HEADLINE: Detective disputes 'disarray' claims Officer: Prober caused mess in evidence room

HAZLET - An "air of uncertainty" descended over the Keansburg Police Department after Chief Raymond B. O'Hare and Deputy Chief James K. Pigott were suspended on administrative charges in March 2002, a 16-year veteran of the force testified yesterday.

"We knew (Inspector Joseph A.) Auer would be suspended next," said Detective Gary Kronenberger.

Kronenberger was treasurer of PBA Local 68 when the union was negotiating with the Borough Council, trying to save the jobs of eight officers who were laid off in May 2001.

"One of the council's requests then was that Inspector Auer retire," the officer said. Auer refused, and he was suspended in April 2002. 

Kronenberger was called as a witness yesterday by Yaron Helmer and Todd Gelfand, who are representing the borough in reinstatement appeals for O'Hare, Pigott and Auer. The three were charged with misconduct - allegations developed by Gary F. Stowell, Helmer and Gelfand's law partner, during his investigation of the police department.

Kronenberger served as the department's evidence control officer from May 2001 until a few months ago.

Stowell has accused Auer of mismanaging evidence and internal affairs files, permitting the evidence locker to disintegrate into a "shambles," with evidence sometimes unsecured, outdated and unlabeled.

In testimony a week ago, Stowell offered photographs he took of evidence in disarray on cabinets and in open boxes in the evidence locker.

But Kronenberger, examining the same photographs yesterday, said most of them showed evidence that he had removed from the boxes at Stowell's request so that he could film the contents.

One photograph showed a locker box open and its contents on the floor. Another showed a plastic tube containing hypodermic needles.

All of the material, he said, had been in locked boxes or cabinets and he had opened them only at Stowell's request.

When he took over as evidence officer, Kronenberger said he was assisted by detectives Michael Thompson and Kevin White.

"I wasn't sure of the times, the dates you could get rid of stuff (outdated evidence)," he said.  "The deputy chief sent me to school at the Police Academy for evidence handling."

Gelfand asked Kronenberger if he had ever been disciplined by O'Hare.

Yes, he said, after the chief said he had violated department rules, and he was put on walking patrol for five years.

"Was there any indication that the walking patrol was being used as a discipline?" Gelfand asked. "No," said Kronenberger. "I was just put on walking patrol."

The three suspended officers are also accused of falsifying results of firearms qualifications tests that Keansburg police did not take. The borough has cited testimony from half a dozen officers who said they had not qualified in several years.

Under questioning by Granata, Kronenberger said he took his firearms tests twice a year, as required by state law, and had always qualified.

Stowell charged Pigott with manipulating payrolls by covering for officers who were already being paid for off-duty security work by a contractor and by backdating the hire dates of officers, including Auer; Pigott's twin brother, Lt. Michael Pigott, and Raymond M. O'Hare and Bryan O'Hare, to expand their longevity payments.

Stowell charged the O'Hares' hire dates were backdated by the order of James K. Pigott, "once again reflecting a favorable treatment for the chief's sons at the hand of the hand-picked deputy chief of police."

Bryan and Raymond O'Hare were among the eight officers laid off in 2001.

Kronenberger testified that the changes Pigott made on police time cards to cover the off-duty work in most instances reflected compensatory time the police accumulated.

And Carol Sheehan, the borough's payroll clerk, testified that start dates for other borough employees, including Dennis O'Keefe, a borough councilman before he became public works superintendent, and police officers Thompson, Michael Pigott and Sgt. Francis Dean, who all worked for the borough before they joined the department, had been moved back.

She herself was credited for the years she served as Neighborhood Preservation Coordinator.
Sheehan said requests for overtime "always came with explanations" from Pigott and all such requests had be approved by Suzanne M. Veitengruber, who was then the borough manager.

The hearings will resume on Aug. 18 in Hazlet Municipal Court.

HEADLINE: Ex-officer charged with theft; Police say cash, drugs taken from Hazard evidence room

DATELINE: HAZARD

A former Hazard police officer was arrested yesterday and charged with taking drugs and cash from the department's evidence room.

Calvin W. Sizemore, 27, of Hazard, who served as evidence officer for the Hazard police until he resigned in May, is accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of prescription pills and marijuana and around $600 cash from the room, said Dan Smoot, a Kentucky State Police detective.

The arrest followed a two-month investigation by state police and other law enforcement agencies, including the state attorney general's office and the U.S. attorney's office, Smoot said. 
"The investigation revealed that Sizemore removed drugs and had friends sell or use them," Smoot said.

