IAPE Evidence Blog

The Day­tona Beach News-Journal, news-journalonline.com
BYLINE: LYDA LONGA, Staff writer, lyda.longa@news-jrnl.com

Ormond Beach, FL

Corey Fontana

For more than two decades, Ormond Beach police’s evi­dence unit was fraught with so many prob­lems — includ­ing “fla­grant” mis­man­age­ment and thefts of cash and drugs — that Chief Henry Osterkamp called for a state investigation.

The prob­lems of dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion and pol­icy vio­la­tions were so sig­nif­i­cant in the unit that it was cited as one of the rea­sons the Police Depart­ment failed in its recent bid at re-accreditation, Osterkamp said. The other rea­son was the theft of cash and heroin from the evi­dence room by an employee of a con­tracted clean­ing crew that ser­viced police head­quar­ters and City Hall, a report shows.

A 29-page report released by Ormond Beach police this week paints a pic­ture of gross mis­con­duct by for­mer evi­dence tech­ni­cian Michael Haller, to the point where crim­i­nal behav­ior was sus­pected. Inves­ti­ga­tors found a large manila enve­lope filled with cash that they say Haller stashed in the ceil­ing of the evi­dence room, accord­ing to the report.

In addi­tion, police also found a large box in a smaller room where Haller often worked that con­tained sev­eral envelopes with money in them, total­ing $3,700, the report shows.

The for­mer tech­ni­cian — who resigned in August 2010 amid the inves­ti­ga­tion of his 22-year stint in the evi­dence unit — tried to blame the secreted $3,700 on for­mer evi­dence room vol­un­teer Sam East­er­brook, Osterkamp said Tuesday.

The story of the unaccounted-for money, which police don’t believe, was detailed in a note left behind by Haller: “Found this in Sam’s desk when he left, knew he had some money, did not know it was this. Did not know how to tell you.”

As a result of the audit and inven­tory of the evi­dence room that started in Feb­ru­ary 2010, inves­ti­ga­tors found items of evi­dence that had never been processed.

“The obvi­ous impli­ca­tions of this sit­u­a­tion are that cases could have gone unsolved and remain so to this day because a sim­ple pro­ce­dure was not con­ducted that pos­si­bly could have helped impli­cate a sus­pect and per­haps solved a crim­i­nal case,” Lt. Kenny Hayes, in charge of the department’s sup­port ser­vices divi­sion, wrote in the report.

Inves­ti­ga­tors found stock­piled evi­dence from cases going as far back as the 1970s. The evi­dence included drugs, guns and bio­haz­ardous mate­ri­als, the report shows.

On March 1, 2010, more than 5 tons — or 11,320 pounds — of drugs, guns and unclaimed prop­erty that should have been purged from the room years before, was hauled to an incin­er­a­tor in Tavares for destruc­tion, the report shows.

Also, more than $63,000 in cash was removed from the evi­dence room. That included $13,856 returned to banks — the money was recov­ered from rob­beries — and $19,559 returned to another police depart­ment. The money was from a theft reported in another juris­dic­tion, the report shows.

Osterkamp said that when the inven­tory was embarked upon two years ago, inves­ti­ga­tors had no idea how much dys­func­tion would be uncov­ered in the evi­dence unit, even after being warned of prob­lems by both Haller and for­mer evi­dence cus­to­dian Shan­non Champion.

“It was a great shock to us,” said Osterkamp, who at one time dur­ing the mid-1990s rec­om­mended sev­eral sug­ges­tions on how to over­haul the pro­ce­dures in the unit. “We had no idea it was to the extreme that it was.”

Haller could not be reached Tuesday.

Osterkamp said the Police Depart­ment is wait­ing for the Florida Depart­ment of Law Enforce­ment to com­plete its inves­ti­ga­tion of the evi­dence room practices.

Hayes said Tues­day in an email that the FDLE will send its rec­om­men­da­tions to the State Attorney’s Office; those rec­om­men­da­tions could call for crim­i­nal charges against Haller if prob­a­ble cause is found. At this point the only tar­get of any such charges would be Haller, who was assigned to the evi­dence unit in 1988, Osterkamp said.

Last week, the police chief sent out an email con­cern­ing the agency’s re-accreditation sta­tus and the fact that it was not awarded because of the evi­dence room prob­lems and the thefts by clean­ing crew employee Corey Fontana of Holly Hill, accord­ing to arrest reports.

Fontana was con­victed of grand theft and is serv­ing an 18-month sen­tence in state prison. He told Ormond Beach detec­tives that he has a drug prob­lem and admit­ted to tak­ing $3,000 cash and heroin used for train­ing dogs from the police evi­dence room, the report states. Police said Fontana also stole cash from City Hall.

Osterkamp said the fact that any­one could break into the evi­dence room was issue enough for the Florida Com­mis­sion on Law Enforce­ment Accred­i­ta­tion to not award the re-accreditation.

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

Fisher Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Inc., KOMO News Net­work, komonews.com
BYLINE: Denise Whitaker
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Poulsbo, WA

POULSBO, Wash. — A state audit found Poulsbo Police Depart­ment lacked over­sight over its own evi­dence locker after gold, guns and cash mys­te­ri­ously disappeared.

The miss­ing items prompted the audit, which was released on Tues­day. The report rec­om­mended the depart­ment tighten up on record­keep­ing and con­trols over the con­tents of the locker.

On the list of miss­ing items is a gold neck­lace, which cost the city’s insur­ance com­pany more than $1,000 to replace, as well as $2,000 in cash that was sup­posed to be trans­ferred from the police depart­ment to the city’s finance department.

Semi-automatic hand­guns set to be destroyed also dis­ap­peared from the locker. The state traced the guns back to a police clerk respon­si­ble for trans­port­ing the guns. That for­mer clerk, Amanda Dixon, has been charged with theft.

Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erick­son said her con­fi­dence in her police chief has not wavered. She added the depart­ment has made sig­nif­i­cant changes to pre­vent sim­i­lar inci­dents in the future.

“We’ve moved the police. We have a new evi­dence locker. We have new soft­ware and we have new per­son­nel,” said Erickson.

The police depart­ment is now located in City Hall, and it now uses new soft­ware that includes a bar code sys­tem that will keep track of all pieces of evi­dence in the pos­ses­sion of the police department.

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

Chattanoogan.com, chattanoogan.com
Link to Article

McMinn County, TN

The Ten­nessee Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion today arrested a for­mer McMinn County Sheriff’s Office deputy for one count of offi­cial oppres­sion after he was indicted by the McMinn County grand jury ear­lier this week.

Justin Hes­ter, 28, of 263 County Road 587, Engle­wood, Tn. was charged as a result of a TBI inves­ti­ga­tion that began in Novem­ber 2011. While work­ing as a McMinn County deputy, Hes­ter made numer­ous traf­fic stops between the sum­mer of 2011 and Novem­ber 2011 which were not doc­u­mented with the county’s dispatch.

The inves­ti­ga­tion revealed that Hes­ter removed pre­scrip­tion nar­cotics, such as oxy­codone, from the indi­vid­u­als and the vehi­cles he stopped and searched. He did not arrest or charge the indi­vid­u­als nor did he turn the pills into the evi­dence room at the sheriff’s office, keep­ing them for himself.

Many of the indi­vid­u­als did not real­ize Hes­ter took the pills until after the traf­fic stop was concluded.

Hes­ter resigned from the McMinn County Sheriff’s Office in Decem­ber 2011.

Hes­ter was booked into the McMinn County Jail and booked on a $5,000 bond.

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