IAPE Evidence Blog

East Val­ley Tri­bune (Mesa, Ari­zona)
BYLINE: Mike Sakal, The Tri­bune, Mesa, Ariz.

Mesa, AZ

State board rules that he threw away evi­dence, lied about it

Feb. 7 – The law-enforcement cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of a for­mer Mesa police offi­cer was revoked by the Ari­zona Peace Offi­cers Stan­dards and Train­ing Board for his role in dis­pos­ing of poten­tial evi­dence con­fis­cated from a shoplift­ing sus­pect and lying about it.

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of for­mer offi­cer Aaron D. Adams was revoked by the board on Jan. 20, and he no longer can be a law-enforcement offi­cer in the state, accord­ing to Robert Irish, com­pli­ance man­ager for the board.

Irish said Fri­day that the inci­dent involv­ing Adams took place on Jan. 24, 2009, and he resigned from the Mesa Police Depart­ment less than a month later, before the depart­ment had a chance to dis­ci­pline him.

Adams, who had been with the Mesa Police Depart­ment from Feb. 21, 2007 to Feb. 10, 2009, responded to a Mesa Wal­mart on a shoplift­ing call with another offi­cer who arrested the sus­pect. After trans­port­ing the woman to the book­ing sta­tion, a deten­tion offi­cer con­fis­cated items — includ­ing a vial of liq­uid the inmate said could have been metham­phet­a­mine, a neck­lace and a pair of ear­rings from the woman — and gave them to Adams who ulti­mately threw them in the trash, accord­ing to Irish.

The deten­tion offi­cer placed the items in a plas­tic bag and handed it to Adams to be placed in evi­dence, but when the arrest­ing offi­cer went to the evi­dence room, it was not there. When an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion began against the deten­tion offi­cer as to whether she prop­erly searched the inmate, Adams was ques­tioned about the evi­dence and said he couldn’t remem­ber whether he left the items in his cruiser or threw away the bag.

While being ques­tioned dur­ing an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion a sec­ond time, Adams said he threw the items away because they didn’t have any iden­ti­fy­ing marks on them that they were from Wal­mart and it could not have been proven the ear­rings were from the store.

He also said no one told him that the liq­uid could have been meth.

Irish said a com­pli­ance offi­cer began inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent in October.

“The board has taken a very firm stance on lying to another offi­cer dur­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion,” Irish said. “It’s an integrity issue.”

Adams can appeal the board’s deci­sion within 35 days or request another hear­ing, Irish said.

CONTACT WRITER: (480) 898‑6533 or msakal@evtrib.com

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

The Sun (Yuma, Ari­zona)
BYLINE: James Gilbert, The Sun, Yuma, Ariz.

Yuma, AZ

Jan. 23 – The for­mer Yuma police offi­cer con­victed of steal­ing cash from evi­dence stor­age to sup­port an addic­tion to pre­scrip­tion drugs has been sen­tenced to three years and four months in prison.

The sen­tence for Geof­frey Michael Presco was handed down Fri­day after­noon in Yuma County Supe­rior Court by Judge Larry Ken­wor­thy, who also gave the for­mer cop credit for 12 days served and ordered he pay nearly $6,000 in restitution.

Presco stole nearly $11,000 from evi­dence stor­age at the police department.

“I’m going to have to live with this mis­take for the rest of my life, no mat­ter what the deci­sion is,” Presco said while address­ing the court shortly before sentencing.

Presco also offered apolo­gies to his fam­ily, the court and pros­e­cu­tion, the Yuma Police Depart­ment and to the community.

Judge Ken­wor­thy called the case dif­fi­cult from a sen­tenc­ing stand­point, say­ing both sides had pre­sented valid argu­ments for the pun­ish­ment they were requesting.

“In this case, the court views that a prison sen­tence is nec­es­sary for pub­lic con­dem­na­tion,” Ken­wor­thy said.

Prior to Presco being taken into cus­tody, his attor­ney asked if the court would delay the impo­si­tion of the sen­tence and allow him to turn him­self in vol­un­tar­ily in approx­i­mately six weeks. The attor­ney explained that Presco’s wife is eight months preg­nant and he wanted to be present for the child’s birth and make prepa­ra­tions to move his fam­ily back to Ohio.

