IAPE Evidence Blog

Philadel­phia Media Net­work, Inc., philly.com
BYLINE: DAVID GAMBACORTA, gambacd@phillynews.com 215 – 854-5994
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FUBAR files hold notes on miss­ing stuff

Philadel­phia, PA

This label in the Police Department’s Firearms Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Unit is affixed to a cab­i­net that has paper­work for weapons that are miss­ing, and for weapons that have no paper­work. “FUBAR stands for F — – Up Beyond All Recog­ni­tion.” (Photo pro­vided)

AT FIRST GLANCE, it looks like an ordi­nary, mean­ing­less lit­tle label.

But then your eyes focus and you real­ize it reads: “FUBAR Storage.”

The acronym, in case you’re won­der­ing, stands for “F — – Up Beyond All Recog­ni­tion.” The label is affixed to the front of a six-foot-tall cab­i­net in the Police Department’s Firearms Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Unit.

Police sources say that the cab­i­net is home to prop­erty receipts for firearms and other evi­dence that the unit can’t find, and weapons that don’t have paper­work explain­ing why they are in police custody.

Never has a label seem­ingly applied so well to a situation.

The “FUBAR” cab­i­net is among numer­ous trou­bling issues involv­ing the FIU that the Daily News has learned about in recent weeks.

Police Com­mis­sioner Charles Ram­sey said yes­ter­day that he has asked foren­sic experts from the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice to audit the FIU. The State Police agreed last week to help with the task.

Ram­sey also con­firmed that the unit is miss­ing a Tec-9, a semi­au­to­matic weapon, that police con­fis­cated in 2005 in an assault case.

“It could be at the D.A.‘s office,” he said. “It could be in evi­dence [at City Hall]. We just have to locate it.”

Ram­sey said that he has trans­ferred Offi­cer Anthony Magsam — who is at the cen­ter of a long-running Inter­nal Affairs inves­ti­ga­tion into the FIU — from North­east Philly’s 15th Dis­trict to the Dif­fer­en­tial Police Response Unit, an admin­is­tra­tive post in Police Headquarters.

The Daily News reported last week that Magsam allegedly had stolen inter­nal parts from two auto­matic weapons in the FIU in 2009, accord­ing to numer­ous sources with direct knowl­edge of the incident.

Being in pos­ses­sion of stolen or unreg­is­tered machine-gun parts is a fed­eral crime, accord­ing to the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

But Magsam — whose mother, police Sgt. Bar­bara Feeney, is mar­ried to retired Chief Inspec­tor Michael Feeney — was never dis­ci­plined or reported. He was trans­ferred to the 15th District.

Ram­sey reas­signed the com­man­der of the FIU, Lt. Vin­cent Testa, after the People’s Paper began inquir­ing about alle­ga­tions that Testa had helped to arrange a cover-up of the theft.

The com­mis­sioner also replaced the lead Inter­nal Affairs inves­ti­ga­tor on the case, as well as Capt. Car­men Vuotto, who was over­see­ing the investigator’s work. Vuotto pre­vi­ously worked with Testa in the FIU.

“We have good inves­ti­ga­tors work­ing on this,” he said. “It’s not that we didn’t before, but they just didn’t com­plete it.”

Police sources said that a firearms exam­iner real­ized more than a year ago that the Tec-9 was miss­ing from the FIU’s inventory.

“It had been altered to fire fully auto­matic,” said a source who has knowl­edge of the miss­ing weapon. “When the exam­iner real­ized it was miss­ing, he said, ‘Holy s — !’ It was brought to Testa’s atten­tion, and he said, ‘Don’t we have a Tec-9 in the archive room that we can replace it with?’ ”

Ram­sey said that Testa, who has declined to com­ment, never made such a statement.

The Tec-9 was con­fis­cated by police in July 2005, when offi­cers searched Floyd Wig­gins’ house.

