IAPE Evidence Blog

The News Tri­bune (Tacoma, Wash­ing­ton)
BYLINE: ADAM LYNN; Staff writer

Pierce County, WA

Pierce County pros­e­cu­tors on Tues­day filed a mis­de­meanor charge of unlaw­ful pub­lic expo­sure against a bikini barista spot­ted last year serv­ing cof­fee while wear­ing only pasties on her breasts.

It’s the first time Pierce County pros­e­cu­tors have lev­eled such a charge since some area espresso stand own­ers began requir­ing their baris­tas to show skin in addi­tion to mak­ing drinks.

Charged was Megan Eliz­a­beth Lenn, 19. She will be issued a sum­mons to appear in court dur­ing the next few weeks, deputy pros­e­cu­tor Kevin Ben­ton said.

Ben­ton said he charged Lenn because her alleged con­duct, if true, would con­sti­tute “a blan­tant vio­la­tion” of the county ordi­nance ban­ning pub­lic nudity.

Efforts to reach her or the own­ers of the Bikini Bot­toms espresso stand where she works were unsuccessful.

A woman dri­ving by the stand at 7919 176th St. E. on Oct. 7 called sheriff’s deputies after she spot­ted Lenn out­side the stand. She was wear­ing a thong bikini bot­tom and no top, accord­ing to court records.

A deputy dis­patched to inves­ti­gate the call found Lenn inside the stand mak­ing drinks, accord­ing to an arrest report.

Lenn was top­less but had X-shaped pasties cov­er­ing her nip­ples, the report states.

Lenn became angry when told she would be cited for inde­cent expo­sure and began to yell that baris­tas at other stands also wore pasties on the job, deputy Kevin Fries wrote in his report.

“I asked Lenn if she was aware that it was ille­gal to wear the pasties in pub­lic,” Fries wrote. “She said no. Lenn said that the female owner, Cheryl Eng­land, had told her and the other girls that it was OK to wear them.”

Lenn then went into the back of the stand, removed the pasties and put on a bikini top, Fries continued.

The deputy con­fis­cated the pasties and booked them into the South Hill precinct prop­erty room as evi­dence, his report states.

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Adam Lynn: 253 – 597-8644
adam.lynn@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/crime

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

The Hous­ton Chron­i­cle
BYLINE: By CINDY HORSWELL, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Cleve­land, OH

Ex-Cleveland law­man named in doc­u­ments; arms found at gun shop

GUNS: Trans­fer not approved

Fed­eral author­i­ties are inves­ti­gat­ing whether more than 500 weapons miss­ing from the Cleve­land Police Department’s evi­dence room were part of an ille­gal firearms-trafficking scheme.

Court doc­u­ments also con­nect Lib­erty County sheriff’s Capt. Harold Kel­ley and oth­ers to the gun-trafficking alle­ga­tions. Kel­ley pre­vi­ously served as cus­to­dian of the evi­dence room at the Cleve­land Police Depart­ment and had con­trol over one of only two keys to the locked room.

The other key was held by then Assis­tant Cleve­land Police Chief Henry Pat­ter­son. When Pat­ter­son was elected sher­iff in 2009, Kel­ley went to work as a cap­tain for the new sher­iff. The guns were dis­cov­ered miss­ing in Jan­u­ary 2009 dur­ing an inven­tory taken after Kel­ley departed.

The U.S. Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives declined to dis­cuss the probe. “It’s an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, and we can’t com­ment,” said Franceska Perot, the bureau’s spokes­woman in Houston.

Yet, a sworn affi­davit by ATF agent Alex Johny filed in Decem­ber to obtain a search war­rant for a gun shop, Sportsman’s Out­let and Indoor Range in Hum­ble, links Kel­ley to the miss­ing guns.

The affi­davit states the gun shop owner, Gary Lee, reported that Kel­ley had given him guns from 2007 to 2008 that were sup­posed to be destroyed in exchange for ammu­ni­tion, tar­gets and firearm-cleaning supplies.

112 weapons seized

As a result of the search in Decem­ber, author­i­ties con­fis­cated 112 of the con­tra­band firearms that Lee reported receiv­ing from Kelley.

Kel­ley referred all ques­tions to his Hous­ton attor­ney, Jack Zimmermann.

