HEADLINE: BOYNTON POLICE FAIL TO AUDIT EVIDENCE; OTHER AGENCIES IN COUNTY HAVE SAFEGUARDS

Boynton Beach police do not have the same safeguards in place to protect against internal theft as other local police agencies, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel review has found.

That review comes as Boynton Beach police this week arrested one of the agency's two evidence custodians for stealing at least $60,000 from its evidence room.

In some cases, William Muhleisen Sr., 58, took cash from one evidence bag and put it in another to hide his thefts, an arrest report shows. Chief Marshall Gage has ordered a full audit of the evidence room. 

Boynton Beach police conduct an annual inspection to meet the department's accreditation standards, Gage said. The process consists of pulling random cases and inspecting the evidence, Gage said. The internal inspectors pull a minimum of 60 cases, but will often pull up to 100 or more.

In explaining why the department does not audit its evidence room, Gage said, "Audits are very time consuming and expensive." But other law enforcement agencies in Palm Beach County are more aggressive.

Boca Raton police perform two complete audits annually, Capt. Rick Reuter said Wednesday. 
The department audits all money, guns and drugs at one time and property during the other, in addition to conducting various inspections during the year. Delray Beach police perform an annual audit as well as staff inspections and partial audits throughout the year, Major William McCollom said. And the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office inspects its evidence room monthly in addition to various inspections throughout the year, spokeswoman Teri Barbera said.
Chief Gage said Wednesday an annual audit was "physically impossible."

KEY EVIDENCE

There are four things agencies can't afford to lose from evidence rooms, McCollom said: money, drugs, weapons and jewelry. Other agencies said the reason for the regular auditing is simple -- the integrity of the evidence room and their officers is at stake.

"People are dealing with a lot of money and drugs, and we don't want to put them in a position where they can be wrongfully accused of something," said Reuter, Boca Raton's commander of investigative services. "But we also want to make sure the evidence is stored and properly accounted for. [Audits] just make sense."

Most Boynton Beach city commissioners said Wednesday that they wanted to hear from City Manager Kurt Bressner and Chief Gage before drawing conclusions.

"I'll expect the city manager and the police chief to come to the commission with some sort of plan so that this doesn't happen again," Mayor Jerry Taylor said.

Vice Mayor Mack McCray said he was "highly upset" over the incident and said he would address the situation at Friday's pre-agenda meeting.

"I have some concerns when the people we've hired to uphold the law are breaking the law," McCray said. "I just can't swallow that."

Problems in the evidence room aren't new to the department. An April 1997 audit discovered the evidence room was missing cash and drugs, and the department couldn't account for at least 85 guns seized since 1985.

Gage wouldn't give a timetable for this latest investigation. At least 100 cases may be affected, he said.

An audit has not yet begun, but Gage declined to say whether the department would conduct an internal audit or hire an independent auditor Muhleisen is on paid administrative leave.

ATTORNEYS' CONCERNS

Criminal defense attorneys say the agency will face considerable problems at trial if juries hear that an evidence room worker stole money because that puts the integrity of the evidence room into question.

"What's to say the evidence hasn't been compromised," West Palm Beach criminal defense attorney Jack Fleischman said. "It may turn out that other items may have been touched, moved or switched to cover up another item that was missing."

The most likely cases that could be affected involve drugs, specifically buy-bust operations and reverse stings, said Robert Gershman, a criminal defense lawyer in West Palm Beach. In those cases, police arrest suspected drug dealers by giving confidential informants cash with known serial numbers to buy drugs. If those bills are found on the dealer, he's busted.

"The money trail is integral in proving that the [suspected] drug dealer sold the confidential informant drugs," Gershman said.

But if Muhleisen took those bills, then the prosecution may have difficulty proving their cases, defense attorneys say.

This incident comes as the department is still dealing with a blow to its image from a "vacation audit," in which it was found that several officers took more vacation time than they were entitled to by not reporting the time."I don't think anything like this is going to do anything good for [our] image, that's for certain," Chief Gage said.

Shahien Nasiripour can be reached at snasiripour@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6531.

HEADLINE: Boynton Police

ISSUE: A trusted police employee stole from the evidence he was hired to protect, potentially tainting more than 100 cases.

The job of looking after the evidence used to arrest and prosecute scores of bad guys may seem like a sleepwalk. But the recent arrest of Boynton Beach's police evidence custodian shows how critical the responsibility is, especially when it's mishandled. Turns out, by his own admission, William Muhleisen Sr. started stealing money from the evidence room shortly after he was hired as its civilian custodian in 2002. Stunned police officials estimate he took at least $60,000, but the loss may be higher.