Sizemore declined an interview request yesterday from the Perry County Detention Center, where he is being held.

Perry County Commonwealth's Attorney John Hansen said the missing evidence could hurt the prosecution of some cases, but he didn't know if any cases were affected.

"I hope it doesn't affect any of my cases," Hansen said. "If it does, you just make a motion to dismiss and kick yourself in the butt and move on to the next one."

Perry County Attorney John Carl Shackelford couldn't be reached for comment yesterday.

Hazard Police Chief Ronnie Bryant, who described Sizemore as an "excellent officer," declined to say which cases the missing money and drugs involved, whether they involved misdemeanor or felony charges and over what time period the evidence was taken. But he said the missing evidence applied to "only a few cases."

Sizemore is charged with first-, second- and third-degree trafficking in a controlled substance, marijuana trafficking, and theft by unlawful taking. The case will be turned over to the U.S. attorney's office for prosecution next week, while the investigation into where the drugs went and who got them continues, Smoot said.

Smoot said investigators haven't determined the value of the missing drugs, which included marijuana and the prescription narcotics OxyContin, Tylox and Percocet.

Bryant said Sizemore was an officer for about five years before leaving for a job as an animal control officer in Cincinnati. He said the investigation into the missing evidence began shortly after Sizemore left.

"We had some information that (Sizemore) could have taken something," Bryant said. He added Sizemore was the only officer with a key to the evidence room until May.

After a May audit revealed that drugs and money were missing, Bryant said he immediately notified state police and the attorney general's office.

The arrest of Sizemore marked the third in recent years by the state police post in Hazard concerning missing evidence from a police department, Smoot said.

In May 2000, Daniel "Neil" Yonts, a former Fleming-Neon police chief, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting others in the commission of a bank robbery that occurred while Yonts was chief of the small Letcher County department. Yonts also pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen firearm that was taken from the department's evidence room and used in the robbery.

In February 2000, Freddie White, a dog handler for the Perry County sheriff's department, pleaded guilty to distributing painkillers and marijuana.

Smoot said White served 30 months in federal prison and Yonts is still incarcerated.

INFORMATIONAL GRAPHIC; MAP OF HAZARD, KENTUCKY, BY STEVE DURBIN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL; (SEE LIBRARY MICROFILM OR LIBRARY KIOSK PDF PAGES);

"I hope it doesn't affect any of my cases. If it does, you just make a motion to dismiss and kick yourself in the butt and move on. ... " Perry County Commonwealth's Attorney John Hansen

HEADLINE: Officer charged with coercing sex from drug suspect

DATELINE: NORTHERN CAMBRIA, Pa.

A policeman accused of persuading a woman to have sex with him to avoid a drug charge is now charged with rape and other offenses.

John R. Smith, an officer with the Susquehanna Township Police Department, was being held in the Cambria County Jail. According to police records, Smith, 35, of Northern Cambria, pulled over the 18-year-old woman and two other people on July 23 and took a marijuana pipe from them.

Smith told the three they could go to jail for two years and be fined $2,000 for having the pipe.
The following day, Smith allegedly called the woman and asked her to meet him at the police station, about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

At the police station, Smith allegedly asked the woman, "What are we going to do about this?"
Smith and the woman then went into an evidence room where they talked about the charges. The two later had sex in a meeting room, police records state.

The woman told police she believed if she had sex with the officer the charges would be dropped.

Smith also gave the woman the pipe he took, another pipe in the evidence room and the painkiller Vicodin.

Smith, who is charged with rape, official oppression, and other charges, was arrested Tuesday after police taped a telephone conversation during which he allegedly acknowledged having sex with the woman.

Officials with the Susquehanna Township Police Department did not return a phone call for comment to The Associated Press on Thursday. A number listed at Smith's address rang unanswered Thursday night. It was unclear if he had an attorney.

HEADLINE: MR CRUEL IS AMONG YOU

POLICE believe Australia's most notorious child-abducting rapist is alive and well and living in Victoria. They know where he is and have kept tabs on the man most likely to be the pervert dubbed Mr. Cruel for more than a decade. He is the prime suspect for at least 12 sickening attacks and one murder since the 1980s -- but police don't have a strong enough case to charge him.

The Herald Sun has also discovered police have either lost, contaminated or destroyed vital evidence that may have convicted him. Victoria Police Commander Dave Sprague is bitterly disappointed that exhibits seized by detectives, which might have linked Mr. Cruel to the crimes, have disappeared.

