IAPE Evidence Blog

Hearst Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Inc., Times Union, timesunion.com
BYLINE: Bren­dan J. Lyons
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Albany, NY

ALBANY — An Albany police offi­cer was sus­pended Mon­day as depart­ment offi­cials inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions he took fire­works from a dri­ver dur­ing a traf­fic stop.

The 43-year-old offi­cer, Tin­daro J. Fazio, is a 13-year vet­eran of the force. He’s alleged to have con­fis­cated the fire­works about 10 days ago. Part of the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is exam­in­ing whether Fazio declined to fol­low a sergeant’s orders that he place the fire­works in a police prop­erty room, where they would be logged as evi­dence, accord­ing to two peo­ple with knowl­edge of the probe.

It’s unclear if the offi­cer doc­u­mented the traf­fic stop or his seizure of the fireworks.

James Miller, a depart­ment spokesman, con­firmed that an offi­cer was sus­pended Mon­day and an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is under way. He declined addi­tional comment.

Fazio is assigned to a patrol at the department’s Cen­ter Sta­tion on West­ern Avenue.

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

Peo­ria Jour­nal Star, pjstar.com
BYLINE: ANDY KRAVETZ (akravetz@pjstar.com) of the Jour­nal Star
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Peo­ria, IL

PEORIA — A for­mer FBI agent was sen­tenced Tues­day to five months in prison for lying to his supe­ri­ors about $43,643 that came up miss­ing dur­ing a drug inves­ti­ga­tion two years ago.

Jerry Nau, who worked as a U.S. mar­shal and with the FBI since 1992, apol­o­gized for his actions, say­ing there wasn’t a sin­gle day he didn’t regret what happened.

“I worked my whole life to be a super­vi­sory spe­cial agent. Every­thing I have worked for is gone,” he said, tak­ing deep breaths and lean­ing on the lectern. “But I am not a quit­ter. I will rebuild myself.”

Nau, 44, a 1985 Lime­stone Com­mu­nity High School grad­u­ate, apol­o­gized to his for­mer col­leagues, more than two dozen of whom filled the rear of the courtroom.

“It is a sad day when an agent of the FBI may be sen­tenced to prison, but it would be even sad­der if law enforce­ment were not held account­able when they them­selves engage in crim­i­nal behav­ior,” said U.S. Dis­trict Judge James Shadid.

The sen­tence included a five-month period of home con­fine­ment and required resti­tu­tion of $43,645.

And in an unusual move, Sha­did ordered Nau taken into cus­tody imme­di­ately. White-collar offend­ers often are allowed to vol­un­tar­ily sur­ren­der a few weeks later, but not Nau, who removed his gold tie, said his good­byes and walked out with U.S. mar­shals behind him.

That said, fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors sent a clear message.

“(Nau) is not just a white-collar crim­i­nal who’s going to get to go home to cel­e­brate Christ­mas and then report to prison,” said Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney James War­den, a pros­e­cu­tor from Indi­ana assigned to the case given Nau’s ties to fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors in Peoria.

Defense attor­ney Jef­frey Flana­gan told Sha­did that Nau’s actions were an anom­aly. He pointed to his client’s com­plete lack of crim­i­nal his­tory and nearly 20 years of ser­vice to the United States as evi­dence Nau deserved probation.

But pros­e­cu­tors sought a prison term of about a year. Sha­did admit­ted his sen­tence would likely have detrac­tors on both sides but said it took into account the crime as well as Nau’s past.

Nau pleaded guilty in August to one count of mak­ing and using a false doc­u­ment. He faced up to five years in prison, though given his lack of any crim­i­nal his­tory, that was highly unlikely.

Nau’s plea agree­ment states he “pan­icked” and didn’t know what to do. Nau told offi­cials “he sim­ply hoped the money would turn up.”

He wasn’t charged with tak­ing the money and has said he didn’t. War­den told the judge Nau’s story about pan­ick­ing was “incredible.”

“What hap­pened is, he stole the money, and per­haps he planned to cover that decep­tion up with his own money,” he said.

The money was from the inves­ti­ga­tion of Adrian Robin­son, who was sen­tenced to life in prison last year. Nau tes­ti­fied at trial the money was in an evi­dence vault when, in fact, it was already missing.

The charge stemmed from a June 30, 2010, fax where Nau told his bosses the money was in the vault and sent them a receipt and forged the sig­na­tures of two other agents.

Andy Kravetz can be reached at 686‑3283 or akravetz@pjstar.com.

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

NewsChan­nel 5 WTVF-TV Nashville TN, newschannel5.com
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David­son County and Wil­son County, TN

John Patrick Edwards

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A for­mer Wil­son County Sheriff’s Office Lieu­tenant has been charged with mul­ti­ple crimes all com­mit­ted while he was serv­ing as a police officer.

John Patrick Edwards, 39 was indicted by both the David­son County and Wil­son County grand juries on mul­ti­ple charges, includ­ing attempted first degree mur­der, aggra­vated kid­nap­ping, aggra­vated rob­bery, money laun­der­ing, and theft over $10,000 to name a few.

In March of 2011 the Ten­nessee Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion began inves­ti­gat­ing Edwards after alle­ga­tions of theft and domes­tic vio­lence began to surface.

The TBI inves­ti­ga­tion found that not only had Edwards tried to kill his wife by poi­son­ing her, but he was also involved in numer­ous crim­i­nal acts span­ning sev­eral years.

“Edwards is accused of claim­ing to wit­ness a drug deal between two men, then pro­ceeded to hold them at gun­point, falsely arrested them and seized their vehi­cles and cash,” said TBI Spokesper­son Kris­ten Helm.

The TBI went on to explain that Edward also stole mar­i­juana from the Wil­son County Sheriff’s Office evi­dence room and sold it for per­sonal profit, he sold con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion to the tar­get of a drug inves­ti­ga­tion and he forged doc­u­ments in an attempt to claim own­er­ship of items seized by the Sheriff’s Department.

Offi­cials said that in Octo­ber of 2007 Edwards also bur­glar­ized the res­i­dence of his for­mer girl­friend and then gave the stolen items to his wife as gifts.

Edwards was indicted by the Wil­son County grand jury on one count of attempted first degree mur­der, two counts of aggra­vated kid­nap­ping, two counts of aggra­vated rob­bery, seven counts of money laun­der­ing, two counts of offi­cial mis­con­duct, two counts of fab­ri­ca­tion of evi­dence, three counts of theft over $10,000 and one count of tam­per­ing with evidence. 

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