IAPE Evidence Blog

NorthJersey.com, northjersey.com, Neigh­bor News (Denville Edi­tion)
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Denville, NJ

Eugene Blood, 38, a for­mer Denville Police offi­cer, has plead guilty to one count of offi­cial mis­con­duct, by admit­ting he unlaw­fully obtained the key to the department’s evi­dence room and stole drugs for his per­sonal use, reported Mor­ris County Pros­e­cu­tor Robert A. Bianchi, Esq. on a Nov. 30.

The inves­ti­ga­tion con­ducted by the Mor­ris County Prosecutor’s Office Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards Unit and the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment, revealed that Blood, who had been with the depart­ment since Jan­u­ary of 2003, began tak­ing the drugs while he served as the department’s evi­dence cus­to­dian in 2007, and con­tin­ued after he was re-assigned to patrol duties by using a stolen key.

Accord­ing to the Mor­ris County Prosecutor’s Office, Blood has accepted the state’s offer of three years New Jer­sey State Prison with a manda­tory period of parole inel­i­gi­bil­ity of two years.

He has also for­feited his posi­tion with the police depart­ment and any right to a pub­lic pen­sion and is barred from future pub­lic employment.

“This plea strikes the bal­ance of severely pun­ish­ing this con­duct, but also takes into con­sid­er­a­tion that the defen­dant imme­di­ately accepted respon­si­bil­ity for his actions,” said Bianchi. “Blood has lost his job and pro­fes­sion, will serve a min­i­mum of two to five years in state prison and is for­ever barred from future pub­lic employ­ment. This case sadly demon­strates how drug addic­tion, and the havoc an addic­tions causes, unfor­tu­nately exists at all lev­els of society.”

Bianchi also reit­er­ated that the Denville Police Depart­ment should be “applauded in how they han­dled this dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion and I con­tinue to have the utmost con­fi­dence in the Denville Town­ship Police Department.”

“This [sit­u­a­tion] demon­strated the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment is not only an eth­i­cal and well run depart­ment, but also shows that they will not tol­er­ate mis­con­duct,” Bianchi said. “To be clear, this mat­ter is lim­ited to this one offi­cer, and is by no means a reflec­tion of the Denville Town­ship Police Department.

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

www.floridatoday.com, floridatoday.com
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One Video

Cop’s depar­ture after alleged drug thefts causes stir in
Dec. 1, 2011

West Mel­bourne, FL

Retiree accused of lift­ing drugs but never charged

Sur­veil­lance video: Retired West Mel­bourne cop in …: In this sur­veil­lance video, retired West Mel­bourne Police Com­man­der Charles Schrum is seen tak­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs with­out per­mis­sion from the Police Dep­tart­ment prop­erty and evi­dence room in June 2009. Pro­vided, posted Nov. 30, 2011 FOR FLORIDA TODAY

WEST MELBOURNE — By all pub­lic accounts at the time, for­mer West Mel­bourne police com­man­der Charles Schrum retired from the city on a med­ical dis­abil­ity and his posi­tion was elim­i­nated among more than a dozen cuts and lay­offs in 2009.

Few peo­ple knew that the 20-year police depart­ment vet­eran had been wit­nessed by fel­low police offi­cers tak­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs from the department’s evi­dence room twice in a three-day period, a report shows.

Pub­lic records, released Wednes­day as a result of a FLORIDA TODAY request, indi­cate Schrum admit­ted to con­sum­ing the drugs because he was suf­fer­ing from an addic­tion to pain pills. But Schrum was never arrested, never faced crim­i­nal charges and now receives a monthly pen­sion of $3,245.

West Mel­bourne Police Chief Brian Lock inves­ti­gated the alleged drug theft and reviewed it with top offi­cials at the State Attorney’s Office, who deter­mined the case couldn’t be prosecuted.

Within days of the inci­dents, Schrum applied for dis­abil­ity for unre­lated med­ical mat­ters. That was approved and he received dis­abil­ity ben­e­fits until his retire­ment was offi­cial in January.

But Lock didn’t tell West Mel­bourne City Coun­cil mem­bers — his direct super­vi­sors — and that has the well-respected police chief whose catch phrase has always been “I love my job” in hot water today.

“I think it’s out­ra­geous. I think we should expect more from our police chief,” said West Mel­bourne Coun­cil­man Michael Hazlett, who is call­ing on Lock to resign and for a fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. Hazlett and the chief have had an ongo­ing bat­tle over Hazlett’s attempt to cut the department’s budget.

“Our city has made so many won­der­ful strides. And I have to talk to peo­ple about our old­est employee in the city mak­ing bad judg­ments. It’s really disturbing.”

FLORIDA TODAY couldn’t reach Schrum for com­ment. But Lock, con­tacted Wednes­day, said he stands by his decision.

