IAPE Evidence Blog

Des Moines Reg­is­ter (Iowa)
BYLINE: JEFF ECKHOFF, jeckhoff@dmreg.com

Polk County, Iowa

Agents for Iowa’s top anti-drug police agency will stop using seized nar­cotics to stage cer­tain types of drug deals pend­ing a review of their legal author­ity to do so, accord­ing to newly sub­mit­ted papers in a Polk County lawsuit.

The Iowa Divi­sion of Nar­cotics Enforce­ment sus­pended the prac­tice after con­sult­ing with state gov­ern­ment lawyers, said Bob Bram­mer, a spokesman for the Iowa attor­ney general’s office.
The law­suit, filed Tues­day by a man accused of buy­ing mar­i­juana and cocaine from under­cover author­i­ties, alleges that Iowa police agen­cies for years have been vio­lat­ing a law that requires seized ille­gal drugs to be destroyed once they are no longer needed as evi­dence in a case.

James Edward “Beep” Banks, who faces fed­eral drug-dealing charges after he allegedly bought 44 pounds of mar­i­juana and 2 kilos of cocaine from author­i­ties in a “reverse sting” oper­a­tion in March, con­tends Iowa police agen­cies also have failed to prop­erly account for drugs checked out of evi­dence rooms.
The law­suit alleges that police failed to file required paper­work cer­ti­fy­ing under oath that drugs have been destroyed. As a result, court doc­u­ments con­tend, “52 plants of mar­i­juana, over eight pounds of metham­phet­a­mine and mul­ti­ple kilos of cocaine are unac­counted for at this time.”

Court papers seek an injunc­tion ban­ning police agen­cies from using seized drugs in reverse stings and a court order requir­ing that agen­cies account for the where­abouts of any drugs checked out.

Inves­ti­ga­tors with the Iowa Divi­sion of Nar­cotics Enforce­ment have agreed, for now, to stop ask­ing judges to release drugs for those uses, accord­ing to an e-mail con­tained in court papers sub­mit­ted by Dean Stow­ers, Banks’ attorney.

The e-mail, sent to Stow­ers by Assis­tant Iowa Attor­ney Gen­eral Jef­frey Peterza­lek, is attached to Stow­ers’ writ­ten request on Wednes­day that Polk County Dis­trict Judge Eliza Ovrom sched­ule an imme­di­ate hear­ing on the lawsuit.

“It is my under­stand­ing that DNE agents are being instructed not to seek orders in state court autho­riz­ing the use of seized drugs for reverse stings,” pend­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion of legal issues, Peterza­lek wrote.

A hear­ing is set for Thursday.

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

www.radioiowa.com
Link to Arti­cle
in Crime & Courts
BYLINE: Pat Cur­tis on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2009

Keokuk, IA

An audit has found a for­mer sher­iff in south­east Iowa failed to main­tain a secure evi­dence room. Deputy State Audi­tor War­ren Jenk­ins says the prob­lems were reported by cur­rent Keokuk County Sher­iff Jeff Ship­ley shortly after he was elected to the office. Ship­ley found sev­eral items were missing.

“There were con­cerns about the ade­quacy of con­trols over var­i­ous items that had been col­lected as evi­dence or seized,” Jenk­ins said. “The new sher­iff asked us to come in and take a look.” The auditor’s report says for­mer Keokuk County Sher­iff Ron George kept evi­dence and seized prop­erty in unse­cure areas.

Jenk­ins says it’s dif­fi­cult to deter­mine every­thing that’s miss­ing because evi­dence logs weren’t kept up to date. Ship­ley reported the miss­ing items include a thermal-imaging cam­era val­ued at $8,400. The audit says George was seen destroy­ing records before he left office in December.

“Obvi­ously we weren’t there at the time, so we can not inde­pen­dently ver­ify it, but some of the deputies say they did observe (George) destroy­ing doc­u­ments,” Jenk­ins said. The report has been deliv­ered to the Iowa Depart­ment of Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion and the Keokuk County Attorney.

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

www.ottumwa.com
BYLINE: MATT MILNER, Courier staff writer
Link to Article

Keokuk County, IA

SIGOURNEY — The state audi­tor released a report Fri­day accus­ing for­mer Sher­iff Ron George of fail­ing to return prop­erty after leav­ing the depart­ment and mis­han­dling evi­dence while in office.

David Vaudt’s report was the result of a request from Jeff Ship­ley, the new sher­iff. Ship­ley defeated George in a hard-fought elec­tion last November.

The report says Ship­ley found George had failed to return his uni­form, badge and a $8,400 ther­mal imag­ing cam­era. Evi­dence was allegedly not secured, and deputies told the audi­tor George “was seen destroy­ing records prior to leav­ing office.”

Vaudt con­cluded it is not pos­si­ble to deter­mine whether all the department’s seized and for­feited prop­erty has been accounted for.

Two major con­cerns about evi­dence emerge in the report. The first is the con­clu­sion that George did not main­tain an evi­dence room for the depart­ment. Evi­dence rooms are secured areas with lim­ited access. Depart­ments use them to keep evi­dence secure and ensure there is no tam­per­ing with evidence.

“[N]on-cash prop­erty seized or recov­ered was placed in the squad room or in deputies’ offices. Some­times the evei­dence was placed in the garage attached to the Sheriff’s office or [one] of the sheds out­side the main build­ing,” the report states.

That prob­lem has been par­tially reme­died. The audi­tor found the depart­ment is now using a spe­cific garage and allows only the sher­iff and one other deputy access to that site.

The other pri­mary ques­tion is whether the doc­u­ments deputies allege were destroyed relate to evi­dence or cases the depart­ment inves­ti­gated. The audit says no one was able to recover “copies of evi­dence sheets and/or case logs or case files,” that the depart­ment should have retained.

With­out those records, inves­ti­ga­tors were unable to deter­mine what prop­erty, if any, should go back to legal own­ers and what should be for­feited to the county. That prop­erty includes numer­ous firearms found in the depart­ment. The Iowa Divi­sion of Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion is work­ing with the depart­ment to find a solution.

The audit also details a slush fund oper­ated by George between Feb­ru­ary 1996 and his depar­ture. The audit alleges the fund had no required bal­ance and that it was not rec­on­ciled with known pay­ments for mis­cel­la­neous items.

The fund’s known spend­ing dur­ing that time amounts to $5,400, though the audit was unable to deter­mine what some of those funds paid for or who received the payments.

The audi­tor has filed copies of the report with the Iowa Divi­sion of Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion, the Keokuk County Attorney’s office and the Iowa Attor­ney General’s office.

The Courier was unable to reach George for com­ment Friday.

Matt Mil­ner can be reached at (641) 683‑5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com

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