IAPE Evidence Blog

Star Tri­bune (Min­neapo­lis, MN)
BYLINE: RANDY FURST; STAFF WRITER, STAR TRIBUNE (Mpls.-St. Paul)

St. Paul, MN

From cash to jew­elry to a 9 mm pis­tol, prop­erty that was improp­erly seized or mis­han­dled is sent back.

When the Metro Gang Strike Force recov­ered stolen goods or seized people’s prop­erty — some­times ille­gally — many of the own­ers never saw it again.

Much of it dis­ap­peared into a badly orga­nized evi­dence room so inse­cure that when offi­cials dis­cov­ered its con­di­tion last year they asked the news media not to report it for fear of a break-in.

Now, seven months after rev­e­la­tions of mis­con­duct within the elite anti-gang unit prompted state offi­cials to shut it down, claims han­dlers have begun return­ing prop­erty to own­ers, albeit a few years late.

The prop­erty returned so far includes almost $5,000 in cash, an assort­ment of cars, elec­tron­ics, jew­elry, and a hand­gun. In some cases, claims man­agers found that the Strike Force hadn’t prop­erly seized or sought for­fei­ture of the items.

In other cases, they deter­mined that the seized prop­erty had been stolen, but that the Strike Force had neglected to return it to its orig­i­nal owner.

“The Metro Gang Strike Force was not too good at fol­low­ing through,” said Kori Land, an attor­ney for the Strike Force’s Advi­sory Board, of one such case.

After the unit’s shut­down, Bud Shaver, chair­man of the advi­sory board, orga­nized trans­fer of the remain­ing prop­erty into a new, secure stor­age facility.

The League of Min­nesota Cities Trust Fund, based in St. Paul, is the insur­ance agent for 854 munic­i­pal­i­ties in Min­nesota. Last year the fund han­dled 5,000 insur­ance claims. But “prob­a­bly the largest con­sumer of our staff time,” has been the claims filed by peo­ple against the Strike Force, says Doug Gronli, claims man­ager for the fund.

U.S. Mag­is­trate Judge Arthur Boy­lan last month ordered the league to release copies of claim records the Star Tri­bune requested last year under the state Data Prac­tices Act. How­ever, claimants could request that their cases not be disclosed.

Hand­guns, vehi­cles, cash

As of Thurs­day, the league’s Strike Force claims hot line had received 94 calls, and 35 peo­ple filled out claims forms. The news­pa­per reviewed 20 claim files. Thir­teen addi­tional claimants asked that the league not dis­close their cases. Two other claims came in so recently that offi­cials had yet to deter­mine whether they could release the information.

Apart from the hot line process, Land over­saw an effort to deal with 51 seized cars the Strike Force had when it was shut down.

One was returned to an owner who suc­cess­fully chal­lenged its for­fei­ture but hadn’t got­ten it back. Offi­cials returned two because the own­ers hadn’t been prop­erly served with for­fei­ture notices. Three stolen vehi­cles were returned to orig­i­nal own­ers. Nine went to lenders or sell­ers who had liens on them when they were seized.

Six­teen cars deter­mined to be prop­erly for­feited will be auc­tioned. A bicy­cle also was returned to its owner.

Here are exam­ples of some of the pub­lic hot line claims and what was returned:

Pis­tol was held for 7 years More than nine years after a pis­tol was stolen from Jerome Weg­worth Jr.‘s vehi­cle while he was parked at a Maple­wood bowl­ing alley, and more than seven years after the Strike Force found it in a raid of a St. Paul home, he got it back.

The Force told Weg­worth in 2002 that it had recov­ered the 9-millimeter Tau­rus hand­gun, but despite his repeated calls, it was never returned, he said in his claim.

Jer­maine Booker, a Still­wa­ter prison inmate, wrote that in Jan­u­ary 2008, Strike Force offi­cers kicked in the door of his St. Paul apart­ment, demand­ing to know where he’d hid­den drugs and guns. They found noth­ing, he wrote, adding:

“Then they punched on me and told me to get out [of ] this state and go back to Chicago.”