The worst news here, of course, is not the monetary damage, but the implication the theft will have for more than 100 pending cases. Still unknown is whether Muhleisen pilfered anything other than money. But defense attorneys are already building a persuasive case that all the evidence left under Muhleisen's care has been compromised.

It's an unfortunate, potentially catastrophic turn of events that likely could have been prevented with better supervision and accountability measures.

Chief Marshall Gage says the department runs annual inspections of its evidence, which amounts to inventorying a portion of the cases. That such checks failed to pick up Muhleisen's longtime scheme, and that they fall far short of the extent other area agencies go to in protecting their evidence, speaks volumes about their inadequacy.

As it was, Muhleisen's superiors didn't know anything was amiss until he couldn't produce evidence an officer requested, then volunteered a confession.

That this black eye comes on the heels of an investigation into stolen vacation time that drummed out three officers doesn't speak well for the department's oversight practices. The City Commission would do well to question whether Boynton Beach has a wider management concern on its hands.

BOTTOM LINE: Boynton police need better oversight controls, maybe even a management overhaul.

HEADLINE: DNA advances light fire under cold cases; Federal grant money will let local law enforcement agencies test evidence

For 43 years, a rusting Schwinn bicycle has been tagged and carefully tucked away in a special section of the evidence room of Summit County sheriff's detectives.

The last time it was taken for a joy ride, in 1962, a 12-year-old girl was gliding along on its seat, clutching the broad handlebar grips.

Investigators and sheriff's commanders will not say anything more about that bike until they find the person or persons who made it become a piece of evidence in a murder case -- a cold case that once had little or no chance of being solved.

Finally, because of technological advances in copying the genetic patterns in minute particles of DNA evidence -- some so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye -- sheriff's detectives and investigators for the Akron Police Department have a fighting chance to solve some of those cold cases. 

Last month, the two local law enforcement agencies received more than $110,000 in U.S. Justice Department grant money earmarked for new work on cold cases with DNA testing capability.

Sheriff's Inspector Keith Thornton, commander of the investigative unit, said the department has 34 unsolved murders dating back to the '62 case involving the Schwinn bike. The new grant money, he said, will be invaluable, because it will be used to pay overtime to the investigator assigned to the original case, or to a new investigator to work on a cold case in his or her spare time.

Lt. David Whiddon, a commanding officer in the Akron police detective bureau, said the department is looking forward to reviewing its backlog of cold cases to determine exactly which ones qualify for further DNA testing.

Whiddon said the cold case work would not be limited to unsolved murders, but any case in which DNA evidence could be copied for further testing.

The Akron department's planning and research division will keep track of how the money is being spent overall in Summit County, he said.

The Justice Department grant, with more than $660,000 set aside for cold-case squads in Ohio, also will go to various law enforcement agencies in Lucas and Montgomery counties, according to officials from the Ohio Attorney General's Office, which distributed the grant money.

Nationwide, $14.2 million in grants will be distributed among 38 state and local law enforcement agencies, officials said.

''With DNA technology moving forward, I think the government's seeing the potential to get some of these cases solved,'' Whiddon said.

Both Whiddon and Thornton declined to discuss specific details of any of their cold-case investigations. They said they did not want to tip off potential suspects, some of whom have been lying low for years, or in the case of the 12-year-old girl and her bike, for decades.

However, last February, Summit County prosecutors and sheriff's investigators won a conviction for the murder of Charlene Puffenbarger. 

In 1992, the 26-year-old woman was found beaten and strangled inside a Twinsburg apartment, where she had lived with her two boys, who were then just 2 and 3 years old.

From the start, investigators suspected the woman's boyfriend, Willard McCarley, a Ford plant worker from Northfield who is now 42, for what prosecutors claimed was his refusal to pay child support for the 2-year-old they say he and Puffenbarger conceived. But 13 years ago, there was not enough forensic evidence to arrest McCarley.

One of the major problems in the long investigation, according to sheriff's counsel Christine Croce, was the size of the DNA sample. It was so small, she said, ''we didn't want to keep using up parts of the sample, testing other people's DNA, if we didn't have a strong suspect.''

But during tests in 2003, based on scientific advances in copying even the most minute DNA samples, DNA consistent with McCarley's was found on a leather belt and pillow that authorities said were used in the Puffenbarger killing.