“These are mere alle­ga­tions unac­com­pa­nied by any proof,” said Zim­mer­mann. “Kel­ley is a well-respected long­time peace offi­cer, who deserves the ben­e­fit of the doubt. No charges are filed.”

Lee did not return phone calls. He serves as a Lib­erty County reserve deputy, said Capt. Steve Greene with the Lib­erty County Sheriff’s Office.

Accord­ing to the affi­davit, Cleveland’s police chief at that time, Ike Hines, stated he never gave per­mis­sion for any weapons to be taken to the gun shop.

Hines had been approached by Pat­ter­son and oth­ers who sug­gested Cleveland’s con­tra­band firearms could be sold to gen­er­ate funds for the depart­ment, the affi­davit said.

Hines never autho­rized the trans­fer or dis­posal of any of the weapons, the affi­davit said. How­ever, Cleve­land Munic­i­pal Mag­is­trate Bob Steely acknowl­edged sign­ing sev­eral “destruc­tion orders” and had trusted Kel­ley to han­dle things prop­erly, accord­ing to the affidavit.

Listed as destroyed

Of the 112 firearms recov­ered from Lee, 98 had been listed by Kel­ley as destroyed, the affi­davit said. Mys­tery remains over what hap­pened to the other guns still miss­ing from the Cleve­land police evi­dence room. Among the miss­ing weapons are 12-gauge shot­guns, Glock pis­tols and .357 revolvers.

The affi­davit also notes that the gun shop’s log books on the acqui­si­tion and dis­po­si­tion of these weapons were sketchy. For some, there were no records at all, the affi­davit said.

Dur­ing this time, Kel­ley also received 26 guns from Lee for which there were no records found to doc­u­ment the trans­fer of such a large cache of weapons, the affi­davit said.

The Texas Rangers, who inves­ti­gated the miss­ing weapons before ATF took over, thought turn­ing con­tra­band weapons over to a gun shop looked “sus­pi­cious and irreg­u­lar,” the affi­davit said.

“Texas law enforce­ment agen­cies gen­er­ally attend to the phys­i­cal destruc­tion of con­tra­band firearms them­selves … through the use of smelters, crush­ing devices and shred­ding machines,” said the affi­davit, adding that the process is usu­ally wit­nessed by officers.

cindy.horswell@chron.com

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

Star Tri­bune (Min­neapo­lis, MN)
BYLINE: RANDY FURST; STAFF WRITER, STAR TRIBUNE (Mpls.-St. Paul)

St. Paul, MN

From cash to jew­elry to a 9 mm pis­tol, prop­erty that was improp­erly seized or mis­han­dled is sent back.

When the Metro Gang Strike Force recov­ered stolen goods or seized people’s prop­erty — some­times ille­gally — many of the own­ers never saw it again.

Much of it dis­ap­peared into a badly orga­nized evi­dence room so inse­cure that when offi­cials dis­cov­ered its con­di­tion last year they asked the news media not to report it for fear of a break-in.

Now, seven months after rev­e­la­tions of mis­con­duct within the elite anti-gang unit prompted state offi­cials to shut it down, claims han­dlers have begun return­ing prop­erty to own­ers, albeit a few years late.

The prop­erty returned so far includes almost $5,000 in cash, an assort­ment of cars, elec­tron­ics, jew­elry, and a hand­gun. In some cases, claims man­agers found that the Strike Force hadn’t prop­erly seized or sought for­fei­ture of the items.

In other cases, they deter­mined that the seized prop­erty had been stolen, but that the Strike Force had neglected to return it to its orig­i­nal owner.

“The Metro Gang Strike Force was not too good at fol­low­ing through,” said Kori Land, an attor­ney for the Strike Force’s Advi­sory Board, of one such case.

After the unit’s shut­down, Bud Shaver, chair­man of the advi­sory board, orga­nized trans­fer of the remain­ing prop­erty into a new, secure stor­age facility.

The League of Min­nesota Cities Trust Fund, based in St. Paul, is the insur­ance agent for 854 munic­i­pal­i­ties in Min­nesota. Last year the fund han­dled 5,000 insur­ance claims. But “prob­a­bly the largest con­sumer of our staff time,” has been the claims filed by peo­ple against the Strike Force, says Doug Gronli, claims man­ager for the fund.

U.S. Mag­is­trate Judge Arthur Boy­lan last month ordered the league to release copies of claim records the Star Tri­bune requested last year under the state Data Prac­tices Act. How­ever, claimants could request that their cases not be disclosed.

