The investigation into possible misconduct by
two Springfield Police major case detectives includes allegations
that one of the officers provided a phony document to probation
officers in another state. At the same time, local defense
attorneys have filed court pleadings complaining that felony
investigations handled by the two officers are missing “vital
reports.” Detective Paul Carpenter has been on
administrative leave since Oct. 4. His partner, Detective Jim
Graham, was placed on administrative leave Jan. 17. Both officers
are subjects of an ongoing Illinois State Police investigation. The document in question is a time card showing
community-service hours purportedly worked by an Illinois man who
is on probation for a crime committed in another state. Carpenter
faxed the time card, together with a note saying that the
probationer had completed his community-service obligation, to
authorities in the other state. The card showed the probationer had
worked at a charity more than 250 hours in a single month,
including 16 hours every Saturday and nine hours every Sunday. Illinois Times is
withholding all potentially identifying information about the
probationer — including his name and the state in which he
committed the crime — because the man worked as a
confidential source, or informant, for Carpenter. In the fall of 2003, Carpenter went to the
Sangamon County Adult Probation office and asked to have the
informant’s snitch time counted toward his community-service
requirement. Local probation authorities could not grant
Carpenter’s request, because the informant was still under
the jurisdiction of the other state.
After being rebuffed by the probation office,
Carpenter obtained a document purportedly showing that the probationer had indeed completed
his community-service requirement — a time card showing that he
had worked at a local charity every day but one during the month of
September 2003. When contacted by a reporter, the supervisor
who signed the card said that the charity routinely offers double-
or even triple-time credit for probationers who are willing to
staff shifts when volunteers fail to appear. However, the
supervisor, who no longer works for the charity, refused to answer
any other questions, citing the probationer’s
confidentiality. The card, which appears to be
computer-generated, indicates that the probationer worked at least
three hours every day of the month except Labor Day. At the bottom
of the card is a handwritten tally of 252 hours, though a more
careful calculation of the specific hours yields a sum of 232. On Oct. 20, 2003, Carpenter faxed the time card
to authorities in the state where the man had pleaded guilty to a
narcotics charge. Carpenter added a cover letter on SPD stationery
with a handwritten note suggesting that he had previously provided
contradictory information: “I was off on my dates for [the
probationer’s] community service. He already completed it.
Sorry for my mistake. I will fax this to Sangamon County Probation
also. Thank you.” It’s not clear when Carpenter followed
through with this promise to provide the document to the local
probation office, but a few months later, on May 13, 2004, Chief
Judge Robert Eggers issued an administrative order all
but prohibiting the use of probationers as informants. The order states, “. . . the Sangamon
County Courts have directed that probationers under the
jurisdiction of the Courts should not associate with persons
engaged in criminal activity nor work as an informant for a law
enforcement agency.” It makes an allowance for probationers
who could serve as informants in “exceptional” cases in
which their information “would likely result in conviction of
a major criminal or where the security of the nation is
involved,” Eggers wrote. But even then, the probationer must
first have permission from the sentencing judge. Eggers said that his order was not issued
in response to any one incident but rather in answer
concerns voiced by probation authorities. “What inspired this order was the need
perceived by the probation office to gain some control over police
officers using probationers as informants, sending them back into
places they shouldn’t be going under the requirements of the
probation,” Eggers said this week. “Police agencies
need to run everything through parole [officials] so they know what
their people are doing.” Mike Torchia, the director of Sangamon County
Adult Probation, echoed Eggers’ assertion that all decisions
concerning probationers have to come through his office and should
not be handled by law-enforcement officers. “We’re the ones that are actively
monitoring the cases,” he said. “We’re the agency
that reports back to the sending jurisdiction.” Torchia refused to comment on the specifics
of this case but said that a time card such as the one in question
— indicating that a probationer worked 16 hours every Saturday and
nine hours every Sunday in a month — would raise questions. “I wouldn’t put a lot of trust in
that time card,” Torchia said. This incident was one of the first specific
allegations presented to ISP investigators, who were initially
called in to handle a 20-page complaint filed by another SPD
officer, Ron Vose. Vose, who was the sergeant in charge of
SPD’s narcotics unit when he wrote the memo, was subsequently
transferred to patrol. In January, he resigned from SPD and filed a
federal lawsuit against Kliment and another supervisor, claiming
the transfer was retaliatory. According to Vose’s lawsuit, the memo
detailed concerns about the detectives’ methods for obtaining
search warrants and their use of undocumented confidential sources.
But this week, when contacted by a reporter, Vose confirmed that
the memo also mentioned the incident involving Carpenter and the
probationer. He refused to answer other questions, citing his
lawyer’s advice. “I hand-delivered the memo to the chief
on March 2, a year ago, so you would have to ask him about the
status of the investigation,” he said. Kliment could not be reached for comment. Meanwhile, local defense attorneys are raising
questions about Carpenter and Graham’s failure to produce
documents. On Feb. 9, attorney Bruce Locher sent a letter to Eggers
asking him to enforce state statutes that require police to give
prosecutors “all investigative material,” including
reports and memoranda. “If the Springfield City Police
Department [and all other investigative entities] would designate
at least one person to handle the task of gathering and
disseminating to the appropriate prosecuting agency virtually
everything connected with the felony case involved, incidents such
as Detective Jim Graham sitting in the witness chair with reports
never disclosed to either the State or the defense would be
significantly reduced and more information would likely flow to the
defense,” Locher wrote — referring to a 2004 murder
trial in which attorneys discovered that the lead detective on the
case held reports that they had never seen. Eggers said that he had received Locher’s
letter but also said that he wasn’t sure that it required
immediate action. “I haven’t responded and I
don’t know that I intend to,” he said. “I have a
piece of litigation before the court right now that I think
involves all these issues somewhat.” Eggers is presiding over the case of Dennis J.
Scott, who is charged with a 2001 triple homicide. Graham and
Carpenter handled the investigation of the murders, and
Scott’s attorneys have subpoenaed their disciplinary records
and asked Eggers for permission to depose the detectives. A ruling
on those motions is expected next week. But pleadings filed by Scott’s attorneys
suggest that they haven’t received expected police reports.
“Without disclosing specific issues to the Court, it is the
defense’s position that there exist numerous shortcomings in
the investigative procedures employed in this instant case. These
include absences of critical written reports, incomplete
disclosures and loss of vital physical evidence,” according
to Scott’s response to motions to quash their subpoenas. Steve Weinhoeft, first assistant state’s
attorney, called these assertions “fairly routine attacks
that are made in every case.” “Police officers are always challenged on
whether or not they did a full and complete investigation,”
he said.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2006.