He also revealed crucial forensic evidence might have been rendered useless as a result of the last known Mr. Cruel crime scene not being sealed off as it should have been.

Commander Sprague provided details of the missing evidence and botched crime scene during an interview for Mug Shots, a new book reporting on 12 crimes. He also said detectives had identified at least 10 people in Victoria with the propensity to commit the sort of offences Mr. Cruel committed. "Having interviewed some of them, I can tell you they are bloody scary," Commander Sprague said.

Although the taskforce set up to catch Mr. Cruel didn't get a conviction against him, it was still enormously successful. It ended up charging more than 70 people with a range of serious offences, including rape, blackmail and pedophilia. Mr. Cruel is believed to have last struck in 1991, when he kidnapped and killed 13-year-old Templestowe schoolgirl Karmein Chan.

He was also responsible for abducting 10-year-old Sharon Wills from Ringwood in 1988 and taking 13-year-old Nicola Lynas from her Canterbury home in 1990.

Sharon was held prisoner and assaulted for 18 hours before being dressed in plastic rubbish bags and dumped at a Bayswater school. Mr. Cruel kept Nicola for 50 hours.

He only released the Presbyterian Ladies College student after taking meticulous steps to avoid leaving identifying evidence. Serial sexual predators like Mr. Cruel usually keep attacking until they are caught or die.

But Cdr Sprague, head of Operation Spectrum, the taskforce set up to catch the offender, said the man they most suspect of being Mr. Cruel still walks the streets. He confirmed police know where he is and are keeping an eye on him.

Cdr Sprague believes the reason Mr. Cruel has not struck again is he became scared after being tracked down and interviewed by Operation Spectrum detectives. "I honestly think we got very, very close. So close that he stopped," he said.

Over the years, Operation Spectrum detectives have indicated they had a list of about 20 suspects they have been unable to eliminate.

Six were strong suspects. They have consistently shied away from saying they think they know who Mr. Cruel is.

But Cdr Sprague reveals for the first time in Mug Shots that there is a prime Mr. Cruel suspect, who was interviewed for about 14 hours.

"He said at the end of it that if we thought we had a good case we should charge him and if not he wanted to be let go then and there.

"It was a good circumstantial case, but not good enough to charge him.

"We have certainly kept tabs on him since and if we had another abduction he'd be the first person dragged in."

Police usually hold back some information about crimes in order to eliminate suspects.

One reason is that attention-seekers often falsely confess to high-profile crimes.

Such people might think they know all about a particular crime, having read everything written.

But police are able to weed them out when they do not know as much as police do about, for example, the victim's wounds.

Operation Spectrum detectives know things about Mr. Cruel that have not been made public.  They have used this knowledge to eliminate more than 27,000 suspects. But they have not been able to rule out the prime suspect. He fits both the public and secret profiles of Mr. Cruel.

Cdr Sprague revealed he was not impressed by what he found on arriving at Karmein Chan's home within hours of her 1991 abduction.

"The crime scene was not preserved as it should have been," he said. "We had a lot of problems with it. Unfortunately, the initial police member in charge had set up the command post inside the house. "It was a disaster . . . they didn't seal the crime scene off as they should have."

Cdr Sprague is concerned evidence that might have identified Mr. Cruel was possibly destroyed in those first few vital hours.

He later discovered it was not the first time a chance to identify the kidnapper had been lost.

Operation Spectrum established that Mr. Cruel was almost certainly responsible for an earlier series of sex attacks in Melbourne's southern suburbs in the 1980s.

Detectives wanted to review the evidence from those cases. But they were bitterly disappointed to find some of the evidence had been lost.  Of particular concern was that the tape Mr. Cruel had used to bind one of his victims was missing.

Forensic technology has improved since those attacks in the 1980s and scientists can extract identifying characteristics from the smallest of samples.

Mr. Cruel's DNA may well have been on that tape because it is likely he was not as careful during those early attacks as he was in the later abductions of Sharon Wills, Nicola Lynas and Karmein Chan. "But we will never know as the exhibit just isn't there any more," Cdr Sprague said.

"In those days police just didn't have the supervision that they do now," he said. "With things like exhibits, people would sometimes leave them in their lockers.

"By the time we identified these additional attacks, years after they had taken place, some of those exhibits had been lost and others had simply been thrown out. They had never been examined.

"One exhibit that was lost was tape that one of the victims had been tied up in.

"There were other examples of exhibits that might have been vital to us in identifying the offender not being able to be located when we asked for them.

"There were times when we would go looking for the old criminal record sheets, which would record things like the modus operandi of the offender, for incidents we felt might be connected to the man we were after, only to discover those records were missing."