Ken­wor­thy said the court would con­sider the request at a sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, which he sched­uled for 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 27, but ordered that Presco be taken into cus­tody until then.

Presco was arrested in June 2009 on sus­pi­cion of one count of theft for allegedly tak­ing the money, which was evi­dence from a case he was handling.

He later con­fessed to spend­ing the money to sup­port his drug habit, say­ing he was addicted to the pre­scrip­tion drug Oxy­con­tin. He had been tak­ing the drug for a knee injury.

Presco even­tu­ally pleaded guilty to one count of fraud­u­lent schemes and arti­fices in an Oct. 2009 plea agree­ment, with pros­e­cu­tors dis­miss­ing four other theft and drug charges.

Under the terms of that plea agree­ment, Presco could have been sen­tenced to 12 – 1/2 years in prison.

The YPD offi­cially ter­mi­nated Presco back in June 2009. In his rookie year on the force, Presco was selected as YPD’s 2008 Patrol Offi­cer of the Year.

Prior to sen­tenc­ing Pros­e­cu­tor Roger Nel­son asked the judge to impose a prison sen­tence, say­ing the crimes Presco com­mit­ted sub­stan­tially eroded the pub­lic trust bestowed upon law enforce­ment and has harmed the admin­is­tra­tion of the justice.

“As a police offi­cer Presco was a pub­lic ser­vant and he com­mit­ted the crimes over the course of his duty, which vio­lated the trust the com­mu­nity places in the police depart­ment,” Nel­son said. “It doesn’t take long for that trust to erode when a police offi­cer does some­thing like this.”

Nel­son added that the county attorney’s office had to dis­miss 12 cases as a result of Presco’s crimes and may lose some addi­tional cases on appeal in which the defen­dants have already been convicted.

Ken­wor­thy said he con­sid­ered many aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors in issu­ing his sen­tence. Among the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors were Presco’s sta­tus as a pub­lic ser­vant at the time, the dam­age the case caused to the admin­is­tra­tion of the jus­tice sys­tem and the fact he com­mit­ted the crimes dur­ing the course of his duty.

Among the mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors, Ken­wor­thy said he took into con­sid­er­a­tion that Presco had no crim­i­nal his­tory prior to this con­vic­tion and that his fam­ily would suf­fer extreme hard­ship, he had an addic­tion to pain killers, and that he was impaired at the time he com­mit­ted the crime.

Some­time late in 2008, Presco seized $11,000 in cash, drug para­pher­na­lia and some cloth­ing dur­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion and placed them into the evi­dence locker.

Accord­ing to Yuma police, an inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing evi­dence began after another YPD employee who was fol­low­ing up on the case dis­cov­ered the money and evi­dence were missing.

The inves­ti­ga­tion, police said, revealed that Presco had checked out the evi­dence from stor­age on Feb. 23 for a sup­posed court pro­ceed­ing but never returned it.

Dur­ing the department’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing items, police con­tacted Presco, who admit­ted he had the evi­dence but had not returned it yet.

As part of the inves­ti­ga­tion, police were sent to Presco’s home to retrieve the evi­dence, only to be given bags of evi­dence but no money.

Presco, accord­ing to tes­ti­mony given dur­ing a pre­vi­ous hear­ing, has been coop­er­at­ing fully with police since his arrest.

James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539‑6854.

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

www.yumasun.com
BYLINE: JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER
Link to Arti­cle
One Picture

Yuma, AZ

The for­mer Yuma police offi­cer charged with steal­ing nearly $11,000 in cash from evi­dence stor­age to sup­port an addic­tion to pre­scrip­tion drugs will be sen­tenced next month.

Dur­ing a mit­i­ga­tion hear­ing Fri­day before Judge Larry Ken­wor­thy in Yuma County Supe­rior Court, pros­e­cu­tor Roger Nel­son asked the for­mer offi­cer, Geof­frey Michael Presco, why he did not seek help for his drug addic­tion from fel­low offi­cers or the depart­ment itself.

“In hind­sight I wished I would have. I can’t explain why I didn’t,” an emo­tional Presco answered. “I would have got­ten the help I needed. Unfor­tu­nately, I was afraid.”

