IAPE Evidence Blog

The Virginian-Pilot, hamptonroads.com
BYLINE: Patrick Wil­son
Link to Article

Portsmouth, VA

A grand jury indicted Offi­cer Robert Anthony Mur­ray on a charge of embezzlement. 

PORTSMOUTH

Miss­ing evi­dence from the Police Depart­ment has led to a Vir­ginia State Police inves­ti­ga­tion, a felony indict­ment against an offi­cer, and the need for a spe­cial judge and prosecutor.

At the root of it is a television.

A grand jury indicted Offi­cer Robert Anthony Mur­ray in May on a charge of felony embez­zle­ment. He is on unpaid sus­pen­sion. A retired judge han­dling the case is to rule on Murray’s argu­ment that state­ments he made to his com­man­ders can­not be used in a crim­i­nal case against him with­out vio­lat­ing his con­sti­tu­tional safe­guards. A retired judge and out­side pros­e­cu­tor are used because the defen­dant is a Portsmouth police officer.

Accord­ing to court records, here’s how the sit­u­a­tion developed:

Police exe­cuted two search war­rants on July 2, 2009, as they inves­ti­gated ille­gal gam­bling. Prop­erty, includ­ing the tele­vi­sion, was seized from loca­tions on Vic­tory Boule­vard and Air­line Boule­vard. The TV was not tagged as evi­dence or stored in a secure area, but was placed in a hall­way of the Police Department’s Tac­ti­cal Response Unit.

In Sep­tem­ber 2010, more than a year later, the commonwealth’s attorney’s office dropped crim­i­nal charges against the defen­dants. Police needed to return the seized property.

But the TV was missing.

On Sept. 17, Sgt. Todd Thursby sent a text mes­sage to the Tac­ti­cal Response Unit: “I do not know who it was but that TV bet­ter be here on Mon­day morn­ing,” he wrote, accord­ing to a fil­ing by Mur­ray. “No ques­tions if it’s here. If it’s not a full inves­ti­ga­tion will occur to include video.”

Mur­ray con­tacted Thursby and told him the TV would be returned, and he did so. But on Mon­day morn­ing, Mur­ray was asked to go to his lieutenant’s office, where two lieu­tenants ques­tioned him about the TV.

Mur­ray says he asked whether he was required to answer and was told, “Yes you do.”

He admit­ted he returned the miss­ing tele­vi­sion to the office but said, accord­ing to wit­ness state­ments, that it had been in pos­ses­sion of a for­mer offi­cer who had left after an admin­is­tra­tive investigation.

Mur­ray was then noti­fied on Nov. 12 that he was the sub­ject of an admin­is­tra­tive inves­ti­ga­tion by the department’s Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards Unit.

Mur­ray is ask­ing Judge Marc Jacob­son to sup­press all state­ments he made. Fail­ure to answer the ques­tions could have led to his fir­ing, he claims.

“Murray’s Fifth Amend­ment right to be free from self – incrim­i­na­tion was vio­lated when he was forced to choose between mak­ing state­ments which sub­jected him to crim­i­nal lia­bil­ity and invok­ing his Fifth Amend­ment rights, which would sub­ject him to dis­missal from his job,” he argued in a motion.

He also cited a U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing that says state­ments coerced from offi­cers dur­ing admin­is­tra­tive inves­ti­ga­tions may not be used against them in a crim­i­nal case.

George Bruch, an assis­tant commonwealth’s attor­ney in Suf­folk who is a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor in the case, responded that state­ments from Mur­ray were not coerced, and his ini­tial answers came before any admin­is­tra­tive investigation.

The lieu­tenants asked him about the tele­vi­sion out of curios­ity, Bruch argued in a motion.

Patrick Wil­son, (757) 769‑3351, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com, http://twitter.com/#!/patrickmwilson

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

TimesDispatch.com, timesdispatch.com
BYLINE: Mark Bowes | TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Hopewell, VA

A Vir­ginia State Police inves­ti­ga­tion into chronic prob­lems within the Hopewell Bureau of Police’s prop­erty and evi­dence room still has not been con­cluded after more than three years of study, author­i­ties said yesterday.

“That inves­ti­ga­tion is still ongo­ing,” state police spokes­woman Corinne Geller said. “I really don’t have a time frame as to when it will be complete.”