Mug Shots is written by Herald Sun journalists Geoff Wilkinson and Keith Moor and covers 12 notorious crimes. It will be available from newsagents and bookshops from Wednesday.

HEADLINE: Former police chief gets probation for stealing drugs from department

DATELINE: GRAYSON, Ky.

A former Grayson police chief has been sentenced to three years probation for stealing prescription drugs from the department's property room.

Under the conditions of his probation, Gregory Wilburn will have to undergo random drug testing and will be required to be evaluated and if his probation officer recommends it, be treated for substance abuse. 

Wilburn was also fined $1,000 on Monday.

Wilburn, 39, also a former chairman of the FIVCO Area Dug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force, pleaded guilty June 16 to a charge of tampering with physical evidence, a felony that carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

Carter Commonwealth's Attorney David Flatt agreed to recommend probation for Wilburn as a condition of the plea agreement. He said he did so because Wilburn had cooperated with investigators.

Because of the felony conviction, Wilburn can never again work as a sworn law-enforcement officer unless he receives a pardon.

The charge against Wilburn stemmed from a Kentucky State Police investigation into the theft of more than 2,000 pills from the Grayson Police Department's evidence room. The missing drugs included the painkillers OxyContin, Lorcet and Percocet and the anti-depressants Xanax and Valium. The drugs were being held as evidence in the 2001 robbery of the Grayson Rite Aid store.

Flatt said it was his belief that Wilburn took the drugs for his own personal use.

Wilburn, who joined the police department in the 1980s, was charged on April 7. He resigned as police chief Sept. 17.

HEADLINE: Officer Sues City In Pay Dispute

CLAIMS SHE, OTHERS OWED THOUSANDS IN OVERTIME

ZEPHYRHILLS - A police officer at the center of a case that helped lead to Chief Jerry Freeman's abrupt resignation last week is suing the city for back pay.

Officer Annette Poe filed a federal lawsuit Monday, saying she and other officers are entitled to thousands of dollars of overtime worked during the past two to three years.

Also Monday, City Manager Steve Spina asked for an internal investigation of lost evidence and other matters in the pending pornography case Poe handled and on Poe's "abuse" of sick time.
Spina said he asked for Freeman's resignation Wednesday, in part, because he failed to discipline Poe and other officers in the pornography case. 

Poe's lawsuit says she and other officers who alternate between 36-hour and 48-hour work weeks are entitled to about $7,000 each in overtime back pay.

Her attorney, Matthew Fenton, said the officers also are eligible for damages and attorney's fees under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The lawsuit says that the officers should be paid eight hours of overtime for each 48-hour week worked and be compensated for reporting to roll call 15 minutes before their shifts start.

Poe said she was paid between $14 and $16.62 per hour during the period in question.

According to the lawsuit, Poe complained to her supervisors who "told her that working uncompensated overtime was expected and that if she brought the subject up again she would be disciplined or terminated."

Under a policy in place from November 2001 to November 2002, officers were to work 84 hours every two weeks and be paid for 80 hours.

A department memorandum says the unpaid hours are to be used for training, meetings and meal breaks.

That policy changed under Freeman, but officers still were paid straight time rather than overtime in weeks that exceeded 40 hours.

Freeman said Monday the change was based on the assumption that officers remain on call during meal breaks.

He said the officers' hours did not exceed the limit at which overtime must be paid under fair labor standards.

Fenton said the internal investigation Spina initiated Monday is retaliation for Poe's complaints.
"That is not to say an officer would not have made a mistake," Fenton said. "But all of this comes on the heels of her making a complaint. I think there's an agenda here."

Spina said the investigation of the handling of the pornography case and of Poe's sick leave is unrelated to her overtime complaint.

He said Poe called in sick two days last week although she has no sick time or vacation accrued.

Poe's personnel record shows she has been disciplined four times since December 2001:

On July 25, Freeman reprimanded Poe for a July 8 incident in which Poe, on duty and in uniform, confronted a store manager at the Radiant convenience store, 6512 Gall Blvd., about a relative's paycheck.

Department policy prohibits officers from handling incidents involving relatives.

On July 22, Sgt. Scott Raymer issued Poe a written admonishment for two separate incidents involving mishandled or lost evidence.

In the first incident, Jan. 12, Poe confiscated two guns during a pornography investigation and deposited them in her department-issued locker rather than a secure evidence room.

The guns remained in her locker until July 16, when the Pasco-Pinellas State Attorney's Office requested them. Poe said she forgot about the guns.

