IAPE Evidence Blog

Con­tra Costa Times, Bay Area News Group, www.mercurynews.com
BYLINE: Robert Salonga and Malaika Fra­ley
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Con­tra Costa County, CA

MARTINEZ — Pub­lic defend­ers on Thurs­day quickly moved to re-examine cases against their clients after the arrests of a Con­tra Costa County drug task force chief and a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor accused of run­ning a narcotics-selling scheme, pos­si­bly with con­fis­cated drugs.

The arrest of Nor­man Wielsch, com­man­der of the state’s Cen­tral Con­tra Costa Nar­cotics Enforce­ment Team, or CNET, could have far-reaching ram­i­fi­ca­tions in supe­rior and appel­late courts, said Con­tra Costa County Pub­lic Defender Robin Lipet­zky. The arrest not only calls into ques­tion the cred­i­bil­ity and integrity of Wielsch as an indi­vid­ual, she said, but also that of the task force as an inves­tiga­tive body and the guardian of pros­e­cu­tion evidence.

“Was he moti­vated by a desire to con­fis­cate as much drugs as he could so he could turn around and sell them? Was he writ­ing false police reports? Was he exag­ger­at­ing in police reports? You have to ques­tion every­thing in a CNET inves­ti­ga­tion,” Lipet­zky said. “You also have to won­der when it’s the top cop of the inves­ti­ga­tion that’s a crooked cop, what did oth­ers in CNET know?”

Wielsch and Chris But­ler, who runs the inves­tiga­tive firm But­ler and Asso­ciates, were arrested together in Beni­cia by fed­eral agents Wednes­day morn­ing after an under­cover inves­ti­ga­tion that began in Jan­u­ary, said Depart­ment of Jus­tice spe­cial agent Michelle Gregory.

Both men were booked into County Jail in Mar­tinez on as many as 25 sus­pected felony offenses, includ­ing pos­sess­ing, trans­port­ing and sell­ing mar­i­juana, metham­phet­a­mine and steroids, and embez­zle­ment, second-degree bur­glary and con­spir­acy. Dis­trict Attor­ney Mark Peter­son said his office will likely decide whether to file charges Friday.

Deputy pub­lic defend­ers on Thurs­day began request­ing police reports sur­round­ing Wielsch’s arrest dur­ing court appear­ances for clients arrested by CNET.

“At this point, this is mate­r­ial we are enti­tled to because it could impact the integrity of the inves­ti­ga­tion of any open case,” Lipet­zky said.

She said she is wait­ing to hear details about the alle­ga­tions against Wielsch before assess­ing how his arrest would affect past CNET cases. The fur­ther back crim­i­nal activ­ity is alleged to have occurred, the more cases would be affected. The pub­lic defender said she is pre­pared to have the office revisit cases from years back at a time when staff time and resources are already scarce.

“It could lead to any num­ber of motions, appeals, requests to resen­tence,” Lipet­zky said. “Until we know what we are talk­ing about, it’s dif­fi­cult to say.

“These are the more seri­ous drug cases in the county,” she said. “We are not talk­ing about indi­vid­ual users or small-time dealers.”

Gre­gory said it appears that Wielsch and But­ler were the only ones involved in the alleged oper­a­tion, and that this is the first time a DOJ nar­cotics agent has been arrested for sell­ing drugs.

While Wielsch awaits pros­e­cu­tion, Gre­gory said a spe­cial agent-in-charge will tem­porar­ily over­see CNET. In the mean­time, Wielsch is on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave.

The arrests have also spurred sen­ti­ments from police around the county urg­ing the pub­lic not to dis­trust law enforce­ment for the actions of the few.

“Every once in a while (offi­cers) make mis­takes, some of them big and some of them small. But when they do they have to pay for it just like every­one else. Peo­ple should have the utmost con­fi­dence in their police offi­cers and depart­ment,” said Wal­nut Creek police Chief Joel Bryden.

