IAPE Evidence Blog

South­east Mis­sourian, semissourian.com
BYLINE: Michelle Friedrich ~ Daily Amer­i­can Repub­lic
Link to Article

Carter County, MO

GREENVILLE, Mo. — A Wayne County judge ordered for­mer Carter County Sher­iff Tommy Adams to stand trial Fri­day morn­ing on three drug-related felonies, includ­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion of metham­phet­a­mine and cocaine.

Adams, 31, of Ellsi­nore, Mo., appeared before Asso­ciate Cir­cuit Judge Randy Schuller for a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing on two felonies of dis­tri­b­u­tion of a con­trolled sub­stance (metham­phet­a­mine and cocaine) and the felony of pos­ses­sion of a con­trolled sub­stance with intent to dis­trib­ute (methamphetamine).

After hear­ing tes­ti­mony from four Mis­souri State High­way Patrol inves­ti­ga­tors, Schuller found prob­a­ble cause to believe the felonies had been com­mit­ted by Adams and ordered him stand trial on the charges.

Schuller ordered Adams to appear at 9 a.m. Sept. 26 before Pre­sid­ing Cir­cuit Judge David Evans for arraign­ment on the charges.

Sgt. War­ren Wiede­mann, a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tor with Troop G’s Divi­sion of Drug and Crime Con­trol (DDCC), said he was among the offi­cers who went to Adams’ home on April 2 as part of what Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­eral Kevin Zoell­ner described as an “inves­ti­ga­tion into the ille­gal activ­i­ties” involv­ing Adams.

Adams, Wiede­mann said, had given offi­cers a “con­sent search” for his home and vehi­cles, includ­ing his Carter County Sheriff’s Depart­ment pickup.

Wiede­mann said he con­tacted patrol Sgt. Scott Stoelt­ing and Adams, who pro­vided him with a key to his department-issued truck.

Wiede­mann said Adams told him there was a “small bag con­tain­ing cocaine” under the cen­ter console/seat in the truck.

An evi­dence bag, con­tain­ing a white pow­der sub­stance inside a plas­tic bag, was found and seized, said Wiede­mann, who noticed the bag had mark­ings, which led him to believe it had been “in evi­dence” at some point in a pre­vi­ous, unre­lated case.

On cross-examination, Wiede­mann told Adams’ attor­ney, David Mann, he had searched a 2009 “Carter County fully-marked patrol vehicle.”

“Did he tell you it was OK to search his vehi­cle?” Mann asked.

Wiede­mann answered neg­a­tively, but indi­cated Adams had given writ­ten con­sent to other officers.

When he found the bag in the truck, Wiede­mann said, he ini­tialed the seal and secured it in his truck until he turned it over at 1:45 p.m. April 4 to Sgt. Casey Jad­win, who sub­se­quently took it to Troop E Head­quar­ters in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

Later that day, Wiede­mann said, he con­tacted Jad­win at Troop E, where he sealed and ini­tialed the bag before it was put in the evi­dence locker there.

When Mann asked whether Wiede­mann knew if the con­tents of the bag had ever been used as evi­dence before, he responded he had “no deal­ings with that bag before that day.”

Sgt. Don Wind­ham, a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tor with Troop E’s DDCC, said he was asked to con­duct an inven­tory search of the evi­dence locker at the Carter County Sheriff’s Depart­ment. Prior to doing the search, he said, he asked Adams, as well as the “local pros­e­cu­tor,” for consent.

“I was asked to look for one item … an open, unsealed evi­dence bag” from the pre­vi­ous case, Wind­ham said. The bag, he said, was sup­posed to con­tain Vicodin and cocaine.

“The con­tainer of Vicodin was in there, but the cocaine was not,” said Wind­ham, who seized the evi­dence bag, pack­aged it as evi­dence and sub­se­quently put it in the patrol’s evi­dence locker.

Zoell­ner asked Wind­ham whether the bag he seized from the evi­dence locker had been sent to the crime lab for analysis.

Wind­ham con­firmed it had. He said it had a bar code from the SEMO Crime Lab, as well as blue tape attached, which is con­sis­tent with lab procedures.

“Did you con­tact the crime lab to deter­mine if, in fact, cocaine was in the bag?” Zoell­ner said.

After answer­ing affir­ma­tively, Wind­ham read from a copy of a lab report dated May 9, 2009, involv­ing the pre­vi­ous case.

