IAPE Evidence Blog

The Asso­ci­ated Press State & Local Wire, STATE AND REGIONAL

Carver County, MN

A vet­eran sheriff’s deputy has been charged with tak­ing drugs from the department’s evi­dence room.

Forty-seven-year-old Daniel David Kahlow was arrested Sun­day after show­ing up at the sheriff’s office on an off-day. Author­i­ties say sus­pected metham­phet­a­mine was found on him.

Bureau of Crim­i­nal Appre­hen­sion Super­in­ten­dent Tim O’Malley says sur­veil­lance video showed a per­son enter­ing the evi­dence room and drug vault May 9. An audit later found that drugs sched­uled for destruc­tion were missing.

Kahlow was one of only four peo­ple with access to the evi­dence room and drug vault.

Carver County Sher­iff Bud Olson alleges the deputy was dis­cretely feed­ing a drug habit.

Kahlow has been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave. It wasn’t imme­di­ately clear if he had an attorney.

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

myFOX9.com, myfoxtwincities.com
Link to Article

Carver County, MN

Daniel Kahlow

BCA: Deputy entered nar­cotics evi­dence vault
Carver County Deputy Charged With Drug Possession

CHASKA, Minn. — A Carver County sheriff’s deputy has been charged with felony drug pos­ses­sion after gain­ing unau­tho­rized access to the nar­cotics vault.

The Min­nesota Bureau of Crim­i­nal Appre­hen­sion is help­ing Carver County inves­ti­gate the case after learn­ing of the unau­tho­rized entry to the sheriff’s prop­erty room on Fri­day, May 21. The ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion pointed to a sheriff’s employee as the likely per­son that entered the secured evi­dence room.

Tues­day, the BCA said Carver County Deputy Daniel Kahlow has now been charged wtih felony drug pos­ses­sion. The BCA and Carver County Sher­iff Bud Olson are hold­ing a 2 p.m. news con­fer­ence Tues­day to dis­cuss the investigation. 

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

Star Tri­bune (Min­neapo­lis, MN), METRO EDITION
BYLINE: PAUL WALSH; STAFF WRITER, STAR TRIBUNE (Mpls.-St. Paul)

Min­neapo­lis, MN

Despite pub­lic­ity about the theft, the stolen data sat in a Min­neapo­lis police evi­dence room for three weeks.

Stolen per­sonal infor­ma­tion on 3.3 mil­lion stu­dent loan bor­row­ers was recov­ered from a Min­neapo­lis trash bin and sat in a police evi­dence room for weeks before author­i­ties knew what they had, state offi­cials said Friday.

Two 200-pound safes con­tain­ing the infor­ma­tion were stolen some­time over the March 20 – 21 week­end from the Oak­dale head­quar­ters of Edu­ca­tion Credit Man­age­ment Corp. (ECMC), a non­profit that ser­vices and insures stu­dent loans, accord­ing to the state Bureau of Crim­i­nal Appre­hen­sion (BCA).

The per­sonal infor­ma­tion, on 650 CDs and floppy discs, does not appear to have been com­pro­mised, the BCA added. The data include cus­tomers’ names, addresses, birth dates and Social Secu­rity num­bers. No bank account or other finan­cial infor­ma­tion was included.

The safes, pried open, were found March 22 in an alley in the 3500 block of Knox Avenue N. by a land­lord in the neigh­bor­hood. The CDs and floppy discs, still in their orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing, were found in the trash nearby. Police took the safes, CDs and discs to the department’s evi­dence room for later inspec­tion, said Andy Skoog­man, spokesman for the state Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety.

Police gave the recov­ered prop­erty “nor­mal” pri­or­ity, and it was “put in line to be ana­lyzed … and treated like the hun­dreds of other pieces of prop­erty that they recover,” Skoog­man said.

The Star Tri­bune reported the bur­glary March 27 in a front-page story in which U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion offi­cials called it one of the biggest cases of stu­dent iden­tity theft in the nation, affect­ing 5 per­cent of all stu­dents with fed­eral loans in the United States.

Despite that pub­lic­ity, Min­neapo­lis police didn’t real­ize until April 12 that they had recov­ered the data, offi­cials said.

“It’s not uncom­mon for us to recover safes. We recover so much prop­erty,” said Min­neapo­lis police Sgt. Jesse Gar­cia. Police at first tried to read the discs but failed to crack them, Gar­cia said. “The main thing is it [the data] sat in our prop­erty room, secure,” he said.

Inves­ti­ga­tors have iden­ti­fied a sus­pect in the theft, Skoog­man said. He has not been charged but is in cus­tody on a parole vio­la­tion, he said. The sus­pect is not a cur­rent or for­mer employee of ECMC. Inves­ti­ga­tors say there may be addi­tional suspects.

Theft, but not ID theft

Skoog­man said he doubts that the motive for steal­ing the safes was iden­tity theft.

ECMC Pres­i­dent and CEO Richard Boyle said, “We were very pleased to learn … that the prop­erty and data stolen from ECMC head­quar­ters has been recov­ered and that law-enforcement offi­cials believe that the per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion … does not appear to have been compromised.”

The BCA lab in St. Paul is look­ing at the safes and their con­tents for addi­tional evi­dence. When that analy­sis is com­plete, the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion office of inspec­tor gen­eral will review the dig­i­tal media as a pre­cau­tion to defin­i­tively deter­mine whether data was compromised.

ECMC is one of the top 10 stu­dent loan guar­anty agen­cies in the coun­try, accord­ing to its web­site. Long based in St. Paul, it moved its head­quar­ters — and 320 jobs — to Imation’s cam­pus in Oak­dale in 2008.

ECMC expects to lose much of its busi­ness as a guar­an­tor of stu­dent loans under a law signed by Pres­i­dent Obama soon after the theft was reported. The law ends gov­ern­ment guar­an­tees and sub­si­dies of pri­vate bank loans for col­lege tuition. Instead, the gov­ern­ment will expand its pro­gram of direct lend­ing to students.

ECMC, founded 16 years ago, insures about $11 bil­lion in stu­dent loans. Much of that activ­ity will be taken over by the gov­ern­ment, which will back its own stu­dent loans. While ECMC can’t issue new loan guar­an­tees under the gov­ern­ment pro­gram, it will con­tinue to insure cur­rent bor­row­ers, who have an aver­age repay­ment sched­ule of 10 years.

The Asso­ci­ated Press con­tributed to this report. Paul Walsh — 612 – 673-4482

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