Wielsch, a 49-year-old Anti­och res­i­dent, is being held on $660,000 bail. But­ler, 49, of Con­cord, is being held on $840,000 bail. They are both for­mer vet­eran Anti­och police offi­cers who worked in the nar­cotics divi­sion and left that agency in the late 1990s. Sev­eral sources say But­ler resigned after fac­ing ter­mi­na­tion for insubordination.

DOJ agents began inves­ti­gat­ing Wielsch and But­ler in Jan­u­ary after receiv­ing a tip about poten­tial drug sales, Gre­gory said.

Reac­tion from sev­eral for­mer col­leagues of Wielsch’s from his days as an Anti­och offi­cer were gen­er­ally crit­i­cal of the CNET head and what they called his brash and reck­less style of police work. Wielsch’s attor­ney took excep­tion to them speak­ing anonymously.

“This is an offi­cer with a stel­lar rep­u­ta­tion and a stel­lar career,” said Wal­nut Creek-based attor­ney Michael Car­doza. “This is hor­ri­bly sad for every­body involved.”

A man and woman at Wielsch’s Anti­och home Thurs­day declined to com­ment to a reporter and slammed the door.

Since news of the arrests sur­faced, the web­site for But­ler and Asso­ciates, which But­ler has led since 2002, has been taken down.

But­ler made a name for him­self as the head of his pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tions firm, recently for shep­herd­ing a group of mothers-turned-investigators dubbed “PI Moms” that made the national talk show cir­cuit last year.

“He built his busi­ness on lies and decep­tion,” said Carl Marino, an inves­ti­ga­tor who answered an ad and joined Butler’s firm two years ago after 17 years as a deputy sher­iff in Mon­roe County, N.Y.

But­ler had once unsuc­cess­fully tried to develop a real­ity tele­vi­sion show based on his firm, Marino said, and then aroused a producer’s inter­est with the con­cept of the “PI Moms.” A show about them was set to air in the spring, accord­ing to their web­site, but Butler’s arrest could scut­tle it.

“He set up elab­o­rate stings to catch sub­jects in (bad) behav­ior,” Marino said. “Some of that was cre­ated for the media.”

Pacheco res­i­dent Tom Cudd turned to But­ler and Asso­ciates for help find­ing his miss­ing daugh­ter and liked Marino, but said But­ler was there strictly for glad-handing. The “PI Moms” actu­ally got involved in his case, a move both Cudd and Marino believe was made to bol­ster their prospec­tive real­ity show.

“I got the feel­ing he was a used-car dealer sales guy,” Cudd said. “Quick talker, smooth talker, flashy guy. I wouldn’t play poker with him.”

Marino said though he dis­agreed with Butler’s meth­ods, he con­tin­ued work­ing for him because he liked the inves­tiga­tive work and found cer­tain cases, such as his role in find­ing Tom Cudd’s miss­ing daugh­ter, reward­ing enough to stay on. And even though he is now out of a job — at least he thinks so — he does not sym­pa­thize with his soon-to-be-ex-boss.

“He was a mas­ter of decep­tion,” Marino said. “I felt like his whole busi­ness was decep­tion, and he didn’t care who he hurt in the process, and ended up hurt­ing a lot of people.

“He kind of got what he deserved.”

Staff writer Elis­a­beth Nardi con­tributed to this report. Con­tact Robert Salonga at 925 – 943-8013 or rsalonga@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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

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Bak­ers­field, CA

Remem­ber that huge cock­fight­ing ring busted in Bak­ers­field in Novem­ber? Scores of par­tic­i­pants fled the scene when author­i­ties showed up. As for the roost­ers, they were sup­posed to be cared for at the site, but they’ve appar­ently flown the coop.

At the time of the inves­ti­ga­tion, the prop­erty owner where the cock­fight­ing oper­a­tion was being held was court ordered to keep and main­tain the birds dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion. Yet when deputies showed up a day later the birds were missing.

It was the largest cock­fight­ing oper­a­tion Sheriff’s deputies ever busted. 300 live birds were found along with ten dead ones. Also, $10,000 was seized and five peo­ple were cited for ani­mal cruelty.