At trial this year, McCarley was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison. Sheriff's Capt. Larry Momchilov said advances in DNA technology were invaluable in helping investigators solve the Puffenbarger case.

With the new funding from the federal grant, Momchilov said, there is renewed hope of solving other cold cases. In 1963, about a year after the Schwinn bike was first brought into the county's evidence room, Momchilov said he began his law enforcement career, part time, as a special deputy with the department. The case, he said, always intrigued him.

As the years passed, the case of the 12-year-old's murder finally had to be filed away with the other cold cases. But there was always something about that bike, Momchilov said, that he has never forgotten.

Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com

HEADLINE: Prosecutor: Dover cop stole coke, Dover cop charged in coke theft;
Police department's evidence handling under fire

DOVER -- Town Detective Steven Brennan was charged Tuesday with stealing cocaine for his own use from a temporary evidence safe.

Also, the Morris County Prosecutor's Office has started a full-scale audit of an evidence-safekeeping system it says is in disarray in Dover. Brennan, 41, was suspended with pay early Saturday from his $77,522 detective's position, and charged Tuesday by a prosecutor's office investigator with one count of official misconduct for allegedly stealing two bags of cocaine from Dover's temporary evidence safe between June 12 and 18.

Brennan was released into his own custody on condition he enter and successfully complete a 28-day inpatient substance abuse program at Sunrise House in Sussex County, according to an order signed by a Superior Court judge in Morristown. 

Dover Police Chief Harold "Butch" Valentine called Brennan "an exemplary employee and friend." He said he has spoken to him and Brennan appears to be in good spirits. "Unfortunately, there may be some circumstances that led to (him) jeopardizing all his hard work," Valentine said. He said he regarded Brennan as so professional he wished he had five more officers like him. "When I gave him something to do, I knew it was going to get done. There was never any question," the chief said.

Prosecutor's Office Chief of Investigations Joseph A. Devine said he got a call around 10:30 p.m. Friday from Valentine, asking him to come to headquarters. Sometime between June 29 and Friday, Detective Sgt. Barry Young had found a transparent, empty evidence bag in a patrol car used by Brennan. The bag had contained two smaller baggies of cocaine and was evidence in a long-completed 2000 criminal case, authorities said.

The evidence bag ultimately was linked to Brennan, said Devine, who brought a team of office detectives to Dover late Friday to interview officers and superiors.

Confession reported

Brennan, an officer in Dover since Aug. 12, 1989, confessed to prosecutor's office Detective Chris Lombardi that he took an evidence bag containing two small bags of cocaine from an evidence safe in the detective bureau in mid-June. He hid the drugs in his clothing and later ingested the cocaine at his home in Rockaway, according to an arrest affidavit prepared by Lombardi.

Brennan admitted that he threw out one portion of the evidence bag in a Dumpster behind a convenience store but forgot to discard the second portion of the bag, which later was found by Young in the patrol car.
Morris County Prosecutor Michael M. Rubbinaccio mostly reserved comment on the case because he defended Brennan when the officer was charged by Mine Hill Police with drunken driving on July 19, 1992, after he, while off-duty, flipped his car on Route 46.

Brennan, who was recognized in 1991 by Mothers Against Drunk Driving for making the most DWI arrests in the department, was convicted and lost his license for six months and paid $426 in fines.

Evidence overhaul

Rubbinaccio did say that he issued a directive Tuesday to Chief Valentine ordering him to cooperate on setting up new temporary and longterm procedures for storing evidence while the audit is going on.

Devine and First Assistant Prosecutor George Schneider said that, from initial reviews, the Dover Police Department methods of evidence-safeguarding are shoddy. They said a team of detectives, headed by an assistant prosecutor, is in the process of conducting an audit of both the temporary evidence-holding safe -- where the alleged theft occurred -- as well as procedures followed in the main evidence-holding area.

"We're working with Dover on evidence and overall property control. This may be a symptom of underlying organizational deficiencies, " Devine said.

Mayor Javier Marin declined comment, except to say he got a call July 2 from town Administrator Paul McDougall about the investigation, and that it had been referred to the prosecutor's office.

Police Capt. Peter Ugalde and Sgt. Francis Coppinger are in charge of evidence storage in Dover, Valentine said. He said that the investigation has revealed how Brennan grabbed the cocaine but he declined to elaborate.

