mit­ting mul­ti­ple mur­ders, com­mit­ting mur­ders dur­ing a rob­bery and com­mit­ting mur­ders dur­ing a burglary.

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

Orlando Sen­tinel (Florida), LOCAL & BUSINESS; FLORIDA; Win­der­mere scan­dal; Pg. B1
BYLINE: Henry Pier­son Cur­tis, staff writer

Win­der­mere, FL

For­mer Win­der­mere police Chief Daniel Say­lor reacted with dis­may and anger at his arrest on cor­rup­tion charges in Jan­u­ary, accord­ing to records released Wednes­day by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office.

“Take the firearm. I’m not going to resist any of you guys,” Say­lor told Florida Depart­ment of Law Enforce­ment agents Jan. 12 just after his arrest on two felony charges. “Jesus. I’ve been a cop too long for this … ” Dur­ing that con­ver­sa­tion, Say­lor main­tained his innocence.

“Well, Chief, we know a lot of things,” said one uniden­ti­fied speaker dur­ing the inter­view. “We know a lot of things that you don’t think we know.”

In the post-arrest inter­view, Say­lor said he accepted a $1,000 cash gift last year but denied that it was a bribe from one of his offi­cers seek­ing to have a friend hired by the Win­der­mere Police Depart­ment. “I’m not allowed to accept a Christ­mas gift from my offi­cers?” Say­lor asked the agents. “That was it.”

The nearly 1,000 pages of records include new alle­ga­tions of mis­con­duct, includ­ing the recov­ery of a dia­mond ten­nis bracelet stolen from police evidence.

The dis­clo­sures came the same week that the FDLE opened a new off­shoot of its cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tion. That probe is look­ing into why Say­lor failed to take action when DNA test­ing iden­ti­fied a sus­pect in a 2004 home inva­sion and attempted kidnapping.

On Mon­day, Win­der­mere police arrested the home-invasion sus­pect using evi­dence given to Say­lor three years ago by FDLE’s Orlando crime lab, records show.

“There’s a fine line between bad and even ter­ri­ble police work and some­thing that’s crim­i­nal,” said FDLE assis­tant agent-in-charge Danny Banks. “There’s enough smoke on this one to where we have to inves­ti­gate whether a crime was committed.”

The cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tion will con­tinue to expand if the FDLE receives more cred­i­ble accu­sa­tions of crim­i­nal behav­ior, Banks said Wednes­day afternoon.

The cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tion began last summer.

That’s when Carl Head, a for­mer Win­der­mere police offi­cer, gave the FDLE records of a 2009 rape inves­ti­ga­tion which he said Say­lor shut down as a favor to Win­der­mere res­i­dent Scott Bush, his friend and the only sus­pect in the case.

On Jan. 12, Say­lor, 44, and Bush, 50, were arrested by the FDLE.

Saylor’s truth­ful­ness has been at issue since the FDLE released tran­scripts of secretly recorded con­ver­sa­tions in which he told a sub­or­di­nate to destroy the rape-investigation records.

In a post-arrest inter­view, Say­lor told FDLE agents there was noth­ing improper about his friend­ship with Bush. “I used to ride Harleys with him; I’m friends with most of my res­i­dents. But I tried to stay out of this com­pletely. I don’t want — I hate pedophiles. I can’t — my worst pet peeves are liars and pedophiles. Any­body will tell you that about me.”

Ques­tioned about miss­ing files con­cern­ing Bush, Say­lor described him­self as a vic­tim of subordinates.

“I should have been a stronger chief, and I should have made sure they did this right and things were filed prop­erly,” he told FDLE agent Jef­frey Dun­can, head of the cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tion. “But I didn’t do any­thing illegal.”

After Saylor’s arrest, an inven­tory of the Police Department’s evi­dence locker found that 20 seized guns were miss­ing as well drugs and more than $3,000 in cash. The newly released records indi­cate a 3-carat dia­mond ten­nis bracelet worth $2,500 dis­ap­peared after being tagged, placed in an evi­dence bag and dropped through a slot into the evi­dence room.

For­mer Win­der­mere Offi­cer Joseph Farias-Rios, who said he had been in charge of the evi­dence room, said Say­lor late brought him a dia­mond ten­nis bracelet, say­ing a sub­or­di­nate had taken it by slid­ing an arm through the evidence-room slot.

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