IAPE Evidence Blog

Gwin­nett Daily Post, gwinnettdailypost.com
BYLINE: Tyler Estep, Staff Writer, tyler.estep@gwinnettdailypost.com

Gwin­nett County, GA

Charles Wal­ters

LAWRENCEVILLE — Most of the miss­ing cocaine that was the root of a GBI inves­ti­ga­tion into the Gwin­nett County Police Depart­ment was never found, but a num­ber of new pro­to­cols and an increased focus on enforc­ing them will make sure sim­i­lar inci­dents don’t occur again, offi­cials said.

The inves­ti­ga­tion, which began almost a year ago, revealed a num­ber of secu­rity lapses within GCPD’s Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tion Sec­tion, which han­dles under­cover drug cases. 

In a press con­fer­ence Mon­day, Gwin­nett County Police Chief Charles Wal­ters said no depart­ment employee was pun­ished or let go as a direct result of the inves­ti­ga­tion, and Dis­trict Attor­ney Danny Porter said no crim­i­nal charges would be filed.

One of the three kilo­grams of cocaine orig­i­nally reported miss­ing was recov­ered and deter­mined to have been used in the course of legit­i­mate police work, but had not been prop­erly doc­u­mented, Porter said. Only the wrap­pers for the other two kilo­grams were discovered.

Porter ulti­mately said that he “per­son­ally believed (those two kilos) were destroyed,” but had no hard evi­dence either way.

Wal­ters said all of the man­agers and inves­ti­ga­tors of the SIS have been replaced, though “no one was removed because of the inves­ti­ga­tion.” The turnover was a result of retire­ments, pro­mo­tions and unre­lated reas­sign­ment, Wal­ter said.

“Most of those peo­ple, the inves­ti­ga­tors, are still employed in the police depart­ment,” he said.

Porter and Wal­ters out­lined Mon­day 15 indi­vid­ual “issues and res­o­lu­tions” uncov­ered and addressed by the GBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion. Some of the res­o­lu­tions under­taken in the last two years include:

• New audit­ing pro­ce­dures, dis­burse­ment forms and an accu­rate sys­tem to track “buy money” using Quicken soft­ware were introduced.

• Drugs are no longer main­tained in the Gwin­nett Police depart­ment safe. Drugs needed for under­cover drug sales are obtained from other sources, like the DEA.

• All SIS entry doors were re-keyed. “Dozens” of SIS keys were pre­vi­ously unac­counted for.

• Four video cam­eras were installed in the SIS.

• Safes now have key­pad locks on them. Old safes that held cur­rency and drugs had spin-style com­bi­na­tion locks, the com­bi­na­tion of which was known by “mul­ti­ple unau­tho­rized per­son­nel.” The new locks include a soft­ware pro­gram that allows entries into the safe to be mon­i­tored, and access times recorded.

• Line inspec­tions are now audited monthly by the SIS commander.

• All inves­ti­ga­tors being reas­signed to SIS must undergo a psy­cho­log­i­cal exam­i­na­tion, past super­vi­sors will be inter­viewed and Office of Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards his­to­ries will be reviewed.

• New inves­ti­ga­tors will now com­plete a six-week field train­ing pro­gram with a vet­eran investigator.

Monday’s press con­fer­ence comes on the heels of last week’s indict­ment of two for­mer Gwin­nett County police offi­cers, both work­ing with the SIS unit at the time of their alleged crimes.

David Ray But­ler was indicted on charges of fraud and theft charges, accused of using a depart­men­tal credit card for pur­chases at restau­rants, hotels and the adult nov­elty store Starship.

Ven­nie Rodrick Harden was also indicted. Harden is accused of forg­ing SIS dis­burse­ment documents.

Porter acknowl­edged Mon­day his dis­ap­point­ment in not find­ing a clear answer to the miss­ing cocaine that spurred the GBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion, but said he was sat­is­fied with the steps the depart­ment had taken to pre­vent any future incidents.

“In a case like this, I would have liked to have got­ten to the bot­tom of it, either that it was accounted for or unac­counted for,” Porter said. “If it was stolen, I would have liked to iden­tify the per­son that did it. But I have to accept the reality.”

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

BYLINE: Chuck Poullard, Ful­ton County Crime Exam­iner
Link to Article

Chat­ta­hoochee Hills, GA

Cheif resigns under GBI Inves­ti­ga­tion - Photo: Fox 5 Atlanta

The Police Chief of Chat­ta­hoochee Damon Jones resigned Wednes­day morn­ing effec­tive imme­di­ately. The Geor­gia Bureau Of Inves­ti­ga­tion is inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of improper han­dling of evi­dence. Jones have been the chief since 2008 and was being inves­ti­gated regard­ing miss­ing evi­dence and pre­ce­dure violations. .

The case was turned over to the Coweta County dis­trict Attorney’s Office. Resident’s say, ” If he did not do any thing wrong why would he resign. He is just try­ing to avoid pros­e­cu­tion for his crimes. As the chief, you know or should have known what hap­pened to evi­dence and if proper pro­ce­dure were not being fol­lowed. I sup­pose greed and this econ­omy has even the chief of police steal­ing. Although the chief has not been charged with a crime the depart­ment is still under investigation

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

The Athens Banner-Herald, Onlin­eA­thens, onlineathens.com
BYLINE: ERIN FRANCE — erin.france@onlineathens.com
Link to Article

Madi­son County, GA

ELBERTON — A for­mer Madi­son County Sheriff’s Office inves­ti­ga­tor pleaded guilty to tak­ing pre­scrip­tion pills that were evi­dence in drug cases and will serve one year in jail and four years on probation.

Chief Supe­rior Court Judge John Bai­ley sen­tenced Don­ald Glenn Carr, 47, of Danielsville to one year of prison and four years of pro­ba­tion for vio­la­tion of oath of office by pub­lic offi­cial and one year of pro­ba­tion for theft by taking.

Carr will serve the sen­tences con­cur­rently and will report to the Madi­son County Jail on Jan. 7, Bai­ley said. Carr worked for the Madi­son County Sheriff’s Office for about 17 years.

He was addicted to pain med­i­cine and stole pills from evi­dence bags he was sup­posed to take to a phar­ma­cist to have iden­ti­fied, Carr said. He tried to replace the pre­scrip­tion pills with pills he had at his home, but that didn’t work, he said.

Carr left the sheriff’s office in Sep­tem­ber 2009 for per­sonal rea­sons and was arrested in February.

He coop­er­ated with the Geor­gia Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion agents and the Madi­son County deputies who inves­ti­gated the case, said Carr’s attor­ney, J. Christo­pher NeSmith.

NeSmith cited that coop­er­a­tion, Carr’s atten­dance at a drug reha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­ter and his six years of ser­vice in the U.S. Army as rea­sons why Bai­ley should impose a light sentence.

“This is a good man who did some­thing pretty bad,” NeSmith said.

Carr became addicted to pre­scrip­tion pain med­ica­tion after his sec­ond surgery, he said.

“Unfor­tu­nately, whether it’s right or wrong, peo­ple in our posi­tion are held to a higher stan­dard,” said Dis­trict Attor­ney Bob Laven­der. He asked Bai­ley to sen­tence Carr to three years in prison.

Bai­ley didn’t know of Carr’s mil­i­tary record, but his actions caused the state to dis­miss about 37 cases because his inter­fer­ence could call into ques­tion the valid­ity of the evi­dence, Bai­ley said.

Bai­ley also sen­tenced Carr to a total of 750 hours of com­mu­nity ser­vice instead of tack­ing on any fines.

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