IAPE Evidence Blog

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BYLINE: Gina Dam­ron, Free Press Staff Writer

East Pon­tiac, MI

The Troy Police Depart­ment is con­duct­ing an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into how $40,000 in drug for­fei­ture funds dis­ap­peared from a locked safe some­time between 2005 and Jan­u­ary, when the money was dis­cov­ered missing.

“It’s either miss­ing, mis­placed, at best,” Capt. Gerry Scher­linck said today. “At worse, it’s been stolen.”

He said the safe, which gen­er­ally only two high-ranking com­mand offi­cers would have access to, was opened in Jan­u­ary, in part, so its con­tents could be audited for the first time since 2005.

But the cash — used to buy drugs in nar­cotics and spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tions — was gone.

After check­ing to make sure the money wasn’t mis­placed in the depart­ment, taken out for use or deposited in a city account, the depart­ment con­tacted the Oak­land County Sheriff’s Office to inves­ti­gate the miss­ing cash.

Oak­land County Under­sh­er­iff Michael McCabe could not imme­di­ately be reached for comment.

But Scher­linck said the sheriff’s office, which con­ducted its ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion within about two months of the dis­cov­ery, con­cluded “the where­abouts of the money or the iden­tity of the per­sons who last had con­tact with it remains unknown.”

He said the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion also cleared all cur­rent Police Depart­ment employ­ees who had access to the safe dur­ing that time period of any wrongdoing.

Scher­linck wouldn’t com­ment on whether any for­mer police employ­ees had access to the safe.

He said the safe is in a lim­ited access area, but it’s “not exclu­sive to Police Depart­ment employees.”

Scher­linck said that, in light of this inci­dent, the depart­ment has started keep­ing less money in the depart­ment and has ordered addi­tional audits on the funds.

“It’s an embar­rass­ment,” he said. “And we’ve taken steps to make sure that never hap­pens again.”

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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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Elm­wood Place, OH

ELMWOOD PLACE, Ohio — The Elm­wood Place Police Depart­ment was baf­fled by a break-in this week.

Accord­ing to police chief William Peskin his city has typ­i­cal crime like every­where else, but it was the chief of police who was vic­tim­ized in this case.

The break-in hap­pened in broad day­light around 4 p.m. Mon­day at 300 Maple Street.

The video shows the sus­pect kick­ing open the chief’s door and steal­ing money from the evi­dence room inside. Police say he took $1,000, and came back to shut the door and wipe off his fin­ger­prints from the knob.

“This is one we wanted to solve with the utmost urgency!” Peskin exclaimed.

Accord­ing to police, the alleged thief is John Prentis.

Police say Pren­tis got into the police depart­ment build­ing through an open door. Pren­tis is then on sur­veil­lance video break­ing into an inte­rior office and steal­ing items.

Chief Peskin explains, “Actu­ally that was a human error on our part. We did leave one back door unse­cured. The one place that I would never go to steal from is the police department.”

Peskin admits his own office was vio­lated. He says the sus­pect is an infor­mant the depart­ment has used to help stop crime.

“He knew the ins and outs of the build­ing,” accord­ing to the chief.

Police say Pren­tis was aware of a video cam­era that pointed towards the chief’s office, but say he did not believe it recorded video.

Peskin thoughts about the event were blunt, “Every­thing together just points to how dumb he was. America’s dumb­est crim­i­nals… He would make the num­ber one on the top ten countdown.”

John Pren­tis is expected to be arraigned Thurs­day morn­ing for break­ing and enter­ing among other charges.

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

Culpeper, VA

A for­mer Culpeper Police Depart­ment civil­ian employee was arrested Tues­day, accused of steal­ing money from a wal­let police were hold­ing as unclaimed prop­erty. RP, 41, of the 19000 block of York Road in Stevens­burg, is charged with felony money laun­der­ing and embez­zle­ment while serv­ing as a gov­ern­ment employee. He is accused of steal­ing $300, accord­ing to town spokesman Wally Bunker.

RP had been the department’s prop­erty and evi­dence cus­to­dian since April 2005 but resigned in May. His res­ig­na­tion was not con­nected to Tuesday’s charges, said Capt. Ricky Pinksaw.

The alleged crime came to light May 12, said Bunker, when another offi­cer was tem­porar­ily placed in charge of the prop­erty and evi­dence sec­tion until the depart­ment hired a new prop­erty cus­to­dian. Pink­saw said it is depart­ment pol­icy to con­duct an audit when the prop­erty and evi­dence custodian’s posi­tion is vacated.

While con­duct­ing an audit, Bunker said, the offi­cer noticed a wal­let in an unsealed bag on the desk in RP’ for­mer office. The office is not located in the secured room where evi­dence is stored.

“The result of the audit was that $300 was miss­ing from prop­erty,” Pink­saw said.

Bunker said records indi­cate the wal­let, which con­tained $304 in cash, a debit card, a West Vir­ginia iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card, and other items, was orig­i­nally reported stolen in Octo­ber 2006 by a 56-year-old Culpeper County woman.

In Decem­ber 2006, the wal­let, con­tain­ing the cash and other items, was found and turned in. Police said attempts to con­tact the owner have been unsuc­cess­ful. “This is an unfor­tu­nate inci­dent,” Pink­saw said. “How­ever, our mis­sion is to pro­tect and serve the cit­i­zens. When prop­erty comes into police cus­tody, it should remain here in cus­tody until it is turned over to the right­ful owner. Mr. RP was entrusted to do his duty as the prop­erty and evi­dence cus­to­dian, and he broke the pub­lic and department’s trust.

“The depart­ment dis­cov­ered the crime and thor­oughly inves­ti­gated it,” Pink­saw con­tin­ued. “The agency took a proac­tive stance to bring Mr. RP to jus­tice.” Capt. Chris Jenk­ins said RP is not sus­pected in any other wrong­do­ing and has coop­er­ated with inves­ti­ga­tors. RP is free on $3,000 bond and is sched­uled for arraign­ment in Gen­eral Dis­trict court on Aug. 6 at 8:30 a.m.

RP could not be reached for com­ment Tues­day after­noon. A phone num­ber listed for his res­i­dence was disconnected.

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