In the second incident, June 28, Poe confiscated a box of fireworks and failed to secure them.
Poe said she took the fireworks home and forgot about them.

Poe also was issued admonishments for failure to submit and correct reports and failure to respond to a subpoena.

Also according to personnel records, an internal investigation found Poe failed to report for a special security patrol.

Poe said she misread a memo and did not realize she was on duty.

The records don't specify whether Poe was disciplined in the incident.

HEADLINE: Tapes may thwart prosecution Witness statements in murder case are missing

It took authorities 9 1/2 years to catch Daniel Spike, who's accused of killing his girlfriend two days after he got out of jail.

Now that Spike is charged with first-degree murder, some misplaced evidence may hinder efforts to prosecute him.

Taped statements given by four witnesses in the slaying of Theresa Rivero - including Rivero's daughter - have been lost. Spike's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Douglas R. Withee, has asked a judge to bar the witnesses from testifying against Spike because of the missing evidence. 

There are transcripts of the interviews with the daughter, two of Rivero's neighbors and a man who was in Rivero's apartment when she was slain.

But according to Withee, there's no way to confirm the transcripts' accuracy because the tapes are lost, and transcripts offer no clues about the witnesses' mood or voice inflection.

Withee claims the defense "is substantially prejudiced" by the lost tapes.

"The state is seeking the death penalty, which creates a situation requiring intense scrutiny of all issues," Withee wrote. "Higher due process standards apply."

Lee Circuit Judge Thomas S. Reese will conduct a hearing Monday on the request.

State attorney's office spokeswoman Chere Avery declined comment, saying the state won't discuss a pending case.

Spike, 35, had already made a name for himself when Rivero was shot.

In June 2002, he was the getaway driver in a robbery attempt at an automated teller machine in south Fort Myers.

The victims turned out to be off-duty Lee County sheriff's deputies, and a gunfight ensued. Spike sped off but was arrested the next day and eventually sentenced to 160 days in jail.
Investigators say Spike was angry with Rivero when he was freed because she was seeing another man.

On Nov. 18, 2002, he allegedly knocked on the door of her Palmetto Court apartment and shot her in the head.

Witnesses said they saw Spike run from the scene. Rivero's daughter, Teolonda Rivero, who was just under 4, reportedly saw her mother's slaying.

Spike fled to his native Jamaica and remained free until he was captured in March 2002.

Fort Myers Police spokeswoman Kara Winton said department officials discovered about five years ago that taped interviews with three witnesses were missing. She said the witnesses were reinterviewed and new tapes were made.

"We don't know where the original file is," Winton said. "Obviously, 10 years ago we kept records differently than we do now."

According to a motion filed by Withee, the state also has lost taped interviews that a child protective team made with Teolonda.

David Caldwell, a spokesman for the state Department of Children & Families, said he doesn't believe that agency was responsible for the lost tapes.

"The protocol would have been to turn that over to the state attorney's office," Caldwell said.

Withee declined comment.

Attorney David D. Fussell of Orlando is president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He said he'd be most concerned about the statement of Teolonda Rivero, who probably remembers little about something that happened when she was less than 4.

"The problem in this situation is that you have a child who has no memory or very little memory of what occurred," Fussell said. "If all you have is a hard, written copy of a transcript, it is very difficult to determine whose thoughts those are in the paper, whether the contents are the thoughts and views of the witness or the suggestions of the interviewer."

HEADLINE: Ex-cop's clemency request put off

DATELINE: BATON ROUGE, La.

The Louisiana Pardon Board has deferred a clemency request by a former Kenner police officer who lost her job in 2000 for stealing drugs from an evidence locker.

The board simply took the case of Jenell Godfrey under request Thursday. Assistant District Attorney Randy Meyer of Jefferson Parish, who opposed Godfrey's request, said the case may be brought back in November 2004.

"They'll track her again in another year," Meyer said.

If the board had denied her application, Godfrey would have had to wait for two years before reapplying, Meyer said.

Godfrey, 33, pleaded guilty in 2001 to two counts of malfeasance. She was given a three-year suspended prison sentence and served two years of probation.

Kenner Police Chief Nick Congemi described her arrest in 2000 as the "darkest time in the Kenner Police Department history." Godfrey had worked for the department for seven years and once was lauded as officer of the year.

An investigation began after Godfrey was involved in a car wreck in Kenner in 2000. Officers said they suspected she was under the influence of drugs. They discovered 55 Vicodin tablets from one criminal case missing from an evidence locker she controlled as an evidence custodian.  Drugs from other cases also were missing, police said.