When asked if the report indi­cated whether the bag con­tained cocaine, and if so, how much, Wind­ham said, the “analy­sis result of the white sub­stance” is 1.85 grams con­tain­ing cocaine, a sched­uled II con­trolled substance.

After check­ing the crime lab bar codes on the bag he seized from the evi­dence locker, as well as the bag Wiede­mann seized from Adams’ patrol truck, Wind­ham said, he found the codes matched.

The sub­stance Wiede­mann seized also was sent to the crime lab for analy­sis, and the analy­sis report indi­cated the bag con­tained .05 grams of cocaine, said Wind­ham, who also searched Adams’ per­sonal truck.

Adams, who already was under arrest at the time, ini­tially denied offi­cers con­sent to search his truck, Wind­ham said.

“Then Sgt. (Jeff) Heath walked away and made some phone calls … (Adams) said ‘Look, I don’t want to make this hard on any­body. You can search,’” Wind­ham said.

Heath, Wind­ham said, told Adams he didn’t want him to feel “coerced” into giv­ing permission.

“He said he had noth­ing to hide, you can search,” Wind­ham said.

When asked whether he found any ille­gal sub­stances in the truck, Wind­ham said, not the first time he searched.

” … I didn’t find any amphet­a­mines,” he said.

When Wind­ham told Heath he hadn’t found any­thing in the vehi­cle, he said, Heath told him to “come with him.”

Heath, accord­ing to Wind­ham, reached behind the accel­er­a­tor, pulled the mat back and retrieved a plas­tic film can­is­ter. Inside were five bags of a white pow­der sub­stance, which field tested pos­i­tive as metham­phet­a­mine, he said.

The sub­stances were sent to the crime lab for analy­sis, and each “con­tained some­thing dif­fer­ent as far as weight,” but all were found to con­tain meth, Wind­ham said.

On cross-examination, Wind­ham said, he stayed back while Heath and patrol Sgt. Craig Pon­der ini­tially made con­tact with Adams at his cabin and arrested him.

Wind­ham said offi­cers received writ­ten con­sents from Adams for his cabin, the 80 acres he was leas­ing to buy, the area around the cabin and a 2005 Chevro­let Sil­ver­ado pickup.

When Mann asked whether any audio or video record­ings were made, Wind­ham said, he asked Pon­der to turn on the onboard cam­era in his patrol car to “view the whole thing.”

Wind­ham said he did not tell Adams, who remained at the scene for a cou­ple of hours, of his rights.

Accord­ing to Wind­ham, Heath com­pleted the “pre­sump­tive” test on the sub­stance, and then he seized Heath’s gloves, the can­is­ter and it’s five white-powder filled bags, as well as the field test.

All were “imme­di­ately put into an evi­dence bag, labeled and put in my truck,” said Wind­ham, who sub­se­quently logged the bag into the patrol evi­dence locker.

Wind­ham said he, along with Wiede­mann, searched the Adamses’ home after both Adams and his wife gave consent.

“What was his con­di­tion when you saw him?” Mann asked.

Wind­ham described Adams, who he had “never met before in my life,” as being nervous.

As part of a drug inves­ti­ga­tion involv­ing Adams, Heath said, ear­lier he was going to send an infor­mant in to make con­tact with Adams “as he did most every week­end, Sher­iff Adams would dis­trib­ute meth.”

Con­tact, Heath said, was made the night before dur­ing a recorded tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion. “The sher­iff and (CI) agreed to meet at Sher­iff Adams’ cabin,” he said.

Before the CI going to Adams’ cabin, Heath said, he searched the CI’s per­son, as well as his vehi­cle. He said he also equipped the CI with two audio/video record­ing devices.

Heath said he told the CI to text him “here” when he arrived at the cabin, as well as “good” if Adams dis­trib­uted meth. The CI he said also was sup­posed to call or text him when he left.

“I pro­vided him with a plas­tic bag; if (Adams) dis­trib­uted … he was not to ingest it, but put it in the bag and bring it to me when he left the cabin,” said Heath, who watched as the CI drove down County Road 211A to Adams’ cabin.

“He texted ‘here’ like I told him to,” Heath said. “(About) 45 min­utes later he texted ‘we are good.’”

About an hour to 75 min­utes later, the CI called to report he was leav­ing the cabin, said Heath, who watched the CI drive back out.

“He brought the clear, plas­tic bag I pro­vided with a white sub­stance” inside, which field tested pos­i­tive for meth, as well as a plas­tic ink tube the sher­iff used, Heath said.