Standard procedure

The temporary evidence safe is supposed to be used by detectives to store confiscated items, such as drugs or weapons, only while an investigation is under way, Devine said. The items are supposed to then be quickly transferred to a main evidence holding area where access is restricted. In Brennan's case, the cocaine he allegedly took out of temporary storage was about five years old. Other items in the temporary storage safe date back to 1997, Devine said. He said his office team of investigators will check what kind of access detectives have to the temporary and main evidence-holding areas, but he believes that Dover detectives had free access to store and remove items from the temporary safe when they should not have.

From the dates of some of the evidence, Dover apparently was not routinely disposing of outdated evidence once criminal cases were resolved and appeals exhausted. Prosecutor's Office Deputy Chief Paul Kalleberg said that disposal is up to departments, but the prosecutor's office invites departments to unload old evidence twice a year when it sends its weaponry and drugs to an incinerator.

Brennan was among a group of detectives who in 1998 sued the department and then-Police Chief Brian Kelly, now deceased, over Kelly's drinking habits and perceived inability to manage the department.

HEADLINE: Boynton votes to audit police; Civilian employee has admitted theft of $60,000

Boynton Beach · In a split decision, the City Commission endorsed a plan to seek an outside firm to audit management of the police department.

The plan comes after a civilian worker confessed to stealing about $60,000 from the police evidence room. He was arrested last week. The decision was 3-2, with commissioners Carl McKoy and Mike Ferguson voting no.

Mayor Jerry Taylor, who initiated the idea, said an audit would help regain residents' trust in the department. It might also help identify other weaknesses in the department's management, he said."I feel like we need to do a full review and not wait for the other shoe to drop," Taylor said.

Police Chief Marshall Gage, who briefed the commission on the case, recommended an audit of the evidence room and annual inspections of critical items, such as money, drugs and weapons. He said a full annual inspection would be too costly.

"I think that's too much of an investment, too much of an expense," Gage said. "Not withstanding that we lost what we did, I think that we can set mechanisms up that we don't need to go to that extent." 

Beginning in 2002, William Muhleisen Sr., 58, took cash from evidence bags turned in by police officers, according to the arrest report. He opened the sealed bags, took the cash and hid the empty bags around the room. 

In some cases, Muhleisen took cash from one bag and put it in another to hide his thefts, according to the report. Commissioners McKoy and Ferguson both said they wanted to see what the audit of the evidence room revealed before supporting a police management review.

During the meeting, Vice Mayor Mack McCray offered some of the toughest criticism of Chief Gage. McCray read a resident's letter calling the police chief a "disgrace" and suggesting that he resign.

"I find that somebody else is thinking along the lines that I think," McCray said. 

Gage, who had said before the theft that he would retire when he found a home in the Orlando area, said during the meeting he intends to stay.

"I have set a date for my retirement. My date is June 30, 2007," he told commissioners. "I am willing to move that up to June 30, 2006, when we finish taking care of business here. I will take care of business here."

In other action, the City Commission approved the first reading of an ordinance that would prohibit sex offenders in Boynton Beach from living within 2,500 feet of a school, playground or other places where children congregate.

The vote was 3-2 with McCray and Ferguson voting against it. McCray has said he has concerns it could interfere with rehabilitation of offenders, while Ferguson said he felt the state's 1,000-foot law was sufficient.

Headline: Former police sergeant to plead guilty

A former Plum police sergeant is expected to plead guilty today to reduced federal charges in connection with the theft of a handgun from the department's evidence room. 

Andrew W. McNelis III, 34, will plead guilty before U.S. Judge Gary L. Lancaster to a reduced charge of attempting to send a gun through the mail, defense attorney Michael DeRiso said Thursday. 

DeRiso declined to discuss whether the guilty plea is related to an ongoing FBI probe of potential civil rights violations by Plum officers. 

Plum police Chief Robert Payne, who assumed command in 2003, has said the federal probe involves current and former department members. He declined to discuss McNelis' plea. 

A federal grand jury indicted McNelis on charges of attempting on March 22, 2002, to mail a missing .45-caliber handgun to its owner, Gerald Burch, of Plum. Sending a gun through the mail is illegal. 

Police only learned the gun was missing from its evidence room on March 12, 2002, when Burch sought its return after clearing up unrelated legal issues. Surveillance photos later showed McNelis mailing a package that contained the weapon to Burch. 

But the package never arrived at Burch's home. Instead, it was returned to the police department because it was incorrectly addressed. 

McNelis worked as a Plum officer for nearly a decade before his suspension in 2002 in connection with the incident. 