Wig­gins and another man, Richard Lyons, had been charged with assault­ing and threat­en­ing a motorist in West Philly, accord­ing to court records.

Both were later found not guilty, how­ever, and the Tec-9 didn’t fig­ure into the case, said defense attor­ney Ray­mond Driscoll, who rep­re­sented Wiggins.

How the FIU lost track of the weapon is unclear.

Ram­sey said he was not “in a state of panic” over the miss­ing weapon.

“It needs to be put into con­text,” he said. “We’ve lit­er­ally had thou­sands of guns come in [to the FIU] since 2005.

“It’s not like you have five guns and you’re miss­ing one. And it’s not like this was an active case.”

But, find­ing the weapon is a pri­or­ity, as is find­ing out what’s lurk­ing inside the “FUBAR” cabinet.

Ram­sey said he was not aware that the cab­i­net existed until ear­lier this week.

“It’s a part of the inves­ti­ga­tion now,” he said.

Police sources said that the cab­i­net sits in the mid­dle of a walk­way in the FIU, and has long con­tained paper­work on numer­ous pieces of evi­dence that can’t be found, and guns that don’t have any attached paperwork.

Ram­sey said he has been told by police offi­cials that some of the miss­ing paper­work had been lost in an office flood.

“We just need to get a com­plete audit, get every­thing in line and make sure every­thing is being run right in there,” he said.

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

DAILY TIMES, delcotimes.com
BYLINE: LINDA REILLY, Times Cor­re­spon­dent
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One Video

Upper Darby, PA

Cheers Bar owner Robert Herdelin speaks out­side of the Upper Darby Police Depart­ment on Monday.

UPPER DARBY — The owner of Cheers Bar, armed with a bull­horn and a Ziploc bag con­tain­ing $8,000 in $20, $10 and $5 bills, chal­lenged the police super­in­ten­dent to come out­side and undergo a poly­graph test noon Mon­day in front of the police station.

The show­down between Robert Herdelin and Super­in­ten­dent Michael Chit­wood didn’t happen.

Chit­wood was involved in a homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tion and out of the build­ing and had no inten­tion of meet­ing the man.

Herdelin, wear­ing a three piece, pin­stripe suit in the swel­ter­ing heat, announced he was a 60-year town­ship res­i­dent pay­ing $80,000 annu­ally in taxes, and wanted to know what really hap­pened to the $8,000 miss­ing money that was ordered returned to a home­owner by a judge.

“The money should have been put into an interest-bearing account,” Herdelin said. “Instead, it was placed in the police sta­tion safe and when ordered to return the money, there was noth­ing there. The super­in­ten­dent and the cap­tain (George Rhoades) want you to believe the $8,000 was burned up. I don’t believe it. I’m a tax­payer. It was all of your (tax) money that had to be used to reim­burse the $8,000,” he said to a hand­ful of peo­ple who stood there watch­ing. “The mayor (Thomas Micozzie) has done noth­ing to get the township’s $8,000 back.”

Chit­wood had no inten­tion of meet­ing with Herdelin, who was noti­fied by mail the chief had pre­vi­ously been advised to have no con­tact with the man due to a pend­ing civil law­suit charg­ing slan­der by the Cheers owner.

“I am not going to be part of his cir­cus,” Chit­wood said. “If Mr. Herdelin has any infor­ma­tion he should bring it for­ward. I wel­come any infor­ma­tion he would have. At my request, the dis­trict attor­ney (G. Michael Green) is inves­ti­gat­ing the miss­ing money. I can’t speak for what the D.A. is doing. The D.A.’s office has inter­viewed every­body involved with the money.”

Town­ship attor­ney Suzanne McDo­nough sent Herdelin a let­ter dated July 15 after Chit­wood received the poly­graph chal­lenge letter.