The items were placed into evi­dence, and sub­se­quent lab analy­sis deter­mined the sub­stance to be meth, Heath said.

On cross exam­i­na­tion, Heath said, the CI arrived at Adams’ cabin at about 7:40 a.m.

The CI, accord­ing to Heath, is one who had never been used before, wasn’t being paid or under arrest; how­ever, he was under inves­ti­ga­tion for sell­ing pills.

Heath said there were two sep­a­rate record­ing devices used by the CI, one of which had its video malfunction.

The pat-down search of the CI and his vehi­cle, Heath said, occurred about 30 min­utes before his con­tact­ing Adams.

After retriev­ing the plas­tic bag from the CI and field test­ing the sub­stance, Heath said, he kept it in his cus­tody until he put it in the SEMO Drug Task Force evi­dence locker on April 6.

Stoelt­ing said he inter­viewed Adams on April 2 after telling the sher­iff of his rights. “He did indi­cate he was will­ing to speak to us,” he said.

When Adams was asked whether he had used meth that day, Stoelt­ing said, Adams pro­vided two dif­fer­ent answers.

Adams, he said, ini­tially denied using meth, but later “he did indi­cate he used meth ear­lier that day.”

A urine sam­ple, Stoelt­ing said, was obtained from Adams, and sent to the crime lab for analysis.

The report, he said, “indi­cated methamphetamine/amphetamines were found in his urine,” Stoelt­ing said.

Dur­ing the inter­view, Stoelt­ing said, he also asked Adams about whether “he had taken any evi­dence” from the department’s evi­dence locker.

Although Adams ini­tially denied tak­ing any evi­dence, Stoelt­ing said, he admit­ted tak­ing the cocaine evi­dence involved in the pre­vi­ous case, which he had seized from a build­ing in 2009.

When Zoell­ner asked “what became” of the cocaine, Stoelt­ing said, Adams reported he had “taken the cocaine out of the evi­dence locker and the Fri­day before he was arrested, he had it with him at (a Poplar Bluff restau­rant where) he joked with work­ers about using it.

“He and (the CI) used the cocaine on the way back to Carter County. He said he had thrown it out the window.”

On cross-examination, Stoelt­ing told Mann he began his inter­view with Adams at 1:09 p.m. at Troop E after hav­ing gone to Ellsi­nore and pick­ing up the sheriff.

The day of Adams’ arrest and inter­view was the same day he resigned as sheriff.

Per­ti­nent address:

Greenville, MO

Ellsi­nore, MO 

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

The Colum­bia Daily Tri­bune, columbiatribune.com
BYLINE: Jodie Jack­son Jr.
Link to Article

Howard County, Fayette, MO

Howard County’s finances are in “poor” con­di­tion, accord­ing to a state audit that flags a vari­ety of money-handling issues and prac­tices that are poten­tial vio­la­tions of state law.

Among the find­ings in the report Audi­tor Tom Schwe­ich issued yes­ter­day was the dis­cov­ery of an enve­lope of seized cash — total­ing $3,500 for one case — on a shelf in the unse­cured evi­dence room at the sheriff’s office. The cash was seized in August 2010 and was noted by audi­tors on March 31, 2011.

The audit also noted pro­ce­dures in the offices of the county clerk, col­lec­tor and pub­lic admin­is­tra­tor. It gave Howard County the low­est pos­si­ble rat­ing, indi­cat­ing that the county needs to “sig­nif­i­cantly improve oper­a­tions” and that prior audit rec­om­men­da­tions have not been followed.

Howard County Pre­sid­ing Com­mis­sioner Low­ell Eaton said this morn­ing he was dis­ap­pointed that the county did not receive at least a “fair” rat­ing and that com­mis­sion­ers did not have a chance to see the audit before it was made public.

“In the past, we have had a week” to review the audit “before they put it out,” Eaton said, explain­ing that he hadn’t seen the report until this morn­ing. “It would have been nice to get a look at it before they start telling how poorly we han­dle things.”

Eaton, the county’s pre­sid­ing com­mis­sioner since 2003, said the report does not credit offi­cials for being “pretty fru­gal” to avoid deficit spend­ing or for meet­ing some prior recommendations.

“We knew we had some con­cerns. I was sur­prised it wasn’t a ‘fair’ rat­ing,” he said, not­ing that some of the new find­ings “can be fixed pretty quick.”

