HEADLINE: Cleaning house 

John Hilton Sr. was a retired Maine Central Railroad worker who spent his winters in Zephyrhills. He was 84 years old and his faith in banks was shattered during the Great Depression "Dad was an old-schooler," John Hilton Jr. said. "He would keep envelopes with some cash in them. Ten dollars in one. One hundred dollars in another. And they would be tucked everywhere."

On March 25, 1999, Pasco County Sheriff's deputies were called to John Hilton Sr.'s mobile home on Dean Dairy Road. Inside the home, they found Hilton dead, and they followed standard procedure, seizing $ 7,343 cash from his house and taking it for safekeeping at the agency's property evidence room in Dade City. The problems started there.

Between Jan. 26, 2000, and Feb. 4, 2000, someone stole the money. A few weeks later, another $ 2,700 turned up missing from the evidence room. It had been seized from someone charged with making illegal bank withdrawals. "If you don't have control over your property evidence, these kind of things can happen," said Maj. Maurice Radford. An internal investigation draws several links between the missing money and a former Sheriff's Office employee, but it stops short of concluding who took the money. The report, which was finished early this year, was released this week at the Times' request.

Taxpayer money reimbursed John Hilton Jr. and South Trust Bank for the loss of the money, but it didn't solve the root of the problem: The property evidence room was a mess, officials said.

Old evidence that was no longer needed had piled high, Radford said. There was no way to make sure all necessary evidence was there. The building at 14135 Fifth St. is the storage place for evidence in criminal cases as well as lost bicycles, golf clubs and other items given to the Sheriff's Office. It used to be a county jail. Here evidence each sits until the statute of limitations for a crime expires, someone serves their sentence or for some other reason it no longer is needed. Evidence for about 150 new cases arrives each day.

This month, a seven-month evidence cleanup effort will conclude. Radford calls it "mass destruction." In all, 2,592 pounds of drugs have been burned or are scheduled for destruction, about 1,300 guns have been melted down or traded and a total of 97,365 items have been destroyed.

The Sheriff's Office also is crafting new procedures, including a requirement that evidence room employees go through the rigorous background given to sworn deputies, not just the cursory background checks given to other civilian employees.

All of that has required 4,604 man-hours - mostly from trainee deputies, off-duty school resource officers and two investigators assigned full time to the task. Ex-Sheriff Lee Cannon said on Friday that he gave Sheriff Bob White a "Taj Mahal" compared with the "pig sty" evidence rooms he inherited. Cannon closed the jail in Dade City, combined the east and west evidence rooms and. Cannon closed it all in the jail.

But when White's transition team attempted to do an audit of the evidence last year, they couldn't, Radford said. "The place was flowing over," he said. Within three weeks, he expects to finally conduct that audit, he said. Every container of evidence will have a bar code to check. The building that was 16 weeks from running out of space is now less than 40 percent full, officials said.

A license plate seized in 1983 has been tossed. Marijuana from 1976 has been torched. Each type of evidence has its own room or rooms. "Let me take you into my biohazard room," said Bill Gagliardo, one of two full-time investigators-cleaners, during a recent tour. "It stinks."

He walked inside what used to be the kitchen of the old jail. Some of the murder evidence against Gary Cochran and Gary Cannon is on the third shelf from the top of the freezer. If they go to trial for the 1997 murder of9-year-old Sharra Ferger, the State Attorney's Office will pull the red tape off these packages and use their contents against the pair. The biohazard room holds bloodstained and other evidence, such as a mattress and quilts, tainted with chemicals or body fluids.

Murder cases have three rooms, each old jail cell areas. Guns get two rooms. Drug evidence takes up one. Upstairs is mostly for evidence from miscellaneous crimes - beer bottles seized from underage drinkers or rocks thrown in criminal mischief. In a shed outside, bikes, golf clubs and baseball bats await their rightful owners. There's also a vault for cash, jewelry and valuables.

That's where the Hilton money disappeared. John Jr. of New Castle, Maine, didn't even know the Sheriff's Office had the money until a lieutenant called to say it was missing. He said Friday that he's just happy to have been reimbursed."Unfortunately cash is very tempting," he said. "As I see it, it's a problem corrected."

