IAPE Evidence Blog

Hearst Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Inc., Times Union, timesunion.com
BYLINE: Bren­dan J. Lyons
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Albany, NY

ALBANY — An Albany police offi­cer was sus­pended Mon­day as depart­ment offi­cials inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions he took fire­works from a dri­ver dur­ing a traf­fic stop.

The 43-year-old offi­cer, Tin­daro J. Fazio, is a 13-year vet­eran of the force. He’s alleged to have con­fis­cated the fire­works about 10 days ago. Part of the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is exam­in­ing whether Fazio declined to fol­low a sergeant’s orders that he place the fire­works in a police prop­erty room, where they would be logged as evi­dence, accord­ing to two peo­ple with knowl­edge of the probe.

It’s unclear if the offi­cer doc­u­mented the traf­fic stop or his seizure of the fireworks.

James Miller, a depart­ment spokesman, con­firmed that an offi­cer was sus­pended Mon­day and an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is under way. He declined addi­tional comment.

Fazio is assigned to a patrol at the department’s Cen­ter Sta­tion on West­ern Avenue.

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

Times Union, timesunion.com
BYLINE: BOB GARDINIER Staff writer
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Rens­se­laer County, NY

Can­di­date Gary Gor­don cites “dis­turb­ing” case of miss­ing drug evidence

TROY — A can­di­date for sher­iff is call­ing for a fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion into a case of drugs that went miss­ing from a sheriff’s evi­dence lockup ear­lier this year, lead­ing to the free­ing of a man fac­ing nine drug counts.

Gary Gor­don, an inves­ti­ga­tor for Dis­trict Attor­ney Richard McNally, said Buddy Win­ston, 31, was freed in Feb­ru­ary on time served after the Rens­se­laer County Sheriff’s Depart­ment lost the pow­der cocaine, crack cocaine, ecstasy, oxy­codone and mar­i­juana from its evi­dence stor­age area.

Gor­don is chal­leng­ing Sher­iff Jack Mahar in next month’s election.

Mahar called the case an iso­lated inci­dent and said the air­ing of it at this time a polit­i­cal move by Gordon.

The drugs were allegedly found in Winston’s pos­ses­sion after he was stopped on Feb. 23, 2010, on Tama­rac Road in Pittstown. He was indicted in August of that year on mul­ti­ple charges of crim­i­nal pos­ses­sion of a con­trolled sub­stance and unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion of mar­i­juana, accord­ing to court records. He could have faced up to 12 years in prison on the charges.

The drugs went miss­ing some­time between his indict­ment and Feb. 15, 2011, when he pleaded guilty to a gun charge and was sen­tenced to time served. The .357-caliber revolver found on him dur­ing the stop was in the jail evi­dence lockup, offi­cials said.

“All I can say is that we were informed before going to trial that the sheriff’s office could not find the drug evi­dence and it did affect the out­come of the case,” McNally said.

Gor­don said if there was a seri­ous inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into the mat­ter, no find­ings were released.

“No dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures have been handed down to any sheriff’s depart­ment per­son­nel,” Gor­don said. “The dis­turb­ing pat­tern of cov­er­ing up inci­dents that threaten the safety of our cit­i­zens needs to end. Any respon­si­ble leader would want to iden­tify the prob­lem and take every pos­si­ble step to ensure it never hap­pens again.”

Mahar said an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion found no wrongdoing.

Mahar said when the case was sched­uled for trial eight months ago, his office pro­vided the DA with a list of all of the evi­dence against Win­ston except approx­i­mately 7 grams of cocaine. He said he believed the drug was acci­den­tally destroyed dur­ing the jail expan­sion and ren­o­va­tion project and the relo­ca­tion of the evi­dence room.

Mahar said Under­sh­er­iff Pat Russo did inves­ti­gated and “insti­tuted a new track­ing sys­tem and new pro­ce­dures to safe­guard the trans­fer of evidence.”

“We feel con­fi­dent that those pro­ce­dures have been work­ing flaw­lessly and that this was an iso­lated inci­dent. I would just ques­tion the tim­ing of my opponent’s com­ments on this case. If this was such a con­cern to the DA’s office, why wasn’t the issue raised eight months ago?”

Reach Bob Gar­dinier at 454‑5696 or bgardinier@timesunion.com.

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

New York Mag­a­zine, nymag.com
Link to Article

Bronx, NY

A packed sub­way car, Hardware’s favorite place to mas­tur­bate. Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

In the annals of sub­way per­ver­sion, Dar­nell Hard­ware of the Bronx has to be one of the most heinous offend­ers. Pros­e­cu­tors say that in three inci­dents between 2002 and 2005, Hard­ware pulled out his “hard­ware” on a packed sub­way train, rubbed it against a young woman appar­ently until he cli­maxed, and then escaped when the train doors opened. Accord­ing to DNA Info:

Pros­e­cu­tors said his alleged vic­tims, a 24-year-old, 22-year-old and a 17-year-old high school stu­dent, were trapped in the packed cars and help­less to escape because they could not move away from Hard­ware even as dozens of wit­nesses looked on.

The fact that nobody on these packed trains con­fronted Hard­ware as he assaulted these women, or appre­hended him before he could bolt, is pretty depress­ing. But where bystanders failed, semen pre­vailed. Hard­ware was finally con­nected to the inci­dents last month when he was forced to sub­mit a DNA swab for an unre­lated drug charge. I knew it was you, semen. You broke my heart.

Ser­ial Sub­way Sex Abuser Car­ried Out String of Attacks, DA Says [DNA Info]

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