But the audit found wide­spread book­keep­ing and record-keeping prob­lems, includ­ing some that have per­sisted for years.

For exam­ple, the sheriff’s office in Fayette has not per­formed bank rec­on­cil­i­a­tions for five years, the report said. The audit also was crit­i­cal of the absence of record-keeping and timely deposits per­tain­ing to the pur­chase and sale of phone cards to inmates.

“We have repeat­edly iden­ti­fied weak­nesses in the sheriff’s con­trols and pro­ce­dures, but improve­ments still have not been made,” the audit report stated.

Sher­iff Char­lie Pol­son did not return a Tri­bune phone call request­ing com­ment this morning.

In a response to audi­tors included in the report, the sheriff’s book­keeper said she was “too busy to per­form bank rec­on­cil­i­a­tions” because of other office duties, includ­ing her roles as jailer, dis­patcher and pris­oner trans­port guard. The sheriff’s response said an intern attempted to rec­on­cile the accounts in 2009, but the report con­cluded the rec­on­cil­i­a­tions were inaccurate.

The sheriff’s response to audi­tors said record-keeping improve­ments will be made and that seized cash will be kept in a bank safe-deposit box.

“We are doing the best job we can in review­ing and doc­u­ment­ing the review of records given the amount of man­power avail­able,” it said.

The county com­mis­sion didn’t escape crit­i­cism from the audi­tors, who pointed out declin­ing gen­eral rev­enue cash bal­ances result­ing from fund trans­fers to off­set expenses in other funds. Howard County ended 2010 with a bal­ance of $82 in gen­eral rev­enue. The audit pointed out that the com­mis­sion also autho­rized pay­ing some expenses from restricted funds, which was “not in accor­dance with state law.”

Audi­tors plan to review the county again within 90 days and could for­ward any remain­ing con­cerns to the attor­ney general.

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

Area Wide News, areawidenews.com
BYLINE: Linda Greer, Assis­tant Edi­tor
Link to Article

Carter County, MO

Sher­iff Tommy 

Since his arrest in April, many changes have taken place in for­mer Carter County Sher­iff Tommy Adams’ life.

Adams was ini­tially charged with pos­ses­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of metham­phet­a­mine, after allegedly snort­ing the drug with a Mis­souri High­way Patrol infor­mant. For two months, Adams was held in a Cape Girardeau jail on a $250,000-cash-only bond.

In June, Adams, 31, of Ellsi­nore, pleaded not guilty to the sin­gle felony charge and had his bond reduced to $200,000 cash or surety. On June 8, Adams posted the 10-percent require­ment and is free on bond, await­ing trial.

Kear­bey

On June 13, Adams, who was elected two years ear­lier to his first term as sher­iff, filed for divorce from his wife, Danielle, who now lives in Poplar Bluff. The cou­ple have an infant son.

On July 8, Mis­souri Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­eral Kevin Zoell­ner, who is pros­e­cut­ing the case, was granted a court con­tin­u­ance from July 12 to 9 a.m. Fri­day, Aug. 12, because a lab report was not yet complete.

On July 22, the state added two more felony counts against Adams for dis­tri­b­u­tion of cocaine.

The new charges allege Adams dis­trib­uted cocaine to the same high­way patrol infor­mant in March and April.

Carter County sheriff’s deputy Stephanie Kear­bey, who had been with the depart­ment almost a year since grad­u­at­ing from the law enforce­ment acad­emy, was arrested shortly after Adams, charged with receiv­ing stolen property.

Carter County Pros­e­cu­tor Rocky Kingree dropped her charges in July, say­ing the state refused to pro­vide him with evi­dence needed to pur­sue the case.

Kear­bey, 23, of Ellsi­nore, was accused of sell­ing a gun taken from the department’s evi­dence locker and steal­ing a bag of coins from a home. Kear­bey alleged to inves­ti­ga­tors that Adams told her to steal the coins and insti­gated the gun sale.

With the arrest and res­ig­na­tions of Adams and Kear­bey, the depart­ment relied on aide from the Van Buren Police Depart­ment to cover shifts.

In June, vot­ers elected Demo­c­rat Bruce Van Belle, a retired Navy cap­tain, as sher­iff in a spe­cial elec­tion until the next gen­eral election.

Adams’ case will be heard in Greenville in Wayne County by Asso­ciate Cir­cuit Judge Randy Schuller, appointed by the Mis­souri Supreme Court. 

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