Godfrey resigned from the department.

HEADLINE: Officer charged in embezzlement

She is accused of taking money and a car stereo from a Police Department property room. A Tulsa police officer was charged Friday with taking more than $2,000 in cash and merchandise from the department's property room.

Officer Anna M. Cowdrey was arrested and charged Friday with five counts of embezzlement -- one felony and four misdemeanors -- for money and a car stereo she is accused of taking while working in the property room, records show. 

The charges allege that Cowdrey embezzled $175 in March 2001, $1,553 in October, $133 on two occasions in April, and a car stereo worth $200 in June, records show.

She posted bond Friday and was released from the Tulsa Jail, officials said.

The Police Department's Forgery/Fraud Unit has been investigating Cowdrey since April, Sgt. Wayne Allen said.

Cowdrey had been assigned to the property room for about 1¹/2 years, he said.
She was suspended with pay when the investigation began and then -- when charges were not immediately filed -- was allowed to return to work with reassignment to another division, Chief Dave Been said.

She was suspended with pay again when the charges were filed Friday, Been said.

Although several search warrants were filed in late April and early May to investigate Cowdrey's bank records, she was not charged until new evidence that came to light in late June aided the investigation, Been said.

"It's been a very extensive investigation," he said. "We feel very strongly about the integrity of our department, and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that integrity is not damaged."

Sharon Ashe, Cowdrey's attorney, said she could not comment on the evidence on which the charges were based, but she did comment on her client's integrity.

"She has been a dedicated police officer for 14 years, and she's looking forward to being vindicated in the criminal justice system," Ashe said.

Court records filed in April to obtain search warrants for Cowdrey's bank accounts allege that she became a suspect after a property room audit revealed that 25 property receipts totaling $4,650.89 in cash were missing.

Cowdrey's job was to determine whether old property should be returned to its owner, destroyed, auctioned or deposited in the general fund, records show.

Cowdrey's handwriting allegedly was on property receipts for funds marked "forfeiture" that were missing and had not been forfeited, court records show.

Her handwriting also was on a property receipt marked "RO" (returned to owner) for which the money was missing and no record existed of the owner's signing the money out of the property room, records allege.

Investigators found several open envelopes discarded in property room trash bags, and the money that should have been in the envelopes was missing, records show.

An investigator was able to eliminate "all property room personnel with the exception of Officer Anna Cowdrey" by comparing their fingerprints with those on the envelopes.

Search warrants do not indicate whether detectives were able to match Cowdrey's prints positively with the prints on the envelopes, however.

Search warrants also were filed in May to examine Cowdrey's bank accounts for any transactions involving the same amounts as the missing money, records show.

HEADLINE: Chief defends evidence system

He says police department has made changes since sergeant suspended.
One day after an Elmira police sergeant was charged with stealing $13,000 from the department, the police chief defended the department's evidence procedures but added that no system is perfect.

Police Chief James Waters said the department's procedures for logging in evidence were approved by a national accreditation agency, and some procedures have been changed since November, when Sgt. Joseph M. Miller Jr. was suspended with pay.

New York State Police and city police conducted a 10-month investigation into the missing money, which Waters said disappeared from the department evidence room over a 2 1/2-year period. 

Miller, 33, of Elmira Heights, a 12-year veteran of the force, was arraigned Monday afternoon in Chemung County Court on two counts of third-degree grand larceny, two counts of fourth-degree grand larceny, two counts of first-degree falsifying business records and petit larceny. Miller pleaded innocent.

Miller was indicted by a county grand jury earlier in the day. Waters said the investigation did not yield any other suspects.

Other police department personnel discovered that money was missing, and they brought it to the attention of a supervisor. Before his suspension, Miller was a line supervisor for C Platoon, the 3-to-11 p.m. shift at the department.

His duties included supervising patrol officers on the street, Waters said.

Waters said he couldn't discuss the evidence changes while Miller's case is in court.

"I can't answer the question, 'How could this have happened?' " he said. "That's part of the case."

The logging of all evidence must be verified by a department supervisor, Waters said.

The procedure includes packaging and tagging each piece of evidence. The department uses paper and plastic evidence bags obtained from companies that supply law enforcement agencies.
Some items, such as clothing, are usually packaged in paper to prevent the formation of mold, Waters said.

Depending on the size of the package, the evidence, after verified by a supervisor, is either pushed through a slot in a drop box or placed in a locker. In both cases, once the officer files the package, he can not retrieve it, Waters said.

