IAPE Evidence Blog

Sun-Times Media, LLC. Chicago Sun-Times, suntimes.com
BYLINE: JON SEIDEL Sun-Times Media jseidel@suntimes.com
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Will County, IL

Terry D. Jenkins 

The theft of three kilo­grams of heroin from a Will County sheriff’s evi­dence con­tainer wasn’t an inside job, a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor said Thurs­day as he charged a Mid­loth­ian man with tak­ing part in the burglary.

But he said police are still look­ing for at least one other per­son who took part in the break-in.

Terry D. Jenk­ins, 43, is charged with bur­glary and is being held on $150,000 bail. He appeared in front of Will County Judge Marzell Richard­son Thursday.

The charges against him don’t men­tion the miss­ing heroin, only that he broke into the Will County sheriff’s secured evi­dence stor­age con­tainer Oct. 12 at 2402 E. Lar­away Road in Joliet. Chuck Col­burn of the Illi­nois Appel­late Prosecutor’s office, who is serv­ing as a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor in the case, con­firmed it was dur­ing that break-in that the heroin went missing.

Jenk­ins was arrested at his home in Mid­loth­ian Wednes­day morn­ing. Col­burn would not say what led author­i­ties to him.

Colburn’s office and the Illi­nois State Police had been called in to inves­ti­gate the crime because it involved the sheriff’s department’s evi­dence. A state police offi­cial attended Jenk­ins’ bond hear­ing but wouldn’t answer a reporter’s ques­tions. Calls seek­ing com­ment from the state police haven’t been returned.

The depart­ment real­ized the heroin — with an esti­mated value of $270,000 — was stolen after offi­cers dis­cov­ered a break-in at the Lar­away Road com­plex Oct. 14.

The metal ship­ping con­tainer hold­ing the heroin in the fenced-in impound lot had been mon­i­tored by cam­eras and sealed with a high-tech lock. Records showed the drugs were moved there by Jana Scha­ef­fer, offi­cials said. She’s a civil­ian employee and daugh­ter of Sher­iff Paul Kaupas.

Her hus­band, Lt. Brett Scha­ef­fer, leads the Will County gang unit that con­fis­cated the drugs from 41-year-old Jose Zamago-Mena of Cal­i­for­nia dur­ing a traf­fic stop on Inter­state 55.

Deputy Chief Ken Kau­pas, another rel­a­tive of the sher­iff, ini­tially declined to rule out inter­nal sus­pects in the bur­glary because of the secu­rity at the com­plex. He later said he’d “hope and pray that this is not an inside job.”

Col­burn on Thurs­day ruled out that possibility.

“I can say that we found no evi­dence to sup­port that there was any inside involve­ment from any Will County employee,” he said.

The sheriff’s depart­ment didn’t involve itself in the inves­ti­ga­tion, and Kau­pas said he learned about Jenk­ins’ arrest Thurs­day after­noon from Sun-Times Media. He called it “very good news.”

“We look for­ward to hear­ing all the inti­mate details,” Kau­pas said.

Zamago-Mena is still in cus­tody await­ing trial. He appeared in a Joliet court­room Wednes­day and told Judge Edward Bur­mila his fam­ily had hired a pri­vate attor­ney. None showed, and the judge set another hear­ing for March 21.

A spokesman for Will County State’s Attor­ney James Glas­gow has said his office still plans to pros­e­cute Zamago-Mena. The mate­r­ial taken by offi­cers from Zamago-Mena’s truck in Feb­ru­ary 2011 has already tested pos­i­tive for heroin, police said.

Court records, mean­while, lay out Jenk­ins’ long his­tory of trou­bles with the law. He pleaded guilty in Will County to four counts of bur­glary in 2004, records show. Pros­e­cu­tors at the time said Jenk­ins admit­ted to break­ing into sev­eral stor­age units in Mokena.

His crim­i­nal his­tory in Cook County dates to 1986, when he was found guilty of bur­glary and pos­sess­ing bur­glars’ tools. He was ordered to pay back $300 and serve 1 1/2 years on pro­ba­tion, which he violated.

He served prison time on a 2003 bur­glary and a 2006 drug case, and he’s been arrested a dozen or so more times in Mid­loth­ian on lesser charges includ­ing crim­i­nal tres­pass, pos­sess­ing drugs and drug para­pher­na­lia, and vio­lat­ing orders of pro­tec­tion issued against him three times by the same woman.

He appeared to live briefly in Crest­wood dur­ing 2008, when he was charged with tele­phone harass­ment and vio­lat­ing an order of protection.

Con­tribut­ing: Lau­ren FitzPatrick 

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

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Amer­i­can Press, The Repub­lic, a divi­sion of Home News Enter­prises, therepublic.com
BYLINE:
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Cal­casieu Parish, LA

LAKE CHARLES, La. — A judge has ordered a for­mer Cal­casieu Parish deputy to pay close to $100,000 in resti­tu­tion to make up for money miss­ing from the sheriff’s office evi­dence room.

The Amer­i­can Press reports (http://bit.ly/qjfACs) Troy Hugh Tay­lor pleaded guilty Tues­day to felony theft, malfea­sance and drug pos­ses­sion. Pros­e­cu­tors said he stole prop­erty, drugs and money from the evi­dence room.

Inves­ti­ga­tors report­edly found some of the items at his home, includ­ing a lap­top com­puter, fish­ing poles and iPods.

Tay­lor was charged with sev­eral counts of drug pos­ses­sion after detec­tives report­edly found more than 3,000 pills in a safe in his office.

Carter pre­vi­ously sen­tenced Tay­lor to five years in prison on each count, but sus­pended the time. He ordered Tay­lor to make monthly pay­ments of $400 toward the balance.

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Infor­ma­tion from: Amer­i­can Press, http://www.americanpress.com

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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.

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