IAPE Evidence Blog

NewHampshireLakesAndMountains.com, newhampshirelakesandmountains.com
BYLINE: Elissa Paque­tte
Link to Article

Wolfeboro, NH

ROGER MARTEL in the book­ing photo from the Car­roll County Jail, taken Jan. 5, as he was booked to serve his three-day sen­tence for the theft of 125 oxy­codone pills from the Wolfeboro Police Depart­ment evi­dence room.

WOLFEBORO — On Jan. 4 an eight-year for­mer offi­cer of the Wolfeboro Police Depart­ment was con­victed in the Third Cir­cuit Court in Ossipee of ille­gally tak­ing 120 oxy­codone pills from the department’s evi­dence room on May 15 and ille­gally dri­ving with the con­trolled drug in his truck.

The con­vic­tion of Roger Mar­tel, 40, on the two Class A mis­de­meanors fol­lowed a four-month inves­ti­ga­tion by Wolfeboro police and the N.H. Attor­ney General’s Bureau of Pub­lic Integrity.

Doc­u­ments on file at the court describe the chain of events lead­ing to Martel’s arrest. Sgt. Scott Moore, the offi­cer in charge of the evi­dence room, after notic­ing on two sep­a­rate occa­sions that the door to the evi­dence room was not secure, set up a cam­era in the room, and on May 14, Mar­tel was recorded in the act of tak­ing a box off the shelf from the Drug Take Back col­lec­tion and return­ing a few min­utes later to put it back in place.

Upon inves­ti­ga­tion, Moore noticed that the writ­ing on the evi­dence bag label did not look like that of Offi­cer Guy Mal­oney, the offi­cer who had recorded and stored the con­tents. Moore and Lt. Dean Ron­deau then came upon a shred­ded evi­dence bag in a trash can out­side of the room, whose con­tents label had been destroyed.

Within 24 hours of the pre­sen­ta­tion of their find­ings, Chief Stu­art Chase, accom­pa­nied by Moore, was in the office of inves­ti­ga­tor Richard Tracy of the Bureau of Pub­lic Integrity at the AG’s office pre­sent­ing the facts of the case.

Chief Chase said in a phone inter­view that he wanted an out­side inves­ti­ga­tion so there would be “no hint of impropriety.”

On June 21, the N.H. State Police foren­sic lab reported that Martel’s latent fin­ger­prints were iden­ti­fied on the orig­i­nal evi­dence bag that had been shred­ded and on Maloney’s med­i­cine infor­ma­tion sheet.

Mar­tel admit­ted vol­un­tar­ily in an inter­view on Sept. 9 with Tracy that he had removed the med­ica­tion from the evi­dence bag and repack­aged the empty con­tainer in a new evi­dence bag and revealed that he had taken a key from the chief’s office to gain entry to the evi­dence room.

Court records show that at the plea and sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, the state rec­om­mended that Mar­tel be sen­tenced to con­cur­rent sen­tences of 12 months at the Car­roll County House of Cor­rec­tions, with all but 30 days deferred for one year.

Mar­tel asked Judge Var­ney to reduce the 30 days of jail time to three, argu­ing that he had lost his career and had to relo­cate as a result of his addic­tion to pain med­ica­tion, after hav­ing been pre­scribed the med­ica­tion for back and shoul­der injuries.

After con­sid­er­ing the argu­ments, Var­ney reduced the served jail time to three days. Mar­tel was sen­tenced to con­cur­rent sen­tences of 12 months at the county jail, and the court also imposed the nego­ti­ated terms that Mar­tel must obtain a sub­stance abuse eval­u­a­tion from a licensed alco­hol and drug abuse coun­selor, fol­low all coun­selor rec­om­men­da­tions and pay a $350 fine. His cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a police offi­cer was revoked and he is not allowed to seek recertification.

Mar­tel served the three days imme­di­ately fol­low­ing sentencing.

Say­ing that the sen­tence seemed min­i­mal, Chase added, “I’m still strug­gling to deal with this whole thing. It’s still hard to take. I feel like there’s a hole in the pit of my stomach.

“It’s a breach of trust with reper­cus­sions that echo through­out the entire department…An offi­cer raises that right hand to take the oath of office and is oblig­ated to be a cut above the rank and file…Officers have to main­tain the moral high ground. We have to adhere to a code of ethics. [Martel’s behav­ior] vio­lates the brother and sis­ter­hood of law enforce­ment. It’s a real deep hurt.

“I’ve worn the shirt for 42 years and have seen this kind of thing before, but this is a small agency. We know each other’s fam­i­lies. The shock of this is dif­fi­cult to overcome.”

At the same time, the chief said that he rec­og­nizes the loss to Mar­tel and his fam­ily, not­ing that he’s lost his career as a police offi­cer and has relo­cated to Wis­con­sin: “The moral sanc­tions are far-reaching.”

“We work hard to develop trust within the com­mu­nity,” said Chase, lament­ing the back­lash that is sure to follow.

Attor­ney Gen­eral Michael A. Delaney promised in a press release that his office “will con­tinue to hold account­able and pros­e­cute any police offi­cer who engages in crim­i­nal activ­ity and thus vio­lates the laws they have sworn to uphold.”

Delaney also stated: “This case demon­strates the extent to which pre­scrip­tion drug abuse and mis­use has become a major pub­lic health and pub­lic safety prob­lem in New Hamp­shire. I am work­ing closely with lead­ers in our med­ical, pub­lic health, law enforce­ment and ser­vice provider com­mu­ni­ties to iden­tify strate­gies to com­bat this grow­ing problem.”

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