IAPE Evidence Blog

Peo­ria Jour­nal Star, pjstar.com
BYLINE: ANDY KRAVETZ (akravetz@pjstar.com) of the Jour­nal Star
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Peo­ria, IL

PEORIA — A for­mer FBI agent was sen­tenced Tues­day to five months in prison for lying to his supe­ri­ors about $43,643 that came up miss­ing dur­ing a drug inves­ti­ga­tion two years ago.

Jerry Nau, who worked as a U.S. mar­shal and with the FBI since 1992, apol­o­gized for his actions, say­ing there wasn’t a sin­gle day he didn’t regret what happened.

“I worked my whole life to be a super­vi­sory spe­cial agent. Every­thing I have worked for is gone,” he said, tak­ing deep breaths and lean­ing on the lectern. “But I am not a quit­ter. I will rebuild myself.”

Nau, 44, a 1985 Lime­stone Com­mu­nity High School grad­u­ate, apol­o­gized to his for­mer col­leagues, more than two dozen of whom filled the rear of the courtroom.

“It is a sad day when an agent of the FBI may be sen­tenced to prison, but it would be even sad­der if law enforce­ment were not held account­able when they them­selves engage in crim­i­nal behav­ior,” said U.S. Dis­trict Judge James Shadid.

The sen­tence included a five-month period of home con­fine­ment and required resti­tu­tion of $43,645.

And in an unusual move, Sha­did ordered Nau taken into cus­tody imme­di­ately. White-collar offend­ers often are allowed to vol­un­tar­ily sur­ren­der a few weeks later, but not Nau, who removed his gold tie, said his good­byes and walked out with U.S. mar­shals behind him.

That said, fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors sent a clear message.

“(Nau) is not just a white-collar crim­i­nal who’s going to get to go home to cel­e­brate Christ­mas and then report to prison,” said Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney James War­den, a pros­e­cu­tor from Indi­ana assigned to the case given Nau’s ties to fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors in Peoria.

Defense attor­ney Jef­frey Flana­gan told Sha­did that Nau’s actions were an anom­aly. He pointed to his client’s com­plete lack of crim­i­nal his­tory and nearly 20 years of ser­vice to the United States as evi­dence Nau deserved probation.

But pros­e­cu­tors sought a prison term of about a year. Sha­did admit­ted his sen­tence would likely have detrac­tors on both sides but said it took into account the crime as well as Nau’s past.

Nau pleaded guilty in August to one count of mak­ing and using a false doc­u­ment. He faced up to five years in prison, though given his lack of any crim­i­nal his­tory, that was highly unlikely.

Nau’s plea agree­ment states he “pan­icked” and didn’t know what to do. Nau told offi­cials “he sim­ply hoped the money would turn up.”

He wasn’t charged with tak­ing the money and has said he didn’t. War­den told the judge Nau’s story about pan­ick­ing was “incredible.”

“What hap­pened is, he stole the money, and per­haps he planned to cover that decep­tion up with his own money,” he said.

The money was from the inves­ti­ga­tion of Adrian Robin­son, who was sen­tenced to life in prison last year. Nau tes­ti­fied at trial the money was in an evi­dence vault when, in fact, it was already missing.

The charge stemmed from a June 30, 2010, fax where Nau told his bosses the money was in the vault and sent them a receipt and forged the sig­na­tures of two other agents.

Andy Kravetz can be reached at 686‑3283 or akravetz@pjstar.com.

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

Chicago Tri­bune, WGN Radio, wgnradio.com
BYLINE: Steve Schmadeke, Tri­bune reporter, sschmadeke@tribune.com
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Will County, IL

Kau­pas says the steal­ing of evi­dence was likely an inside job

The FBI has agreed to take over an inves­ti­ga­tion into a large amount of heroin stolen last week from a Will County sheriff’s police stor­age yard, the sher­iff said Thursday.

In an inter­view at his office, Sher­iff Paul Kau­pas said “com­mon sense” hadn’t been fol­lowed when a super­vi­sor at a sheriff’s sub­sta­tion requested that 3.2 kilos of heroin that had just been returned from test­ing at the state crime lab be moved to an out­door stor­age con­tainer months ago.

Kau­pas believes the theft was likely an inside job. Con­trary to a police report, there were no signs of forced entry into the ship­ping con­tainer, which was secured by a keyed lock that was not eas­ily acces­si­ble, he said.

“This is the first time in the 39 years I’ve been doing this that I’d ever been (faced) with a sit­u­a­tion like this,” Kau­pas said, say­ing he’d never seen a case involv­ing pos­si­ble police involve­ment in steal­ing evidence.

Kau­pas acknowl­edged that his daugh­ter, Jana Scha­ef­fer, a coor­di­na­tor who works in the evi­dence sec­tion, was the one who moved the heroin into the ship­ping con­tainer on April 1. But he said she was ordered to do so.

Deputy Chief Ken Kau­pas, who is also a depart­ment spokesman and a rel­a­tive of the sher­iff, said “there was a mis­take made but we’ve already taken steps so this will never hap­pen again.”

None of the other ship­ping con­tain­ers at the Lar­away Road site, where impounded vehi­cles are stored, were touched, the sher­iff said.

On Oct. 14 some­one noticed that the door was ajar, said Deputy Chief Kau­pas. The kilos of heroin were gone, along with some mar­i­juana and tools. Left untouched was a “buf­fet” of nar­cotics in boxes at the back of the con­tainer from crim­i­nal cases that have con­cluded, Ken Kau­pas said.