HEADLINE: FORMER WILKINSBURG POLICE CHIEF, DETECTIVE WAIVE EXTRADITION

Wilkinsburg's former police chief and his girlfriend were in the custody of Allegheny County district attorney's investigators and Florida police yesterday on charges of stealing an unspecified amount of cash from the borough police evidence room. Gerald E. Brewer, 49, and Diana L. Maddox, 36, a former Wilkinsburg detective, waived extradition in Brevard County, Fla.

Brewer is charged with theft, conspiracy and retaliation against witnesses for demoting two officers who reported his activity. Maddox is charged with theft and conspiracy. They were arrested in Merritt Island, Fla., which is near Cape Canaveral. They gave their address as a post office box with an Orlando ZIP code.

A grand jury presentment indicated they are each accused of stealing "more than $2,000," a felony, according to District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. Investigators from the district attorney's office previously said an audit showed $38,318.43 in confiscated drug money and funds for undercover narcotics buys was missing. Zappala declined to speculate about what happened to the money. Brewer demoted two officers who had accused him of wrong doing, Zappala said. Lt. Thomas Kocon Jr. was transferred from the investigations unit to be lieutenant in charge of meter maids. Acting Lt. Robert Tuite was demoted from investigations to patrol. They have sued the borough over the demotions.

Kocon and Tuite turned in a sum of money from a narcotics suspect that had the denom-inations specified. Later, they unexpectedly requested it for a court appearance and, after a delay during which they were asked to leave the chief's office, the envelope Was given to them with the exact amount of cash but in different denominations. They alerted Zappala's office.

In December, Wilkinsburg council suspended Brewer, who had been chief Since 1997. Mayor Wilbert Young defended the chief and refused to implement council's order. The mayor did negotiate a severance package. Brewer resigned Dec. 21. Brewer resigned a previous post as chief of Edgewood, Fla., police after being accused of mishandling public funds. He was awarded a settlement there after he sued in federal court. He left another job as chief in South Tucson, Ariz., after he was romantically linked to a subordinate.

HEADLINE: Pair jailed in theft

The former chief of police and his girlfriend yesterday were in the Allegheny County Jail on charges of stealing an unspecified amount of cash from the borough police evidence room.

After an arraignment early yesterday, bond was set at $100,000 for Gerald E. Brewer, 49, and $50,000 for Diana L. Maddox, 36, who had been a Wilkinsburg detective. They were arrested Wednesday in Merrit Island, Fla., near Cape Canaveral, and waived extradition in Broward County. They were flown to Pittsburgh late Thursday.

Brewer is charged with theft, conspiracy and retaliation against a witness, namely demoting two officers who "blew the whistle" on him. Maddox is charged with theft and conspiracy.
 
 

By KIM MARTINEAU

A city police officer accused of paying his informants with crack cocaine told FBI agents that he occasionally stashed confiscated drugs in his locker against department policy and considered the department "a joke'' because regulations were never enforced. "No one enforces any policies or rules and regulations,'' Schenectady Police Officer Nick Messere told the FBI, according to a transcript of the interview obtained by the Times Union. 

A year after agents visited him at his home in Burnt Hills, Messere, 42, and his friend and colleague, Lt. Michael Hamilton, 35, were indicted on federal racketeering charges. Messere and Hamilton were netted in a corruption probe focusing on allegations that a group of rogue patrol cops traded drugs for information. While the cops racked up drug arrests and overtime, earning the praise of the chief and others, they were also the target of numerous complaints, mostly from Schenectady's minority community.
Four officers have been indicted in connection with the probe; two have been convicted. A fifth officer suspended in connection with the investigation, but not charged with any crime, recently killed himself in a tragic turn of events.

Messere and Hamilton are scheduled to face trial together on Dec. 10 before U.S. District Judge David Hurd. The two cops face up to 30 years in prison if convicted. To some extent the department itself will also be on trial. Its reputation has been badly battered by the FBI investigation and reports of officers trampling on people's civil rights. Messere's comments echo long-standing complaints about the lack of supervision in the department and a failure to investigate complaints. But his claims that guidelines were vague and rarely enforced might also be an effort to shift the blame for his alleged misconduct. Police Chief Gregory Kaczmarek called Messere's assessment of his leadership self-serving and false. "If he was under the assumption that nothing was being investigated, he obviously was wrong,'' Kaczmarek said. "He got indicted.'' Messere and other officers claim they regularly stashed drugs in their department lockers. In August 1999, a street informant complained to police that two cops had robbed him of money and drugs. The stationhouse lockers of Richard Barnett and Michael Siler were opened, revealing drugs inside.