He said offi­cers took a lap­top, cell phones, video games and $2,100. He said he was arrested but released with­out charges. Six months later, Booker said, he was arrested for a pro­ba­tion vio­la­tion “not related to this inci­dent with the Strike Force” and sent to Stillwater.

A claims adjuster said Shaver decided to keep the prop­erty in evi­dence stor­age, so the league offered Booker $500 for it, and he accepted. The league said the cash was prop­erly for­feited, but Booker has appealed that deci­sion to an admin­is­tra­tive law judge.

The league sent Paul McDavid of Min­neapo­lis a check for $1,312 that the Strike Force seized from him last Feb­ru­ary. A claims adjuster could find no record show­ing that he had received a legally required for­fei­ture notice.

The league also returned $3,177 to a claimant whose name was with­held at his request. Again, the Force had seized the money but did not serve the per­son with a for­fei­ture notice, accord­ing to Land.

No charges after seizure

Angel Gatlin of Rich­field claimed that in 2007 the Strike Force took prop­erty worth $10,000 and beat her husband.

“There were no charges filed, so the prop­erty should be given back,” said Gronli, the league official.

The prop­erty includes a lap­top, cam­eras, a cell phone and a pis­tol. Evi­dently, offi­cers found no drugs.

Duane R. Axtman of Axtman Auto in St. Paul sold a 2001 GMC Denali in Novem­ber 2007 to a woman whose house was raided a month later. The Strike Force seized the SUV, though Axtman still held a lien on it.

“Even though she was never charged, they kept the vehi­cle,” Axtman wrote. The league said the woman was prop­erly served the for­fei­ture notice, but Land said the Strike Force board pol­icy is to return seized vehi­cles to lien­hold­ers, so Axtman will get it back.

Selvig Jew­el­ers in Cot­tage Grove lost $3,500 in jew­elry in a 2006 bur­glary. In 2007, the Strike Force raided a Min­neapo­lis house and recov­ered two rings and a bracelet from that bur­glary. The Force never returned the jew­elry to Selvig, but now the claim-handlers have.

“After the crim­i­nal case was closed, it should have been returned,” said Land.

The league denied 17 claims, 11 because an agency other than the Force seized the prop­erty, and the hot line pro­gram was lim­ited to Strike Force seizures.

The league denied other claims because a judge had val­i­dated the for­fei­ture or adjusters could find no evi­dence of a seizure.

Randy Furst — 612 – 673-7382

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

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Lit­tle Rock)
BYLINE: DAVE HUGHES ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Van Buren, AR

FORT SMITH — A for­mer Van Buren police sergeant walked out of fed­eral court Thurs­day a free man after a judge sen­tenced him to time served fol­low­ing a fed­eral appeals court rul­ing that the judge’s sen­tence was too long.

U.S. Dis­trict Judge Robert Daw­son told Mik­los Mol­nar, 49, he was free to go fol­low­ing a short hear­ing. After Daw­son left the bench, the court­room filled with Molnar’s fam­ily and friends broke out in applause. Some for­mer co-workers, includ­ing Van Buren Police Chief Ken­neth Bell, also were present and stood silently after the hearing.

Mol­nar, wear­ing tan slacks and a white T-shirt, spent the next few min­utes hug­ging rel­a­tives until a court secu­rity offi­cer told him he could leave the courtroom.

“I just praise God. That’s all I have to say,” he told reporters after the hearing.

Thursday’s hear­ing was sched­uled after the 8th U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the five-year sen­tence Daw­son gave Mol­nar was too long, accord­ing to fed­eral sen­tenc­ing guide­lines. The court pointed out that, under the guide­lines, Mol­nar should have been sen­tenced to 10 – 16 months in prison.

Molnar’s attor­ney, Richard Bar­low of Van Buren, said after court that Mol­nar served more than 11 months in prison and that his one year anniver­sary would have been March 12.

Daw­son noted dur­ing the hear­ing that Mol­nar had paid the $50,997 resti­tu­tion he was ordered to pay dur­ing his ini­tial sen­tenc­ing Jan. 29, 2009, as well as a $3,000 fine and a $100 spe­cial court assess­ment. On Thurs­day, Daw­son ordered only that Mol­nar observe two years of super­vised release.

