IAPE Evidence Blog

Muskegon Chron­i­cle (Michi­gan) SECTION: A; Pg.
BYLINE: HEATHER LYNN PETERS

Muskegon Heights, MI

MUSKEGON HEIGHTS — While author­i­ties can’t pin­point a date, it’s safe to say the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion of the Muskegon Heights Police Depart­ment won’t be wrap­ping up any time soon.

That’s accord­ing to the lead inves­ti­ga­tor, State Police Detec­tive Lt. Curt Schram, who said Wednes­day that author­i­ties still are whit­tling away at a moun­tain of paper­work that involves the unor­ga­nized con­di­tion of the department’s evi­dence room and appar­ent miss­ing money from the department.

“It’s still ongo­ing and we’re still secur­ing addi­tional doc­u­ments as it relates to this inves­ti­ga­tion,” Schram said.

He declined to say more about the case, but wanted to be clear that no “city gov­ern­ment” offi­cials are “involved in this at all.”

Schram said that City Man­ager Natasha Hen­der­son, Mayor Dar­rell Paige and Police Chief Lynne Gill “have been very cooperative.”

The inves­ti­ga­tion into the police depart­ment began in April after then-acting Police Chief Ron Rake alerted author­i­ties to the unor­ga­nized con­di­tion of the department’s evi­dence room and indi­cated money appeared to be missing.

Rake — who was brought in as interim chief after the unex­pected Nov. 1 death of Chief Clifton John­son — has since resigned and now works as a deputy for the Muskegon County Sheriff’s office.

Author­i­ties haven’t dis­closed how much money they believe is miss­ing from the evi­dence room which, Muskegon County Pros­e­cu­tor Tony Tague said, was in “com­plete dis­ar­ray” when the inves­ti­ga­tion began.

The amount of evi­dence crammed in the department’s prop­erty room — includ­ing money, weapons and drugs — was “over­whelm­ing,” built up from lit­er­ally “hun­dreds of cases,” Tague has said.

E-mail: hpeters@muskegonchronicle.com

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

FOX 40 wicz.com
Link to Arti­cle
Link to Video

John­son City, NY

For maybe as long as ten years, more than 100 thou­sand dol­lars has been sit­ting idly in a box in the evi­dence room at the John­son City Police Station.

An inves­ti­ga­tions as to how the money got there and why it’s been sit­ting untouched for so long has been on-going and Mayor Den­nis Han­non says so far there is no evi­dence of any wrong­do­ing.
Han­non says he’s upset because the nearly 130 grand, which most likely came through drug arrests, could have been used for equip­ment and pro­grams for the department.

As for who’s to blame, Han­non stopped just short of pin­ning it on for­mer Police Chief Dou­glas Potts

Cer­tainly a fail­ure of the for­mer lead­er­ship and that could be more than one indi­vid­ual as well, but of course as we know, the buck stops with the chief,” Han­non said.

Han­non would not say if this issue had any­thing to do with the sus­pen­sion and ulti­mate retire­ment of Potts.

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

wxyz.com
BYLINE: Tom Wait
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

High­land Park, MI

City of High­land Park

City offi­cials are under investigation

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (WXYZ) — Action News has learned that almost $11,000 in cash was stolen from an evi­dence room inside High­land Park City Hall. Our sources tell us the Wayne County Sher­iff is inves­ti­gat­ing whether it was an inside job.

The money was reported miss­ing back in Decem­ber of 2008 – we’re told it was cash seized in con­nec­tion with cases involv­ing drugs.

The city’s mayor, Hubert Yopp, con­firms an inves­ti­ga­tion is under­way, but won’t say who is being inves­ti­gated or what was stolen. Yopp is not sus­pected of any wrong­do­ing because the money was reported miss­ing before he took office.

We’ve also learned that sev­eral city offi­cials are tak­ing poly­graph tests. The mayor says he will not con­firm or deny whether that is true.

The evi­dence room does not have any sur­veil­lance cam­eras or a com­put­er­ized entry sys­tem, so there is no way to track who enters and leaves the room. Mayor Yopp says he is work­ing with the Michi­gan State Police to install secu­rity systems.

So far there have been no arrests in this inves­ti­ga­tion. Stay with Action News for updates. 

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