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

Braden­ton Hearld, bradenton.com
BYLINE: LAURA C. MOREL — lmorel@bradenton.com
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Man­a­tee County, FL

MANATEE — A Man­a­tee County Sheriff’s Office prop­erty clerk resigned late last month after he was arrested for tak­ing money from a bag at the jail, accord­ing to a pro­fes­sional stan­dards investigation.

On Aug. 19, Gammahl Pierre-Louis was arrested on drug charges. Detec­tives found money on Pierre-Louis. They counted, orga­nized and stacked the cash and placed it into an enve­lope inside a bag, doc­u­ments show. The total amount: $1,902.

Clerk Fred­er­ick Rober­son was work­ing when detec­tives entered the jail with Pierre-Louis and his property.

Video sur­veil­lance cap­tured a deputy plac­ing the bag on the win­dow ledge of the prop­erty unit.

Rober­son then removes the bag from the ledge and takes it inside the prop­erty unit where he is work­ing alone, doc­u­ments show.

Moments later, he places the bag back on the win­dow ledge.

When deputies counted the money again, $300 were missing.

When Rober­son was informed about the miss­ing cash, he placed the crum­pled bills on the win­dow ledge, doc­u­ments show, and told the deputies the money was inside Pierre-Louis’s shoe.

But accord­ing to his arrest report, Pierre-Louis’s clothes were placed in a sep­a­rate bag as deputies placed the other bag con­tain­ing the money on the win­dow ledge.

Rober­son, of Ruskin, told a pro­fes­sional stan­dards inves­ti­ga­tor “sev­eral dif­fer­ent expla­na­tions on the where­abouts of the miss­ing money,” his arrest report says.

The inves­ti­ga­tion began Jan. 27.

On Jan. 30, Rober­son was placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave with pay “pend­ing the result of this case,” doc­u­ments show.

On Feb. 3, Rober­son, 37, was arrested and booked into the Sara­sota County jail on a war­rant. He was charged with grand theft, Man­a­tee court records show, and posted $10,000 bond seven days later.

On Feb. 22, Rober­son resigned. He worked at the sheriff’s office since 1996, said spokesman Dave Bristow.

Inves­ti­ga­tors found Rober­son guilty of con­duct unbe­com­ing of an employee. He could have faced between five days of sus­pen­sion and ter­mi­na­tion, doc­u­ments show.

He resigned before the sheriff’s office could decide on any dis­ci­pli­nary action, Bris­tow said.

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