Accord­ing to the 8th Cir­cuit, Molnar’s ini­tial prison sen­tence was based on the erro­neous belief by Daw­son that some of the $50,997 Mol­nar took was des­tined to be used as under­cover drug buy money.

“With­out ques­tion, Molnar’s activ­i­ties impaired access to funds that ought to be rel­a­tively acces­si­ble,” Daw­son wrote in a sen­tenc­ing mem­o­ran­dum last year. “Not hav­ing the funds avail­able could then have sig­nif­i­cantly impaired local drug pre­ven­tion activ­i­ties.” Daw­son seemed eager to cor­rect the error Thurs­day as he addressed Mol­nar at the start of the hearing.

“You’re here sooner than I expected you’d be,” Daw­son told Mol­nar. “I’m glad you’re here.” Mol­nar, a 20-year vet­eran of the Van Buren Police Depart­ment, pleaded guilty in August 2007 to a charge of embez­zling money while work­ing as an offi­cer or employee of the government.

Mol­nar was a nar­cotics offi­cer for the Police Depart­ment and a mem­ber of the fed­eral Drug Enforce­ment Administration’s drug task force.

He was sus­pended July 2, 2007, after he told Bell he had taken money from the department’s evi­dence room. Bell had con­fronted him about money miss­ing from the evi­dence room which Mol­nar supervised.

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

thestate.com, Herald-Journal
BYLINE: LYNNE P. SHACKLEFORD and CRAIG PETERS — (Spar­tan­burg) Herald-Journal
Link to Article

Spar­tan­burg County, SC

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Spartanburg County offi­cials are work­ing to enhance secu­rity in the cour­t­house evi­dence locker after the clerk of court was charged last week with steal­ing drugs stored there.

Meth­ods used by the clerk’s office for han­dling and stor­ing evi­dence came under scrutiny Tues­day, when fed­eral agents accused Spar­tan­burg County Clerk of Court Marc Kitchens of tak­ing cocaine and metham­phet­a­mine from the evi­dence locker. Kitchens is charged with con­spir­ing with Woodruff real estate devel­oper Terry Glenn Lan­ford in a scheme to sell the sub­stances to a drug dealer in Florida between April and January.

Pro­bate Court Judge Ponda Cald­well is the act­ing clerk of court and said she will leave fur­ther pol­icy review to her suc­ces­sor, but she has talked with County Admin­is­tra­tor Glenn Breed about the need for a key­pad entrance and alarm sys­tem in addi­tion to the locked entrance now in place. Cald­well said the county is in the process of get­ting bids on the alarm sys­tem and cam­eras in and around the room.

She said only the assis­tant clerk of court and Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tions agents have access to the locker. The FBI, the Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion and the State Law Enforce­ment Divi­sion are tak­ing an inven­tory of the locker to deter­mine whether any evi­dence is missing.

Solic­i­tor Trey Gowdy said the agents are work­ing in the con­fer­ence room in his office and the inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing. Gowdy said he doesn’t know how many cases — if any — are affected.

Gowdy said he rec­om­mends the clerk’s office imple­ment pro­ce­dures sim­i­lar to the ones rec­om­mended by the State Law Enforce­ment Divi­sion and used by sev­eral offices in the state, includ­ing Greenville County.

Greenville County Clerk of Court Paul Wick­en­simer said unless a judge orders him to keep evi­dence in the cour­t­house vault, he signs it back over to the appro­pri­ate law enforce­ment agency after a trial or plea.

“We pre­fer not to ware­house evi­dence here,” Wick­en­simer said. “We do have a vault where we can house those types of items, but law enforce­ment is bet­ter equipped to deal with it.”

Wick­en­simer said although the SLED guide­lines aren’t manda­tory, “we have cho­sen to adhere to those guide­lines. The law enforce­ment cen­ter has a larger place to store evi­dence, they have a per­son who man­ages the room and cam­eras for secu­rity. We choose not to keep evi­dence longer than we have to.”