More than two years ago, Hopewell Police Chief Steven D. Mar­tin announced the results of an evi­dence room admin­is­tra­tive review show­ing that con­fis­cated nar­cotics, drug para­pher­na­lia and other evi­dence could not be accounted for in 87 city drug cases. Police also couldn’t deter­mine what hap­pened to three firearms and nearly $20,000 in cash.

Ini­tially, $85,044 and 12 firearms were reported miss­ing, but author­i­ties even­tu­ally located or were able to account for $65,146 of the cash and nine of the guns, Mar­tin said in 2008.

A city spokesman at the time attrib­uted part of the prob­lem to sloppy paperwork.

The inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion began in August 2006, after offi­cials dis­cov­ered more than six months ear­lier that some evi­dence had dis­ap­peared. That led to the Vir­ginia State Police inves­ti­ga­tion, which began in August 2007.

In addi­tion, a spe­cial grand jury was empan­elled to inves­ti­gate begin­ning in June 2006, but it was dis­banded shortly before for­mer Hopewell Commonwealth’s Attor­ney Anthony N. Sylvester left office after being defeated in the Novem­ber 2009 elections.

“It wasn’t mak­ing any fur­ther progress,” Sylvester said yes­ter­day of the inves­ti­ga­tion when he left. “For lack of a bet­ter term, it was stalemated.”

Sylvester’s suc­ces­sor, Hopewell Commonwealth’s Attor­ney Richard K. “Rick” New­man, has promised to make pub­lic the results of the state police inves­ti­ga­tion once it becomes available.

Since 2008, the depart­ment has invested more than $100,000 in train­ing, a closed-circuit cam­era sys­tem, secu­rity lock­ing devices and other improve­ments in its expanded prop­erty and evi­dence room to cor­rect problems.

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

The Daily News Leader (Staunton, Vir­ginia)
BYLINE: By, Heather Kays/staff

Augusta County, VA

VERONA — The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office con­fis­cated 1,840 pounds of mar­i­juana found on an Amer­i­can Safety Razor Com­pany truck Tues­day night.

“It’s by far the largest seizure we’ve ever had,” Augusta County Sher­iff Randy Fisher said Wednes­day. “This is not your back­yard, garden-variety mar­i­juana operation.”

Fisher said the police depart­ment received a call from the com­pany around 5:30 p.m. after ASR work­ers real­ized there was some­thing wrong with the labels and bar codes on some of the boxes.

There were 80 boxes of mar­i­juana, each con­tain­ing one 23-pound bale of the drug. A truck, which came from an ASR plant in Mex­ico made one legit­i­mate stop in Knoxville before arriv­ing at the Verona plant where the drugs were discovered.

“Where these pack­ages were loaded, we don’t know,” said Fisher, adding the above-average qual­ity mar­i­juana had a street value of between $2.5 and $4 million.

In the sum­mer of 2006, the Verona plant employed about 500 peo­ple who learned it would be sold to a British-based equity fund, Lion Cap­i­tal LLP. The com­pany, which has oper­ated on Va. 612 since 1954, pro­duces shav­ing, indus­trial and sur­gi­cal blades.

“This came from a big oper­a­tion,” said Fisher, explain­ing every­thing was com­pressed and triple-wrapped — first with tin foil, then with brown ship­ping paper and then with plas­tic wrap. The idea was to block the smell from nar­cotics dogs and other peo­ple as much as pos­si­ble. The boxes were stored in the mid­dle of the truck with actual prod­ucts in other boxes located in front of and behind the marijuana.

Doug Decker, a direc­tor of human resources for ASR, said as soon as his com­pany was aware that an unau­tho­rized ship­ment had been received, employ­ees con­tacted the police. He refused to com­ment fur­ther, say­ing the mat­ter had been turned over to the police.

The sheriff’s depart­ment plans to work with the DEA and other fed­eral agen­cies to locate some­one who might rec­og­nize the pack­ag­ing and label­ing as spe­cific to a cer­tain car­tel, which is com­mon in orga­nized and large drug oper­a­tions, he said.

As of Wednes­day after­noon, the drugs were stacked neatly in a large pile in the cor­ner of the county evi­dence room mak­ing the rest of the space seem rel­a­tively empty.

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