IAPE Evidence Blog

The Repos­i­tory, CantonRep.com, cantonrep.com
BYLINE: Lori Mon­sewicz CantonRep.com staff writer
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Can­ton, OH

CANTON — Sev­eral pounds of cocaine from a 2007 crim­i­nal case are miss­ing from the Can­ton Police Department’s Prop­erty Room, prompt­ing an inter­nal investigation.

Chief Dean McKimm said Wednes­day he asked the FBI to assist and that some police depart­ment employ­ees may be given a poly­graph test.

John Dysart, super­vi­sory senior res­i­dent agent in charge of the Can­ton FBI office, con­firmed McKimm’s request.

“He asked if we could help with a few things so they could sort it out,” Dysart said. “He asked if we could lend a hand.”

The miss­ing cocaine is already spoiled.

McKimm said offi­cers hop­ing to use some of it months ago for K-9 train­ing found it “ran­cid” and not useable.

Then again, McKimm said, the cocaine just may have been dis­carded with the trash.

“I don’t have any evi­dence that any­thing ille­gal was done,” he said. “One pos­si­bil­ity is that it just got straight thrown away with some other trash gen­er­ated by the destruc­tion process.”

Offi­cers dis­cov­ered about a week ago that the box con­tain­ing pos­si­bly four or five kilos — about 9 to 11 pounds  — was miss­ing. McKimm could not imme­di­ately recall the case linked to the cocaine.

The offi­cers had been prepar­ing for a “prop­erty destruc­tion” dur­ing which police receiv­ing a court release are per­mit­ted to destroy old evi­dence no longer needed in crim­i­nal cases. How it’s destroyed depends on the type of evi­dence, McKimm said.

“Cocaine and drugs are usu­ally burned, guns are melted, paper is shred­ded and then dis­carded,” he said.

Usu­ally, the effort involves the use of an incin­er­a­tor at a local factory.

The evi­dence in the prop­erty room is inven­to­ried and moved to a loca­tion where it can be pre­pared for destruc­tion, the chief said.

Typ­i­cally, some items are con­sol­i­dated into boxes while the boxes they had been in become trash and are discarded.

“What I believe is the prop­erty was mis­han­dled and pos­si­bly thrown away with some of the trash that was dis­carded dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion for the destruc­tion,” McKimm said.

“But we have to cover all the bases, and we’re cer­tainly going to inves­ti­gate so that we can elim­i­nate any pos­si­bil­ity of any crim­i­nal activ­ity by any officer.”

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

Hearst Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Inc., Times Union, timesunion.com
BYLINE: Bren­dan J. Lyons
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Albany, NY

ALBANY — An Albany police offi­cer was sus­pended Mon­day as depart­ment offi­cials inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions he took fire­works from a dri­ver dur­ing a traf­fic stop.

The 43-year-old offi­cer, Tin­daro J. Fazio, is a 13-year vet­eran of the force. He’s alleged to have con­fis­cated the fire­works about 10 days ago. Part of the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is exam­in­ing whether Fazio declined to fol­low a sergeant’s orders that he place the fire­works in a police prop­erty room, where they would be logged as evi­dence, accord­ing to two peo­ple with knowl­edge of the probe.

It’s unclear if the offi­cer doc­u­mented the traf­fic stop or his seizure of the fireworks.

James Miller, a depart­ment spokesman, con­firmed that an offi­cer was sus­pended Mon­day and an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is under way. He declined addi­tional comment.

Fazio is assigned to a patrol at the department’s Cen­ter Sta­tion on West­ern Avenue.

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

Peo­ria Jour­nal Star, pjstar.com
BYLINE: ANDY KRAVETZ (akravetz@pjstar.com) of the Jour­nal Star
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Peo­ria, IL

PEORIA — A for­mer FBI agent was sen­tenced Tues­day to five months in prison for lying to his supe­ri­ors about $43,643 that came up miss­ing dur­ing a drug inves­ti­ga­tion two years ago.

Jerry Nau, who worked as a U.S. mar­shal and with the FBI since 1992, apol­o­gized for his actions, say­ing there wasn’t a sin­gle day he didn’t regret what happened.

“I worked my whole life to be a super­vi­sory spe­cial agent. Every­thing I have worked for is gone,” he said, tak­ing deep breaths and lean­ing on the lectern. “But I am not a quit­ter. I will rebuild myself.”

Nau, 44, a 1985 Lime­stone Com­mu­nity High School grad­u­ate, apol­o­gized to his for­mer col­leagues, more than two dozen of whom filled the rear of the courtroom.

“It is a sad day when an agent of the FBI may be sen­tenced to prison, but it would be even sad­der if law enforce­ment were not held account­able when they them­selves engage in crim­i­nal behav­ior,” said U.S. Dis­trict Judge James Shadid.

The sen­tence included a five-month period of home con­fine­ment and required resti­tu­tion of $43,645.

And in an unusual move, Sha­did ordered Nau taken into cus­tody imme­di­ately. White-collar offend­ers often are allowed to vol­un­tar­ily sur­ren­der a few weeks later, but not Nau, who removed his gold tie, said his good­byes and walked out with U.S. mar­shals behind him.

That said, fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors sent a clear message.

“(Nau) is not just a white-collar crim­i­nal who’s going to get to go home to cel­e­brate Christ­mas and then report to prison,” said Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney James War­den, a pros­e­cu­tor from Indi­ana assigned to the case given Nau’s ties to fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors in Peoria.

Defense attor­ney Jef­frey Flana­gan told Sha­did that Nau’s actions were an anom­aly. He pointed to his client’s com­plete lack of crim­i­nal his­tory and nearly 20 years of ser­vice to the United States as evi­dence Nau deserved probation.

But pros­e­cu­tors sought a prison term of about a year. Sha­did admit­ted his sen­tence would likely have detrac­tors on both sides but said it took into account the crime as well as Nau’s past.

Nau pleaded guilty in August to one count of mak­ing and using a false doc­u­ment. He faced up to five years in prison, though given his lack of any crim­i­nal his­tory, that was highly unlikely.

Nau’s plea agree­ment states he “pan­icked” and didn’t know what to do. Nau told offi­cials “he sim­ply hoped the money would turn up.”

He wasn’t charged with tak­ing the money and has said he didn’t. War­den told the judge Nau’s story about pan­ick­ing was “incredible.”

“What hap­pened is, he stole the money, and per­haps he planned to cover that decep­tion up with his own money,” he said.

The money was from the inves­ti­ga­tion of Adrian Robin­son, who was sen­tenced to life in prison last year. Nau tes­ti­fied at trial the money was in an evi­dence vault when, in fact, it was already missing.

The charge stemmed from a June 30, 2010, fax where Nau told his bosses the money was in the vault and sent them a receipt and forged the sig­na­tures of two other agents.

Andy Kravetz can be reached at 686‑3283 or akravetz@pjstar.com.

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