Yet months later no charges have been filed, the birds have gone miss­ing and now a strange twist. When we went to the prop­erty we didn’t find empty cages. In fact, they were full of birds. Yet Sheriff’s offi­cials said these aren’t the right ones.

“The day after the search war­rant was served Ani­mal Con­trol responded out to the prop­erty to check on the birds and found that the birds had been removed from the prop­erty,” said Ray Pruitt, Sheriff’s spokesperson.

It is still unclear who stole the fowl and why.

“Pos­si­bly some of the indi­vid­u­als who owned some of the birds came back and took the birds from the prop­erty. At this point, we don’t know,” said Pruitt.

And why haven’t the sus­pects been charged yet?

“At this point the case is with the DA’s office” said Pruitt.

But when we spoke to the Dis­trict Attorney’s office we got this response. “You’re going to have to talk to law enforce­ment about that. Until your reporter con­tacted me 45 min­utes ago I had no knowl­edge of this case,” said Super­vis­ing Deputy Dis­trict Attor­ney, Michael Yraceburn.

So, now there is also miss­ing paper­work. If it all gets sorted out, how will miss­ing evi­dence [birds] affect this case?

“Each case has to be weighed by the evi­dence that is gath­ered by law enforce­ment so I can’t make a judg­ment on what the strength of the evi­dence is,” said Yraceburn.

Yet Sheriff’s offi­cials said even with­out the birds they have enough enough evi­dence to move the case forward.

“We wouldn’t be in a posi­tion to take 300 birds in a court­room to present as evi­dence in any case, so the birds were iden­ti­fied, pho­tographed and there is still evi­den­ciary value,” said Yraceburn.

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

The Times-Tribune, STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
BYLINE: Erin L. Niss­ley, The Times-Tribune, Scran­ton, Pa.

Scran­ton, PA

July 08 – A for­mer Scran­ton detec­tive who admit­ted steal­ing more than $8,400 from a police evi­dence room was sen­tenced Wednes­day to serve four months to two years in prison.

Lack­awanna County Judge Vito Ger­oulo said he will allow Leonard F. Ash Jr., 42, of 3015 Jones St., to serve the first two months in the county’s work release pro­gram and another two months on house arrest. Mr. Ash’s attor­ney, Matthew Com­er­ford, said he would file a motion for recon­sid­er­a­tion of the sentence.

“The DA’s office said they didn’t oppose a sen­tence of pro­ba­tion,” Mr. Com­er­ford said. “I’m dis­ap­pointed in the sen­tence he received.”

Mr. Ash and his father left the cour­t­house with­out com­ment­ing to The Times-Tribune on Wednes­day. But in court, Mr. Ash told Judge Ger­oulo that he had been a police offi­cer all his life and was very sorry for what he had done.

In April, Mr. Ash pleaded guilty to theft by unlaw­ful tak­ing and admit­ted he stole more than $8,400, which had been seized in a 2001 drug inves­ti­ga­tion. The theft was dis­cov­ered in the sum­mer of 2009, when dis­trict attorney’s office staffers dis­cov­ered blank paper instead of cash inside the case’s evi­dence enve­lope, accord­ing to court records.

In court Wednes­day, Judge Ger­oulo said Mr. Ash pre­vi­ously explained that he stole the money because he had not been get­ting as much over­time as he had in the past. The judge admon­ished the for­mer detec­tive, say­ing his actions “cast a shadow on other drug investigations.” 

“He received a very good plea deal,” the judge said. “This sen­tence must pro­vide a deter­rent … to those sim­i­larly tempted.”

Mr. Ash was fired in March, accord­ing to Scran­ton police officials.

As part of his sen­tence, Mr. Ash will also have to serve 200 hours of com­mu­nity ser­vice and repay the money he stole.

He will report to the work release pro­gram July 14, Judge Ger­oulo said.

Con­tact the writer: enissley@timesshamrock.com

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