In his interview with the FBI, Messere admitted that he had drugs in his own locker at the time. Messere went on to say that he sometimes took crack and marijuana from teenagers without arresting them and either flushed the drugs down the toilet or put them in his locker. "I'll tell you the truth,'' he said, according to the transcript. "You forget what you put in your locker.'' Messere's lawyer, Paul DerOhannesian, declined to discuss the FBI interview, saying he'd reserve his comments for trial. Messere claims the administration let Siler and Barnett, "get out of hand.'' "The chief of police knew what they were doing and condoned it by ignoring it,'' he said. "They should have been called in and counseled. "Kaczmarek is a weak chief who was never a cop and is not a manager,'' he said.Messere also claims Lt. Hamilton, one of the department's top drug busters before he was indicted, was lax about enforcing rules. "Mike Hamilton is lenient with his guys as far as following policies and procedures regarding drug evidence,'' Messere told the federal agents. "If an individual cop at SPD (Schenectady Police Department) does not follow the rules, it is his fault. But it is also the fault of SPD administrators because there has been no enforcement of policies and procedures.''

Hamilton's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, scoffed at Messere's statements. "Mike is a by-the-book guy,'' he said. "The rules of the department may have been a joke to some but not to Mike.'' But Hamilton himself provided some ambivalent answers about evidence handling, when questioned last year in connection with a civil lawsuit.

"If I was on the street and found a bunch of crack on the corner that somebody might have dropped, I'm not going to charge them, I mean, if it's a busy night, I'm not going to rush down to the station and put it in evidence, something that has no important value because nobody's getting charged,'' he said. "I'd throw it in my bag and when I did get to the station later on in the night with an arrest, then I would put it into an evidence bag and drop it in the mailbox at the sergeant's desk,'' he said in the January 2000 deposition. Hamilton admitted he had at times unintentionally stored illegal drugs in his locker. But when pressed for details, he said he'd done it "very few'' times and "less than five,'' and then, insisted it never happened.

"What types of drugs have you unintentionally put in your locker?'' asked lawyer Kevin Luibrand in the deposition. "I wouldn't say like put in my locker,'' Hamilton replied. "I'd say like I threw it in my bag and you know I might be checking for some paperwork a few weeks later and see, oh, the bag of marijuana I found on the ground and forgot to put into evidence. So I would put that in an evidence bag and throw it in the mailbox. I wouldn't say I put it in my locker.'' Most departments have strict policies regarding the handling of evidence to make sure charges stick and can't be successfully challenged at trial. 

Schenectady's policy, which dates to 1992, says that guns, drugs and other evidence seized at a crime scene must be brought immediately to the station. There, officers log the evidence in with a desk officer, who drops it into a safe until it can be transferred to the property manager. Only a handful of people have access to evidence safes.

The rules weren't always so clear. In 1989, the department's handling of evidence was publicly called into question, when $10,000 of confiscated drug money went missing from a vice squad safe. The theft was never solved. Missing drugs and money are a common theme in many police scandals, yet guidelines for how cops handle evidence vary widely among the 20,000 departments across the country. Often, evidence management becomes a priority only when scandal erupts. "We're taught to be cops, not accountants,'' said Joe Latta, a former police lieutenant who now heads the International Association for Property and Evidence, based in California.

No evidence policy may have been able to prevent the problems in Schenectady, where the allegations involve drugs never making it to the property room. Though many law enforcement agencies have a "two-man rule'' that calls for two people to count money or weigh and seal drugs that have been seized, in many cases there's only one officer at the crime scene, making it hard to guarantee that everything makes it into evidence. "If the theft occurs before the officer gets into the station,'' said Latta, "you can have a 12-man rule and it's not going to do any good.'

