IAPE Evidence Blog

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Marl­bor­ough, MA

On just one sta­tion – thou­sands of dol­lars swiped from a local police evi­dence room, but who took the money? Hank’s exclu­sive inves­ti­ga­tion reveals the shock­ing con­fes­sion– and you’ll be even more shocked about what Hank found hap­pened next!

He was one of Marlboro’s vet­eran cops. 24 years on the force. But Detec­tive Derek John­son is no longer on the job. And most peo­ple don’t know why.

We uncov­ered these doc­u­ments from the Dis­trict Attor­ney that show Detec­tive John­son con­fessed to swip­ing more than $8000 from the police station’s own evi­dence room — includ­ing cash seized dur­ing drug raids and lar­ceny arrests.

And now for the first time Marlboro’s police chief is talk­ing on just one sta­tion about the detec­tive, and the sur­pris­ing deal he cut.

Hank: “He swore to uphold the law!”

Chief Mark Leonard, Marl­bor­ough Police: “And he cer­tainly vio­lated that.”

Inves­ti­ga­tors say he didn’t steal just once! Accord­ing to doc­u­ments from the Mid­dle­sex Dis­trict Attorney’s office, Detec­tive John­son “admit­ted to steal­ing the cash evi­dence” from “approx­i­mately 10 pend­ing crim­i­nal cases”

Hank: “So is John­son in jail? Await­ing trial? Fired? Nope.”

Chief Leonard — who knew John­son was in charge of the evi­dence room — decided to offer him a deal: Admit what hap­pened, and the con­fes­sion won’t be used against you.

Hank: “He confessed.”

Chief Mark Leonard, Marl­bor­ough Police: “He did.”

Hank: “But you can’t use that against him in a crim­i­nal case?”

Chief Mark Leonard, Marl­bor­ough Police: “We cannot.”

Because of that deal, after Detec­tive John­son told all — he was allowed to cash out the $112,000 in his retire­ment fund, pay back the amount he took, and resign!

Hank: “Do you think this is spe­cial treatment?”

Chief Mark Leonard, Marl­bor­ough Police: “Absolutely not. He’s no longer a police offi­cer, the city was made whole, he’s not draw­ing a pen­sion for the rest of his life. If he were pros­e­cuted crim­i­nally and we were not suc­cess­ful, he very well could have come back to work here!”

The mayor — who wasn’t in office at the time — says he stands by the Police Chief’s decision.

Arthur Vigeant, Marl­bor­ough Mayor: “The num­ber one issue was try­ing to find out exactly who was involved, there was only one offi­cer involved, and he’s been purged from the department.”

Hank: “Is Detec­tive John­son in, please?”

We wanted to talk to the detec­tive about it…

Hank: “Could you ask him to call me?”

But he never responded to our repeated requests.

Chief Mark Leonard, Marl­bor­ough Police: “I think we made the best of a bad sit­u­a­tion, and you know it’s unfor­tu­nate, but the bot­tom line we ended up in the best posi­tion we could given the circumstances.”

What’s not in the best posi­tion: The crim­i­nal cases where the stolen money was sup­posed to be used as evi­dence! Now that evi­dence is gone!

Defense attor­neys say that could put lots of cases in jeop­ardy. The lawyer for this guy — who’s fac­ing many charges of drug pos­ses­sion and traf­fick­ing — says he’ll ask that his case be dismissed.

Hank: “What would you say to the com­mon­wealth now?

Samuel Gold­berg, Defense attor­ney: “Show me the money! Show me the money, show the jury the money the offi­cers allegedly found in my client’s home. And they can’t now!”

Marl­bor­ough police say they now have new safe­guards in place to make sure noth­ing like this hap­pens again.

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