Those drugs, along with the kilos of heroin, were sup­posed to have been stored inside a nar­cotics sec­tion of the evi­dence vault, he said.

All of the stolen heroin was seized by police in Feb­ru­ary and is tied to a sin­gle case — the drug pros­e­cu­tion of Jose A. Zamago-Mena, 41, who was allegedly trans­port­ing the nar­cotics for a Mex­i­can car­tel, offi­cials said. He appeared in court Wednesday.

In Feb­ru­ary, a deputy in the gang sup­pres­sion unit saw a semi weav­ing through traf­fic on Inter­state High­way 55 and U.S. Route 6 and pulled it over. Author­i­ties found the heroin behind a rear pas­sen­ger seat in the truck, which was being dri­ven here from New Mexico.

Police have found no evi­dence that Zamago-Mena was involved in the theft, Ken Kau­pas said.

The sheriff’s son-in-law, Brett Scha­ef­fer, heads the gang sup­pres­sion unit that arrested Zamago-Mena. The sher­iff said his daugh­ter and her hus­band had noth­ing to do with the theft.

A spokesman for the Will County state’s attor­ney said it sought to have the case han­dled by an out­side agency after a Tri­bune phone call about the rela­tion­ships on Thursday.

“That was infor­ma­tion that had not been ini­tially dis­closed to us,” said spokesman Charles Pelkie, “and we insisted that they bring in an out­side agency to com­plete the investigation.”

Sheriff’s police had already con­sid­ered bring­ing in an out­side agency once their ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion was done but new con­cerns over the fam­ily rela­tion­ships con­vinced lead­ers it was necessary.

Other collar-county sheriff’s depart­ments say they never store drugs seized as evi­dence out­side or only do so under cer­tain sit­u­a­tions. In Cook County, the only nar­cotic ever stored out­side is mar­i­juana — and only under high secu­rity, said spokesman Frank Bilecki.

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

Chicago Tri­bune, chicagotribune.com
BYLINE: Steve Schmadeke, Tri­bune reporter
Link to Article

Will County, IL

Miss­ing drugs could hurt pros­e­cu­tions, experts say 

A large amount of heroin has been stolen from a ship­ping con­tainer that Will County sheriff’s police were using to store evi­dence, police sources say, poten­tially deal­ing a set­back to pros­e­cu­tions, along with the county’s efforts to stem surg­ing heroin use.

One source said four indi­vid­u­ally wrapped kilos of heroin, poten­tially worth $500,000 or more, were stolen from the con­tainer, which was left out­side a sheriff’s sub­sta­tion and secured with a pad­lock. Other sources could not con­firm the amount.

Mar­i­juana and some small items, includ­ing a saw and a bow-and-arrow set, were also stolen.

The con­tainer was stored on a fenced lot near Lar­away Road in unin­cor­po­rated Joliet, where police keep impounded vehicles.

The thefts are another black eye for the department’s evidence-handling pro­ce­dures. Last year details emerged about shoes belong­ing to Scott Eby, who pleaded guilty in Novem­ber to the 2004 slay­ing of 3-year-old Riley Fox, found near the Wilm­ing­ton creek where her body was dumped. The prison-issued shoes had his name writ­ten inside them, but the evi­dence was over­looked for years.

Experts said valu­able evi­dence like nar­cotics, cash or jew­elry is typ­i­cally stored in a much more secure area, some­times in a locked space inside a dead-bolted evi­dence room.

Will County sheriff’s police do have an evi­dence stor­age area at the sub­sta­tion, sources said, so it’s unclear why the con­tainer was used and why such valu­able items were stored out­side. Sheriff’s spokesman Ken Kau­pas did not return calls seek­ing comment.

Who­ever broke in appar­ently slipped through a gap in the fence and cut the lock off, said depart­ment spokes­woman Kathy Hoffmeyer, cit­ing a police report. The report only lists a con­crete saw and a bow-and-arrow set as miss­ing, said Hoffmeyer, not­ing that an inven­tory was being taken.

Hoffmeyer said she was unaware of the drug thefts when con­tacted by the Tribune.

The break-in was dis­cov­ered Oct. 14, she said. It’s unclear when the con­tainer was last entered by police. There is a video cam­era at the site.

A spokesman for the Will County state’s attorney’s office declined to comment.

County author­i­ties are work­ing to con­tain what they’ve described as a heroin epi­demic, with the num­ber of heroin over­dose deaths in Will County ris­ing from to 26 last year from five in 2000. So far this year there have been 22 fatal heroin over­doses, accord­ing to the county coroner’s office.

Legal experts said the thefts could tor­pedo any nar­cotics cases based on the stolen drugs, with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of drug con­spir­acy or solic­i­ta­tion charges, even if the miss­ing evi­dence had already been tested by the state crime lab.

“In cases where these drugs were the basis for the charge, boy I think the state’s out of luck,” said Loy­ola Uni­ver­sity law pro­fes­sor Jamie Carey, who has writ­ten a book on court­room evi­dence. “If they don’t have the con­tra­band itself, I feel that they’re not going to be able to proceed.”

Ronald Smith, a John Mar­shall Law School pro­fes­sor, agreed, say­ing defen­dants have a right to do their own test­ing of any alleged narcotics.

“Unless pros­e­cu­tors can bring that stuff into the court­room, they don’t have a case,” he said.

sschmadeke@tribune.com

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