The evidence is then reviewed by a property clerk, who has a key, Waters said.

Waters said any amount of money that appears to be more than $500 must be counted by two people. If one of the two is not a supervisor, it must again be verified by a supervisor.

That is done for the officers' protection, Waters said.

New York state issues guidelines for collecting and keeping evidence for law enforcement agencies, but each agency develops its own procedures, said Chemung County Sheriff's Lt. John M. Sullivan, whose desk sits in front of two locked doors leading to the evidence room.

A red binder several inches thick sits on a shelf behind him spelling out the department's procedures and policies.

Basic requirements are that each piece of evidence is tagged and a matching worksheet completed describing it, Sullivan said. Then a computer file is created. Sullivan regularly updates the evidence room. He removes evidence no longer needed and makes the appropriate changes in the records.

Evidence is stored in boxes in the double-locked-door evidence room, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said he, too, advises deputies to have a witness when they collect and count money.  When the owner of the money is known, the deputy also can ask them to verify the amount and give the owner a receipt for the confiscated property or money.

But sometimes, there might be a suitcase of money in a room with several suspects who all deny any knowledge of the money, Sullivan said. That's when safeguards are particularly important.
"Police are afraid of money," Waters said. "Because they know they might be accused by suspects."

What's next: Miller returns to court Sept. 22 for motions and discovery. He remains on paid suspension with the department.

HEADLINE: POLICE SUED OVER FAILURE TO CHECK GUN OWNER'S 

ANACORTES OFFICERS SEIZED A FELON'S GUNS - THEN GAVE THEM BACK; LESS THEN A YEAR LATER, SCOTT KINKELE WAS DEAD

Three small American flags, stuck in a barbed wire fence, wave over the roadside memorial on  state Route 20.

Scott Kinkele's climbing ropes are draped on the wooden cross below. An ice pick and a dusty old sailor's hat rest on his memorial stone, along with a dried-up spray of carnations. This is the grassy bank near Anacortes where Kinkele's Subaru slid to a stop that awful night in July 2000.

The 23-year-old Navy officer was dead at the wheel, shot by a convicted felon out cruising the highways with two friends. They had been drinking  and were looking for cheap thrills,  illegally armed with a Glenfield Model 25 .22-caliber rifle and a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun. 

Those guns are now at the heart of a civil lawsuit that raises  troubling questions about when - and if - police in Washington state should run background checks on gun owners.

The suit, filed in Skagit County Superior Court earlier this month on behalf of the Kinkele family, alleges that police confiscated and then negligently returned the two guns to Eben Berriault in November 1999 - some eight months before Kinkele's killing. The police did so without running a background check.

Berriault, now serving a 55-year prison term for the Kinkele killing, has a criminal past that includes a manslaughter conviction for helping beat a 43-year-old Chelan County man to death with a rock in 1983. He also served time for criminal trespass and burglary convictions in the 1990s. Convicted felons are not allowed to possess firearms under  state law. "They put the weapon of death in the hands of a murderer," said Shawn Briggs, the Tacoma attorney who filed the civil suit against Berriault and the city of Anacortes.

Attorneys for the city, which has until the end of the month to respond to the suit, say the case is not so simple. "The fact that Anacortes Police Department had limited contact with Eben Berriault does not make the city responsible for his decision to commit a crime nearly a year later," said Seattle attorney Jayne Freeman.

"To say that the Anacortes Police Department killed Scott Kinkele is too much of a stretch and unfair to these police officers." Guns discovered, returned The story begins  Nov. 15, 1999, when police searched Berriault's property on K Avenue in Anacortes.

Officers had a warrant to look for drugs and stolen property in a separate area of the house, the living quarters for Berriault's younger brother.

During the search, officers discovered the 12-gauge shotgun and .22 rifle in Eben Berriault's bedroom closet. The officers confiscated the two guns - the same guns that would be used in the July 2000 sniper spree.

A month later, though, Anacortes police returned the firearms to Berriault. Because the 35-year-old construction worker and father of two was not the subject of the search warrant, officers did not run a background check. The civil lawsuit served on the city of Anacortes disagrees with that reasoning.

Lawyers for the Kinkeles argue that return of firearms to a felon "falls below the accepted minimum standards of police procedure." That begs the difficult question of whether there are, in fact, minimum standards. Rule change from place to place
In Washington,  policies and procedures regarding return of weapons appear to be far from consistent.

At the Washington State Patrol, troopers returning a confiscated weapon - whether it is taken for safe-keeping or evidence - must first ask for proof of ownership, then run a criminal check to see that the owner can legally possess the weapon. "That's our policy," State Patrol Capt. Glenn Kramer said.