Since there wasn’t enough time Fri­day to com­plete the mit­i­ga­tion hear­ing, Ken­wor­thy sched­uled Presco’s sen­tenc­ing for 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 22.

The for­mer Offi­cer of the Year for Yuma Police Depart­ment was arrested in June on sus­pi­cion of one count of theft for allegedly tak­ing the money, which was evi­dence from a case he was handling.

He later con­fessed to spend­ing the money to sup­port his drug habit, say­ing he was addicted to the pre­scrip­tion drug Oxy­con­tin. He had been tak­ing the drug for a knee injury.

Presco pleaded guilty to one count of fraud­u­lent schemes and arti­fices in an Octo­ber plea agree­ment, with pros­e­cu­tors dis­miss­ing four other theft and drug charges.

Under the terms of the plea agree­ment, Presco could be sen­tenced to a prison term rang­ing from three years to 12 – 1/2 years in prison. The min­i­mum sen­tence is 1 – 1/2 years.

How­ever, since there is no stip­u­la­tion con­cern­ing the sen­tence in the plea agree­ment, pro­ba­tion is also avail­able. As part of the plea agree­ment, Presco must make full resti­tu­tion on all orig­i­nal counts he was fac­ing prior to sign­ing the plea.

The YPD offi­cially ter­mi­nated Presco, whose career in law enforce­ment is over regard­less of the sen­tence, back in June. In his rookie year on the force, Presco had worked the overnight shift from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. and was selected as YPD’s 2008 Patrol Offi­cer of the Year.

Dur­ing Friday’s hear­ing, Presco said he had been tak­ing Oxy­con­tin since 2005, when he injured he knee while serv­ing in the U.S. Marine Corps at MCAS Yuma.

Nel­son had also asked Presco if there were any times over the past four years that he hadn’t be on the drug.

“There were short peri­ods in between when I wasn’t tak­ing it, but it was only for about two or three days each time,” Presco answered.

Presco, who now works at Thrifty Auto, said when he couldn’t buy the pre­scrip­tion drug any­more through his insur­ance because of unpaid co-payments, he would go to Algo­dones and buy the drug there. But instead of bring­ing it back across the bor­der, he would take the pills while he was still in Mex­ico. Presco, who was tak­ing three or four pills a day, also said there were occa­sions where he would buy pills in Mex­ico two or three times a day.

His wife, Stephanie, and two friends, Melissa Gen­dron and Mike Ewalt, spoke on behalf of Presco dur­ing the hearing.

Stephanie Presco tes­ti­fied that she knew some­thing was wrong with her hus­band in the months prior to his arrest but did not know exactly what.

“He was becom­ing secre­tive and wasn’t him­self. I could tell some­thing was both­er­ing him.”

Ewalt, an offi­cer with YPD, also said he noticed Presco’s per­son­al­ity change.

“I just thought he was work­ing too much. I spoke with him at the YPD after his arrest and he said he was addicted to Oxy­con­tin and it took over his life.”

All three asked the judge to impose pro­ba­tion, say­ing they felt Presco, who was med­ically retired from the Marine Corps due to his knee injury, would be suc­cess­ful with that sentence.

“As soon as he was arrested, he knew he had a prob­lem and wanted to change his life,” Stephanie Presco said. She also spoke about how her hus­band is under­go­ing drug coun­sel­ing to help bat­tle his addiction.

Some­time late in 2008, Presco had seized $11,000 in cash, drug para­pher­na­lia and some cloth­ing dur­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion and placed them into the evi­dence locker.

Accord­ing to Yuma police, an inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing evi­dence began after another YPD employee who was fol­low­ing up on the case dis­cov­ered the money and evi­dence were missing.

The inves­ti­ga­tion, police said, revealed Presco had checked out the evi­dence from stor­age on Feb. 23 for a sup­posed court pro­ceed­ing but never returned it.

Dur­ing the department’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing items, police con­tacted Presco, who admit­ted he had the evi­dence but had not returned it yet.

As part of the inves­ti­ga­tion, police were sent to Presco’s home to retrieve the evi­dence, only to be given bags of evi­dence but no money.

Presco, accord­ing to tes­ti­mony given dur­ing Friday’s hear­ing, has been coop­er­at­ing fully with police since his arrest.

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