“I had a cri­sis on my hand. I was wear­ing my HR hat and didn’t know what I was deal­ing with. I was try­ing to do the right thing as an employer,” he said.

Con­cerns about Schrum resur­faced about two weeks ago when an anony­mous let­ter alleg­ing the thefts was sent to Hazlett’s Palm Bay business.

Hazlett for­warded the let­ter to City Man­ager Scott Mor­gan and City Attor­ney Jim Wil­son to be inves­ti­gated. Mor­gan asked Lock about the mat­ter. Lock con­firmed that Schrum had admit­ted to tak­ing drugs from the evi­dence room.

City offi­cials also con­tacted the Florida Depart­ment of Law Enforce­ment. FDLE reviewed the reports pro­vided from city offi­cials, but is not con­duct­ing a fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion, spokes­woman Susie Mur­phy said.

“We felt it had already been inves­ti­gated,” she said, refer­ring to Lock and Assis­tant Police Chief Mike Czernik’s review of the mat­ter immediately.

Evi­dence on tape

Accord­ing to the police report gen­er­ated at the time, Sup­port Ser­vice & Police Tech­nol­ogy Direc­tor Mike Helms was mak­ing rou­tine checks of the department’s sur­veil­lance cam­eras on June 18, 2009, when he noticed the cam­era in the evi­dence room was point­ing toward the ceiling.

Helms reviewed older seg­ments and found video of Schrum enter­ing the evi­dence room the pre­vi­ous morn­ing, putting his hand over the cam­era and point­ing it toward the ceil­ing. The tape also shows Schrum leav­ing the room after putting some­thing in his pocket.

After review­ing the tapes, Czernik entered the evi­dence room with another detec­tive on June 19, 2009, and found evi­dence bags appeared to have been moved.

About an hour later, Schrum again entered the evi­dence room, this time as the video was being viewed by Czernik and Helms. Schrum, accord­ing to the inves­tiga­tive reports, moved some items around, left momen­tar­ily and returned with a cart, which he loaded with pre­scrip­tion drugs.

Schrum, the report says, was tak­ing the cart of drugs down the hall to a bath­room when Czernik stopped him and ordered him to return the drugs. Accord­ing to the reports, Schrum admit­ted to Helms and later Lock that he took the drugs and he “needed help.”

Inci­dent reports

Lock said he con­tacted the State Attorney’s Office by phone shortly after the inci­dents. But the first doc­u­mented con­tact between Lock and the State Attorney’s Office was a con­fi­den­tial report filed Sept. 16.

That memo from Lock to Assis­tant State Attor­ney Wayne Holmes indi­cates Lock and Helms took Schrum to Cir­cles of Care. Lock wrote that Schrum esti­mated he had taken more than 60 pills that week.

Holmes and city offi­cials said the alleged drug theft did not impact any crim­i­nal cases. All of the drugs thought to be taken by Schrum were from peo­ple who had died nat­u­rally, but unat­tended by a doc­tor. Police, Holmes said, often are called to a scene and col­lect med­ica­tions as a part of their investigation.

Holmes said Wednes­day there were sev­eral issues that pre­vented the case from being pros­e­cuted suc­cess­fully. Among them was the fact Schrum was admit­ting the theft to his bosses and case law pre­vents that from being used against a pub­lic employee in a crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. “The bot­tom line is you only have sus­pi­cion, but for his com­pelled state­ments, which you can’t use,” Holmes said.

In most cases, law enforce­ment agen­cies con­duct their own inves­ti­ga­tions when employ­ees are sus­pected of com­mit­ting a crime, Holmes said. “Twenty-twenty hind­sight polit­i­cally, he prob­a­bly should have asked for some other agency to look into it, dot­ted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s,” Holmes said. “And you don’t have issues like this com­ing up two years after the fact.”

City lead­ers ques­tion, how­ever, why more was not done administratively.Lock said he did not tell city offi­cials about the case because West Mel­bourne was going through a “tumul­tuous” time with an out­go­ing city man­ager. And Lock claims, the sit­u­a­tion with Schrum had been “stabilized.”

Schrum went to a reha­bil­i­ta­tion facil­ity out of state, Lock said. Lock claims the city could not have had a ter­mi­na­tion hear­ing dur­ing that time and would have been vio­lat­ing Schrum’s due process to fire him with­out one. “We would be defend­ing a law­suit now that he would win,” he said.

Con­tact Cer­venka at 321 – 242-3632 or scervenka@floridatoday.com.