HEADLINE: Ex-investigator admits wrong, gets 2-month term

A former investigator for the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office was sentenced to two months in federal prison Wednesday for having a gun with an obliterated serial number.

Michael "Chip" Morgan Jr., 33, must also spend six months in Ecumenical House, a half-way house in Baton Rouge, upon his release from prison.

"I'm going to give you a chance, Mr. Morgan, and I hope you take advantage of it," U.S. District Judge John V. Parker said during a sentencing hearing Wednesday. "If you don't, I'm going to see you again. "Morgan pleaded guilty earlier this year to having a Mossberg 20-gauge pump shotgun with the serial number removed. 

"I don't blame anybody but myself," Morgan said. "I would just beg you for an opportunity to pursue some recovery, some rehabilitation. "Morgan got the gun from the evidence room of the Baton Rouge Police Department, said Karl Koch, Morgan's attorney.

The evidence room manager and another officer assigned there allegedly took guns for themselves after the weapons had been listed in evidence room records as having been destroyed in the mid-1990s.

Those officers were arrested in connection with the missing guns and fired, but prosecutors dropped the case because the time limit for pursuing the charges had expired. The federal case against Morgan was brought after he was stopped by police in a drug trafficking area on Balis Drive. In his car, they found a Mossberg 20-gauge pump shotgun with an obliterated serial number, a police report
says.

Morgan told police officers he got the gun from the evidence room manager, the police report says. "The fact that he got it from law enforcement ... is an unusual factor, one that you've probably never seen before," Koch told Parker. Parker, though, said he was more concerned about police catching Morgan with the gun in what appeared to be a drug transaction. "I think you have a substance abuse problem that you have concealed fairly well," Parker told Morgan.

While free on bail awaiting sentencing, Morgan was accused of beating up his girlfriend. He was arrested Oct. 4 and has been in the West Baton Rouge Parish Jail since. Koch said that arrest should not affect Morgan's sentence for the gun violation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Piedrahita disagreed, saying Morgan should be penalized for the assault charge, which has since been dropped. Morgan remained in custody because the arrest was considered a violation of his bail on the federal charge. Parker reviewed it, but decided not to hold the incident against Morgan, who the judge said has a problem with controlling his anger. "I don't understand men who whip up on women," Parker said.

HEADLINE: ARREST WARRANT ISSUED IN EVIDENCE THEFT CASE

A Vero Beach man convicted of stealing money from the Sebastian Police Department evidence locker hasn't been in touch with his lawyers since mid-September, one of his public defenders said Monday. And Monday morning, 50-year-old Jay Bennett didn't show for court on a violation of probation charge either.

Bennett, a former civilian communications technician and support services supervisor for the police agency, received notice of the hearing at his 735 11th Drive S.W. residence, his last known address, according to a review of Bennett's court file by Circuit Judge Larry Schack. Schack then issued a bench warrant for Bennett's arrest, with no bond.

With an active warrant on him, Bennett can be arrested anywhere he goes, said Assistant State Attorney Jeff Battista, who is prosecuting the violation charge. "For whatever reason, he chose not to show up," Battista said, noting Bennett probably is facing some jail time for the violation.

But "there was some confusion about court dates," said Bennett's public defender Phoebe Dee. "He's not the type to blow off court dates ... and we will try to reach him to keep him from being arrested." Bennett could not be reached Monday for comment for this story.

In July 2000, Bennett pleaded no contest to third-degree grand theft. The state alleged he stole almost $19,000 in cash from the agency's evidence locker. The money had been stored after various seizures, including $13,000 police found in 1997 at a murder victim's home. The cash was to be returned to the victim's family.

Bennett confessed to the theft and, in return for a promise to repay the funds, received a one-year suspended jail sentence and four years probation. The court ordered Bennett to pay $500 a month in restitution.

He had said he stole the money because of financial problems, including mounting medical bills. In May, Bennett was arrested for failing to keep up with the court-ordered payments, and as of April 18 was $3,250 behind, according to prior court reports.

Battista and Assistant Public Defender Ed Mosher, who represented Bennett until recently, said they did not know if he had made any payments since his arrest. Bennett was free on a $1,500 bond in the violation case.