But representatives of state oversight agencies for police and sheriff's departments say procedures can change case by case, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

"Each department kind of does their own thing," said Larry Erickson, executive director of the Washington Association of Police Chiefs and Sheriffs.

Legal questions governing return of confiscated weapons are also murky, according to Pam Loginsky, staff attorney for the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.

"It is not clear that federal law allows us to do a background check before returning a firearm to an individual," Loginsky said.

Still, Briggs, attorney for the Kinkele family, maintains that Anacortes officers were out of line in the Berriault case.

"We've spoken to many experts from other police departments and national experts who say this was a glaring failure in police procedure," he said.

The civil suit maintains that the Anacortes Police Department, in fact, had no actual policy or procedure in place.

Anacortes city officials were asked in a recent public disclosure request to describe such policies and procedures. Attorneys for the city are in the process of preparing a response.

They did forward a Police Department press release, dated Sept. 14, 2000, that notes Berriault was "neither under investigation nor suspected of any criminal activity related to the execution of the search warrant" and added that "the Anacortes Police Department was not aware of Berriault's criminal background."

Whether or not they should have been is a question to be hashed out in federal court.
But a much larger one will loom over the proceedings.

Could anything have stopped Berriault that boozy summer night in July 2000?

The question haunts many dragged into the chain of events that day.

'The wrong night'

Earlier that day, Berriault, his half-brother Seth Anderson, and Adam Moore, the back-seat passenger who later described the events for investigators, downed beers in a downtown Anacortes tavern.

By late afternoon, they were chasing shots of vodka with hits of Budweiser, and talking about heading upland to poach some deer.

About 8 p.m., they loaded up the 12-gauge shotgun and .22 rifle and roared north in a blue Pontiac Firebird for the great "deer" hunt, stopping to stock up on oil for the leaky car, cigarettes and a 12-pack of Molson Ice.

Several times that night, Moore said, Berriault told him: "You picked the wrong night to hang out with us, because we're going to prison."

The shooting spree apparently began on state Route 20, near Sedro-Woolley.

There a woman reported seeing a rifle extend from the passenger side of a blue car, and three men shooting at signs.

But the woman could remember only part of the license plate.

The next drive-by target was a dog. After Berriault shot it and heard it yelping, Anderson and Berriault broke out in laughter, according to Moore, who said Berriault described shooting as "great therapy."

Around 11 p.m., the trio drove up on a Honda and fired a round at the car. The woman driving it heard loud bangs and pulled over. She didn't realize she'd been shot at and didn't report the incident until the next day.

A half-hour before the trio caught up with Kinkele - who was heading home to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island after a hike at Mount Rainier - a Skagit County sheriff's deputy pulled over the blue Pontiac Firebird for speeding.

The  deputy, though, didn't know about the prior shootings, didn't smell alcohol and didn't notice any suspicious behavior. He also didn't see any firearms, so he let the three off with  an oral warning.

Around midnight, the trio spotted Kinkele's green Subaru on  state Route 20.

Berriault told Anderson, the driver, to speed up. He  drew a bead on his target with the 12-gauge shotgun and fired.

The slug hit Kinkele in the back of the head, killing him instantly.

He was the youngest in the U.S. Naval Academy class of '98 to graduate. And he became the first in his class to die.

In their civil lawsuit, the Kinkele family seeks damages for expenses, loss of earnings and emotional and mental suffering, particularly that of Scott's mother, 53-year-old Mary, who died March 7.

After her death, the family filed a $15 million damage claim against the city.

Briggs says it is the city's failure to respond to that claim that led to the civil lawsuit, which stresses Scott's killing as a cause in his mother's death.

After her son's death, Mary Kinkele had trouble sleeping at night, suffered from depression, and was enraged that her son's killers pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, sparing themselves the death penalty, Briggs said.

When Seth Anderson hanged himself with a noose made of bed sheets in his prison cell in 2001, Mary Kinkele said: "When you can't get justice in the courts, sometimes you get justice from God."

Briggs says she went to her grave seeking justice, "trying to give some meaning to an otherwise meaningless death."

And that, he said, is the momentum behind the current lawsuit. "The Kinkeles are not money-driven people. They want to see the right thing done."

In the meantime, Scott Kinkele's killer is in prison, the shotgun is in evidence storage, and the roadside flags, faded from the sun and tattered by barbed wire, wave over a roadside memorial for a young Naval Academy graduate who lived like there was no tomorrow.