“(Chit­wood) has been advised that he is not per­mit­ted to speak with you as you are rep­re­sented by coun­sel,” McDo­nough wrote in the let­ter. “I am sure that your attor­ney has advised you that you are not per­mit­ted to com­mu­ni­cate with Super­in­ten­dent Chit­wood, as well.” 

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

The Morn­ing Call,mcall.com
BYLINE: Riley Yates, THE MORNING CALL
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Beth­le­hem, PA

For­mer Beth­le­hem Police Offi­cer Cheryl Ruth, shown at the depart­ment head­quar­ters in Decem­ber, 2004. (Harry Fisher / Morn­ing Call file photo)

Cheryl Ruth is charged with steal­ing $19,000 from prop­erty room.

A retired Beth­le­hem police sergeant accused of steal­ing more than $19,000 from the department’s prop­erty room was denied entry into a first-offenders’ pro­gram on Wednesday.

Cheryl Ruth, who faces theft and receiv­ing stolen prop­erty charges, was rec­om­mended for Accel­er­ated Reha­bil­i­ta­tive Dis­po­si­tion by Northamp­ton County Dis­trict Attor­ney John Mor­ganelli after she made full resti­tu­tion. But her appli­ca­tion for the ARD pro­gram couldn’t win the approval of Judge Emil Giordano.

“Judge Gior­dano denied her ARD,” said defense attor­ney Joshua Ful­mer. Asked whether his client will now be going to trial, Ful­mer said, “We’ll address that with the dis­trict attorney’s office.”

Ruth, 47, of Moore Town­ship was charged with tak­ing cash seized by police from 2000 to 2007 while she worked as the prop­erty room’s offi­cer. She told inves­ti­ga­tors she used the money to gam­ble in Atlantic City, accord­ing to court records.

The rejec­tion came as another for­mer Beth­le­hem police offi­cer fac­ing a crim­i­nal charge with­drew his request to be placed into the same pro­gram. Under ARD, defen­dants avoid a con­vic­tion pro­vided they com­plete a period of pro­ba­tion and pay court costs and fines. But the appli­ca­tions also require an accep­tance of responsibility.

Michael Lenner, 29, of Beth­le­hem was fired from the police force last month in the wake of his arrest on a tam­per­ing with evi­dence charge. Lenner is appeal­ing his ter­mi­na­tion in Northamp­ton County Court, argu­ing it was exces­sive, and that he is inno­cent of the crim­i­nal allegation.

County pros­e­cu­tors say Lenner destroyed a sur­veil­lance video of a March 2010 arrest that was being probed due to alle­ga­tions of police brutality.

The offi­cer who was being inves­ti­gated for exces­sive force, John Nye, was even­tu­ally cleared by the dis­trict attorney’s office. Like Lenner, Nye was also fired by Beth­le­hem City Coun­cil, and is chal­leng­ing that deci­sion in court.

In Lenner’s appeal, defense attor­ney Philip Lauer wrote that his client “may have made untruth­ful or mis­lead­ing state­ments” to inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tors and “may have been guilty of con­duct unbe­com­ing of an offi­cer for hav­ing done so.”

“He was not, how­ever, guilty of fal­si­fy­ing or alter­ing evi­dence,” Lauer argued.

Wednes­day was the court’s monthly day for pro­cess­ing defen­dants into ARD. Among those accepted was a Palmer Town­ship woman accused of steal­ing more than $24,000 from a youth soc­cer league.

Sara E. Lem­mer­man, 34, is the for­mer trea­surer of Blue Moun­tain Youth Soc­cer League. Charged with tak­ing money for seven months end­ing in May, Lem­mer­man was able to pay back all of the miss­ing funds.

The league’s pres­i­dent, Thomas Bar­row of Beth­le­hem Town­ship, has said the res­o­lu­tion is frus­trat­ing, espe­cially given the “betrayal of trust.” Mor­ganelli says ARD allows the league to get its money back more quickly than if Lem­mer­man was tried and convicted.

riley.yates@mcall.com 610 – 253-5751

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