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

The Gazette (Hawthorne Edi­tion), North Jer­sey Media Group, NorthJersey.com
BYLINE: JUSTIN ZAREMBA STAFF WRITER
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Hale­don, NJ

Supe­rior Court judge dis­misses admin­is­tra­tive charges against the chief

Hale­don Police Chief Louis Mer­curo is back at work after a judge dis­missed charges against him. NICK MESSINA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Hale­don

Police Chief Louis Mer­curo was rein­stated after a Supe­rior Court judge dis­missed admin­is­tra­tive charges against him fol­low­ing a two-year sus­pen­sion and pub­li­cized legal fight.

Mer­curo, a 32-year vet­eran of the Hale­don Police Depart­ment, was sus­pended on admin­is­tra­tive charges on June 5, 2009, the day after he accused a mem­ber of the Hale­don Coun­cil of being under inves­ti­ga­tion for cocaine use in a the­atri­cal dis­play at a town meet­ing. Mer­curo was ini­tially sus­pended with­out pay, but a court order later amended his sus­pen­sion to include pay.

Judge Thomas J. La Conte agreed with Mercuro’s attor­neys on Oct. 14 that the bor­ough had no cod­i­fied process for how to hear dis­ci­pli­nary charges against a police chief and that Richard Cush­ing, the hear­ing offi­cer assigned to decide the case, had a con­flict of inter­est because he pre­vi­ously rep­re­sented the bor­ough as an attor­ney in other matters.

Mercuro’s attor­ney, Stu­art Alter­man, said his client had already resumed his position.

“Today is a good day for Louis Mer­curo,” Alter­man said. “He has resumed his posi­tion as chief. He’s sit­ting behind his desk right now and request­ing the sta­tus of all cases over the last 24 months.”

Mer­curo was unavail­able for com­ment, but his wife, Nancy, said she was “pleased” with the news.

Mayor Domenick Stam­pone said the bor­ough would adhere to the rul­ing, adding that he was still wait­ing for a detailed review of the decision.

“We obvi­ously will abide by what­ever the judge says to do,” Stam­pone said. “We haven’t made any deci­sion as to what we will do but we are con­sid­er­ing our options includ­ing an appeal.”

Ear­lier this year, Mercuro’s fed­eral law­suit against the bor­ough for the alleged vio­la­tion of his civil rights was delayed pend­ing the res­o­lu­tion of his dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing. Alter­man said he planned to amend the suit “to reflect what occurred today” and would seek “com­pen­satory and puni­tive dam­ages and other such relief that would be entitled.”

Alter­man added that he would invoice the bor­ough for his attor­ney fees, inves­ti­ga­tion costs and other fees.

Dur­ing the June 4, 2009 meet­ing, Mer­curo claimed he was approached by inves­ti­ga­tors from police agen­cies in 2008 who were look­ing into cocaine use among mem­bers of the coun­cil. Mer­curo alleged he was shown a sworn affi­davit from a local bar owner who related going to New York City in a chauf­feured lim­ou­sine with two mem­bers of the coun­cil at the time. Var­i­ous law enforce­ment agen­cies includ­ing the Pas­saic County Prosecutor’s Office have stated the claims were invalid.

Mer­curo refused to pub­licly name the coun­cil mem­ber at the June 4, 2009 coun­cil meet­ing or in sub­se­quent inter­views, but he later alleged in his fed­eral law­suit against the bor­ough that Coun­cil­woman Heather Kilmin­ster and for­mer Coun­cil­man Alan Souto, who was impris­oned in 2009, were under inves­ti­ga­tion for cocaine use by State Police and the FBI.

Souto, a for­mer Pas­saic County Sheriff’s offi­cer, pleaded guilty to steal­ing 100 pounds of cocaine and heroin from an evi­dence locker at the Pas­saic County Sheriff’s Office and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a drug dis­tri­b­u­tion ring along with Henry Cortes, a box­ing man­ager from Pater­son who was respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing the drugs to the streets of Pater­son. Cortes and Kendall Holt, a for­mer boxer, of Wood­land Park both pleaded guilty to their roles in the drug ring.

In his fed­eral law­suit against the bor­ough, Mer­curo alleges that coun­cil mem­bers also inter­fered with his inves­ti­ga­tion of sev­eral local bars includ­ing Jimmy Geez, The Bel­mont Tav­ern and Celebri­ties Cafe for vio­lat­ing town ordi­nances and serv­ing alco­hol to minors. Mer­curo fur­ther claims that a week prior to the June 4, 2009 coun­cil meet­ing, Kilmin­ster and Coun­cil­man Rey Mar­tinez wanted to ter­mi­nate his employ­ment with­out suf­fi­cient basis.

Mar­tinez has pre­vi­ously denied Mercuro’s alle­ga­tions, while Kilmin­ster has refused to comment.

In May 2010, Kilmin­ster filed a law­suit against Mer­curo and the bor­ough alleg­ing sex­ual harass­ment, slan­der and libel. Alter­man said Kilminster’s law­suit was “frivolous.”

E-mail: zaremba@northjersey.com

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