DeRiso said he cannot disclose how McNelis came to possess the gun "given the circumstances surrounding the ongoing federal investigation into the Plum police department." 

McNelis is serving probation for a July 2004 conviction on charges of insurance fraud and tampering with public records. McNelis altered a police report to inflate the damages caused by vandals to his home. 

DeRiso said McNelis, who no longer lives in Plum, is scheduled to be sentenced in 90 days. 

"Under the circumstances, he is doing as well as can be expected," DeRiso said. "He is trying to get on with his life." 

Headline: Execution Stayed for Va. Death Row Inmate 

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay of execution Monday for a man convicted of fatally stabbing the manager of a pool hall with a pair of scissors.

Robin Lovitt, 41, had been scheduled for execution at 9 p.m. Monday.

The stay will remain in place until the full court resumes in October. The court will then either hear Lovitt's appeal or allow Virginia to execute him.

Lovitt's attorneys and opponents of capital punishment have argued that the conviction should be reviewed because of questions surrounding the evidence.

Initial DNA tests of the bloody scissors could not conclusively link Lovitt to the 1998 slaying of Clayton Dicks, 44, during a pool hall robbery in Arlington.

A court clerk later destroyed most of the evidence, including the scissors, making additional DNA testing impossible.

The Virginia attorney general's office has maintained that DNA evidence was not critical to the conviction because of "very compelling, strong evidence," including eyewitness testimony.

"He was found guilty by 12 jurors, two trial judges, seven state justices, one federal district judge and three federal appellate judges," said Emily Lucier, spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office.

Lovitt's attorneys had sought a last-minute appeal from the high court and requested clemency from Gov. Mark R. Warner. Among those fighting the execution are former independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

Lovitt has steadfastly maintained his innocence and had remained hopeful about his ability to win a last-minute reprieve, his lawyers said.

The Supreme Court of Virginia in 2000 found no error by the trial court and affirmed Lovitt's conviction and death sentence. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider Lovitt's appeal.

The scissors were among items discarded in 2001 to free up space in the Arlington County Circuit Court's evidence room. In 2003, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected Lovitt's claim that his due process rights were violated. The justices ruled a court employee did not act in bad faith when he ordered the evidence destroyed.

In May, more concerns were raised after an independent audit found the state crime lab erred in critical testing in the case of another death row inmate, who was pardoned.

The audit prompted the governor to call for a scientific review of more than 160 cases handled by the lab. The review team last month concluded the lab properly handled the DNA evidence in Lovitt's case.

Lovitt would have been the first inmate executed in Virginia in 2005.

HEADLINE: First, police problems, then hire Boynton chief

Apparently, Boynton Beach City Manager Kurt Bressner didn't think Police Chief Marshall Gage would be part of the solution for the department. Given the chief's reaction to recent problems, Mr. Bressner was correct last week to ask for and receive his resignation.

In addition to chronic staff vacancies, incidents over the past several months suggested lax management. First was the disclosure that nearly 100 uniformed department employees had been taking vacation without recording it. An audit determined that Boynton Beach could have wasted almost $90,000, since the employees would have been paid for the time they were gone. One sergeant was fired, and two officers resigned. The abuse, especially the breadth of it, was bad enough. Worse, it became public not because of department controls but because of a tip.

More from Opinion

Then last month came the revelation that an employee had been stealing money from the evidence room. Investigators say it happened over three years and amounted to about $60,000. The theft, which turned up when detectives needed evidence that wasn't there, affected more than 100 cases.

Though Chief Gage responded when he became aware of the problems, he and city leaders clearly differed on what those problems revealed. Mayor Jerry Taylor wanted Mr. Bressner to hire an outside consultant to review the workings of the police department. The mayor made a similar recommendation last year. "If we had done that," he said, "we might not have had these problems, or at least we might have discovered them earlier." Chief Gage seemed to think that these had been isolated incidents. "As long we keep hiring humans," he said, "we're going to have problems."

That wasn't the chief's only mistake. He had indicated that he wanted to retire but had given no date. Then early last week, he announced that he might stay for another two years. Or maybe one. That amounted to putting his own interests ahead of the city's.

Chief Gage's departure doesn't diminish the need for an outside review, and that study should take place before the city hires a replacement. Mayor Taylor notes that such a review usually determines one of three things: "Management is screwed up, things are all right but could be better, or there's no need to do anything." It will be shocking if the report doesn't come with some recommendations, and it will be better for Boynton Beach that a new chief is responsible for making the changes.