IAPE Evidence Blog

The Patch.org Foun­da­tion, hinsdale.patch.com
BYLINE: Joe O’Donnell, joe.odonnell@patch.com
Link to Article

Claren­don Hills, IL

Numer­ous felony counts against Daniel Ryan were dropped in a plea agree­ment that led to two years’ pro­ba­tion for offi­cial misconduct.

For­mer Claren­don Hills police offi­cer Daniel Ryan pleaded guilty to offi­cial mis­con­duct Fri­day and was sen­tenced to two years’ pro­ba­tion. Credit Cour­tesy of DuPage State’s Attorney 

For­mer Claren­don Hills police offi­cer Daniel Ryan pleaded guilty to felony offi­cial mis­con­duct Fri­day and was sen­tenced to two years’ pro­ba­tion nearly 10 months after he was charged with steal­ing six guns from the Claren­don Hills Police Department’s evi­dence room.

Ryan was orig­i­nally charged with two counts of aggra­vated pos­ses­sion of a stolen firearm, five counts of unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion of a stolen firearm, one count of theft, and three counts of offi­cial mis­con­duct when he was arrested last spring.

The 49-year-old West­mont res­i­dent pleaded guilty to one of the offi­cial mis­con­duct counts, a Class 3 felony, accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tor Helen Kapas. The other charges were dropped. Ryan will pay no fines.

Ryan’s lawyer, Jeff Kendall, said two years pro­ba­tion, cou­pled with the facts that his client lost his job and can­not work as a police offi­cer again, is a “strong punishment.”

“He’s extremely remorse­ful and sorry for let­ting the [Claren­don Hills Police Depart­ment] down,” Kendall said after the hear­ing at the DuPage County Judi­cial Cen­ter in Wheaton.

Ryan turned him­self in on May 13, 2011. A joint inves­ti­ga­tion by the FBI and DuPage State’s Attor­ney Inves­ti­ga­tion Divi­sion had been ongo­ing since Feb­ru­ary of 2011, accord­ing to Kapas.

The guns Ryan was accused of tak­ing from the evi­dence room between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2007, accord­ing to DuPage County State’s Attor­ney Robert B. Berlin’s office, are an Ithaca M1911 A1 World War II U.S. Army .45 cal­iber gun; a .22 cal­iber Short But­ler; a Smith and Wes­son .38 cal­iber Airlight Spe­cial; a Moss­berg 590 12 gauge shot­gun; and a Con­necti­cut Val­ley Bob­cat .50 cal­iber gun.

The guns were given to the depart­ment via a com­mu­nity turn-in pro­gram and none of the guns were used in crimes. 

Accord­ing to the plea agree­ment read by Kapas to Judge Daniel Guerin, Ryan sold two of the six guns to two cousins who are police offi­cers in the Wil­low­brook and Darien police departments.

“He obtained money that was used to pay bills,” Kapas said.

One of the guns, the Ithaca M1911, will be donated to the Cantigny War Museum in Wheaton, accord­ing to the plea agree­ment. The other five guns have been or will be destroyed.

Claren­don Hills Police Chief Ted Jenk­ins attended Friday’s hear­ing and pro­vided a writ­ten state­ment from the department.

“Chief Jenk­ins and mem­bers of the Claren­don Hills Police Depart­ment offer their sin­cer­est thanks to State’s Attor­ney Robert B. Berlin, his staff and mem­bers of the FBI inves­tiga­tive team for their efforts to insure that the Claren­don Hills Police Depart­ment is only staffed by offi­cers who hon­or­ably serve with the high­est integrity and com­mit­ment to ser­vice,” the state­ment reads. 

Kendall said Ryan’s pro­ba­tion is effec­tive immediately.

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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

World­Now and KTUL, ktul.com
BYLINE: Mike Massey
Link to Article

Tulsa, OK

A key piece of evi­dence in a high-profile mur­der is acci­den­tally destroyed by Tulsa Police.

The miss­ing evi­dence could allow Phillip Sum­mers to avoid the death penalty.

He was sen­tenced for killing Ples and Shelly Vann in 2004.

But an appeals court ordered a new trial.

TPD says the gun was destroyed because of a cler­i­cal error.

Dis­trict Attor­ney Tim Har­ris says the gun’s destruc­tion makes it dif­fi­cult for his office to seek the death penalty. 

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