Hand­guns, vehi­cles, cash

As of Thurs­day, the league’s Strike Force claims hot line had received 94 calls, and 35 peo­ple filled out claims forms. The news­pa­per reviewed 20 claim files. Thir­teen addi­tional claimants asked that the league not dis­close their cases. Two other claims came in so recently that offi­cials had yet to deter­mine whether they could release the information.

Apart from the hot line process, Land over­saw an effort to deal with 51 seized cars the Strike Force had when it was shut down.

One was returned to an owner who suc­cess­fully chal­lenged its for­fei­ture but hadn’t got­ten it back. Offi­cials returned two because the own­ers hadn’t been prop­erly served with for­fei­ture notices. Three stolen vehi­cles were returned to orig­i­nal own­ers. Nine went to lenders or sell­ers who had liens on them when they were seized.

Six­teen cars deter­mined to be prop­erly for­feited will be auc­tioned. A bicy­cle also was returned to its owner.

Here are exam­ples of some of the pub­lic hot line claims and what was returned:

Pis­tol was held for 7 years More than nine years after a pis­tol was stolen from Jerome Weg­worth Jr.‘s vehi­cle while he was parked at a Maple­wood bowl­ing alley, and more than seven years after the Strike Force found it in a raid of a St. Paul home, he got it back.

The Force told Weg­worth in 2002 that it had recov­ered the 9-millimeter Tau­rus hand­gun, but despite his repeated calls, it was never returned, he said in his claim.

Jer­maine Booker, a Still­wa­ter prison inmate, wrote that in Jan­u­ary 2008, Strike Force offi­cers kicked in the door of his St. Paul apart­ment, demand­ing to know where he’d hid­den drugs and guns. They found noth­ing, he wrote, adding:

“Then they punched on me and told me to get out [of ] this state and go back to Chicago.”

He said offi­cers took a lap­top, cell phones, video games and $2,100. He said he was arrested but released with­out charges. Six months later, Booker said, he was arrested for a pro­ba­tion vio­la­tion “not related to this inci­dent with the Strike Force” and sent to Stillwater.

A claims adjuster said Shaver decided to keep the prop­erty in evi­dence stor­age, so the league offered Booker $500 for it, and he accepted. The league said the cash was prop­erly for­feited, but Booker has appealed that deci­sion to an admin­is­tra­tive law judge.

The league sent Paul McDavid of Min­neapo­lis a check for $1,312 that the Strike Force seized from him last Feb­ru­ary. A claims adjuster could find no record show­ing that he had received a legally required for­fei­ture notice.

The league also returned $3,177 to a claimant whose name was with­held at his request. Again, the Force had seized the money but did not serve the per­son with a for­fei­ture notice, accord­ing to Land.

No charges after seizure

Angel Gatlin of Rich­field claimed that in 2007 the Strike Force took prop­erty worth $10,000 and beat her husband.

“There were no charges filed, so the prop­erty should be given back,” said Gronli, the league official.

The prop­erty includes a lap­top, cam­eras, a cell phone and a pis­tol. Evi­dently, offi­cers found no drugs.

Duane R. Axtman of Axtman Auto in St. Paul sold a 2001 GMC Denali in Novem­ber 2007 to a woman whose house was raided a month later. The Strike Force seized the SUV, though Axtman still held a lien on it.

“Even though she was never charged, they kept the vehi­cle,” Axtman wrote. The league said the woman was prop­erly served the for­fei­ture notice, but Land said the Strike Force board pol­icy is to return seized vehi­cles to lien­hold­ers, so Axtman will get it back.

Selvig Jew­el­ers in Cot­tage Grove lost $3,500 in jew­elry in a 2006 bur­glary. In 2007, the Strike Force raided a Min­neapo­lis house and recov­ered two rings and a bracelet from that bur­glary. The Force never returned the jew­elry to Selvig, but now the claim-handlers have.

“After the crim­i­nal case was closed, it should have been returned,” said Land.

The league denied 17 claims, 11 because an agency other than the Force seized the prop­erty, and the hot line pro­gram was lim­ited to Strike Force seizures.

The league denied other claims because a judge had val­i­dated the for­fei­ture or adjusters could find no evi­dence of a seizure.

Randy Furst — 612 – 673-7382

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