IAPE Evidence Blog

Braden­ton Hearld, bradenton.com
BYLINE: LAURA C. MOREL — lmorel@bradenton.com
Link to Article

Man­a­tee County, FL

MANATEE — A Man­a­tee County Sheriff’s Office prop­erty clerk resigned late last month after he was arrested for tak­ing money from a bag at the jail, accord­ing to a pro­fes­sional stan­dards investigation.

On Aug. 19, Gammahl Pierre-Louis was arrested on drug charges. Detec­tives found money on Pierre-Louis. They counted, orga­nized and stacked the cash and placed it into an enve­lope inside a bag, doc­u­ments show. The total amount: $1,902.

Clerk Fred­er­ick Rober­son was work­ing when detec­tives entered the jail with Pierre-Louis and his property.

Video sur­veil­lance cap­tured a deputy plac­ing the bag on the win­dow ledge of the prop­erty unit.

Rober­son then removes the bag from the ledge and takes it inside the prop­erty unit where he is work­ing alone, doc­u­ments show.

Moments later, he places the bag back on the win­dow ledge.

When deputies counted the money again, $300 were missing.

When Rober­son was informed about the miss­ing cash, he placed the crum­pled bills on the win­dow ledge, doc­u­ments show, and told the deputies the money was inside Pierre-Louis’s shoe.

But accord­ing to his arrest report, Pierre-Louis’s clothes were placed in a sep­a­rate bag as deputies placed the other bag con­tain­ing the money on the win­dow ledge.

Rober­son, of Ruskin, told a pro­fes­sional stan­dards inves­ti­ga­tor “sev­eral dif­fer­ent expla­na­tions on the where­abouts of the miss­ing money,” his arrest report says.

The inves­ti­ga­tion began Jan. 27.

On Jan. 30, Rober­son was placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave with pay “pend­ing the result of this case,” doc­u­ments show.

On Feb. 3, Rober­son, 37, was arrested and booked into the Sara­sota County jail on a war­rant. He was charged with grand theft, Man­a­tee court records show, and posted $10,000 bond seven days later.

On Feb. 22, Rober­son resigned. He worked at the sheriff’s office since 1996, said spokesman Dave Bristow.

Inves­ti­ga­tors found Rober­son guilty of con­duct unbe­com­ing of an employee. He could have faced between five days of sus­pen­sion and ter­mi­na­tion, doc­u­ments show.

He resigned before the sheriff’s office could decide on any dis­ci­pli­nary action, Bris­tow said.

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

Orange County Reg­is­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, ocregister.com
BYLINE: SEAN EMERY / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Link to Article

Fuller­ton, CA

FULLERTON – A Fuller­ton police employee was arrested on sus­pi­cion of grand theft Thurs­day after author­i­ties allege she stole from the department’s prop­erty room.

April Baugh­man, 52, was arrested after a sworn employee dis­cov­ered that she stole money from the prop­erty room over a two-year period, said Dan Hughes, Fullerton’s act­ing police chief, in a writ­ten statement.

Hughes indi­cated he had been informed of the theft about 11:30 a.m. Thurs­day, after a dis­crep­ancy in a cash count from a money sup­ply kept in the prop­erty room was dis­cov­ered. The other employee had reported the dis­crep­ancy to his divi­sion com­man­der after dis­cov­er­ing it, police said.

“When there are vio­la­tions of pub­lic trust or actions which result in the reduc­tion of con­fi­dence in the police depart­ment, dis­ci­pli­nary action will be taken swiftly and deci­sively,” Hughes said in the statement.

Author­i­ties say the money is believed to have been stolen between 2009 and mid-2011, but they did not com­ment on how much cash was missing.

Author­i­ties did not com­ment on how they linked Baugh­man, a 22-year Fuller­ton Police Depart­ment employee, to the theft. She was report­edly booked into Orange County Jail after her arrest.

Con­tact the writer: 714 – 796-7939 or semery@ocregister.com

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

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.

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