Gowdy said law enforce­ment goes to great lengths by wear­ing gloves and pro­tec­tive cloth­ing, for exam­ple, to main­tain the integrity of a crime scene from the time they first respond to a call. Offi­cers who process crime scenes log in every piece of evi­dence and main­tain the chain of cus­tody by doc­u­ment­ing any review or trans­fer of evi­dence up to the time the case goes to trial.

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‘Account­abil­ity paramount’

The Spar­tan­burg Pub­lic Safety Depart­ment and the Spar­tan­burg County Sheriff’s Office said pro­tect­ing evi­dence is crit­i­cal. Each agency has a detailed pol­icy that estab­lishes pro­to­col for the stor­age and super­vi­sion of evi­dence and property.

Inven­to­ries are done annu­ally, and unan­nounced inspec­tions occur each year. The limited-access stor­age facil­i­ties at the sheriff’s office and police depart­ment have mul­ti­ple locks, sur­veil­lance cam­eras and highly secure areas for stor­ing guns, drugs, money and valu­able items.

David Reeves has worked as an evi­dence cus­to­dian at Spar­tan­burg Pub­lic Safety nearly 10 years, and Myl­nor Beach has been his part­ner for almost four. Reeves said the charge against Kitchens prompted him to con­duct an inven­tory of the city’s evi­dence facil­ity, which con­tains about 57,000 items from about 15,000 cases.

“Account­abil­ity is para­mount here,” Reeves said. “Pre­serv­ing and pro­tect­ing evi­dence is what we’re about. A defense attor­ney can get evi­dence thrown out if the chain of cus­tody is compromised.”

Beach and Reeves said the trust they have in each other is vital, in addi­tion to the checks and bal­ances estab­lished by policy.

“If I had a mil­lion dol­lars, (Reeves is) who I’d want to keep it,” Beach said.

Shelves of envelopes con­tain pho­tos and state­ments — the most com­mon type of evi­dence — and other envelopes con­tain videos. Guns and knives are indi­vid­u­ally placed in boxes, and spe­cial bags con­tain drugs and other evi­dence. A bar­code sys­tem is used, and mul­ti­ple records are kept.

Not every type of evi­dence fits in an enve­lope, how­ever, so Reeves built a rack that holds a cou­ple of base­ball bats, yard tools and a bro­ken crutch. The city facil­ity also con­tains a mur­der room. Reeves said police must keep evi­dence from a homi­cide — even those solved and cleared with a con­vic­tion — for 75 years.

“Secu­rity can’t be in ques­tion,” Reeves said. “I’ll put my integrity against any­one in the state. They can come review our evi­dence locker, and we’ll review theirs.”

Offi­cers have the respon­si­bil­ity for autho­riz­ing dis­posal of evi­dence. In arrest cases, they must request court dispositions.

Reeves recently received per­mis­sion to dis­pose of five pounds of mar­i­juana from SLED and will take the box to Columbia.

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Court pro­ce­dures

When a case is called for trial, an evi­dence cus­to­dian tes­ti­fies about the chain of cus­tody and ver­i­fies that items col­lected on the day of the crime are what are entered as court exhibits.

S.C. Court Admin­is­tra­tion issues pol­icy for clerks of court regard­ing the stor­age of evi­dence admit­ted as exhibits. The pol­icy stresses the impor­tance of account­abil­ity sys­tems and restrict­ing access to the exhibit stor­age area, as well as the impor­tance of inven­tory lists. But it does not pro­vide require­ments for any security/surveillance of the stor­age area.

Before last week, three peo­ple — Kitchens, Assis­tant Clerk of Court Gail Mof­fitt and Chief Admin­is­tra­tive Assis­tant Charlena Tins­ley — had access to the cour­t­house exhibit room, Mof­fitt said.

After a trial is com­pleted, the clerk or the arrest­ing law enforce­ment agency stores the exhib­ited evi­dence until the time for appeals elapses in crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, which can be years or decades. The pol­icy estab­lishes a sep­a­rate pro­ce­dure for the return or dis­posal of items in civil cases.

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