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Paul Carpenter moved one step forward in his efforts
to return to work in law enforcement this week when his attorney filed a
motion to dismiss the final criminal charge against the former Springfield
police detective. Carpenter had been indicted on charges of wire fraud
and official misconduct in October 2006, at the same time that he and his
partner, Det. Jim Graham, were fired from the Springfield Police
Department. The pair had been the subject of a year-long Illinois State
Police investigation. Last month, a judge dismissed the wire-fraud charge.
The state’s deadline to appeal the court’s ruling expired
Monday night; on Tuesday morning, Carpenter’s attorney, James Elmore,
filed a motion calling the official conduct charge “ripe for
dismissal.”
“Once the wire fraud is gone, there’s no
predicate or underlying offense for the official misconduct,” Elmore
says. The charges stemmed from Carpenter’s efforts to
satisfy the request of an informant who had been arrested in Texas in 2002
and charged with possession of 20 pounds of marijuana. The man pleaded
guilty and was sentenced to five years of deferred probation and 250 hours
of community service. Illinois Times has
not disclosed the man’s identity because his work as an informant
could put him in jeopardy. In court documents he is referred to as
“Probationer A.”
A member of a politically influential family,
Probationer A didn’t want to serve the 250 hours because doing so
would interfere with his full-time state-government job. According to a
summary of the ISP investigation, Probationer A asked Carpenter, whom he
considered a friend, to “take care” of the community-service
hours, and Carpenter agreed. Initially Carpenter asked probation officials to
count Probationer A’s snitching as community service. When Texas
authorities refused that request, Carpenter created a time card showing
that Probationer A had worked 252 hours at St. John’s Breadline.
Carpenter faxed it to authorities in Texas, along with a cover sheet
bearing a handwritten note saying that the man had served his hours. Elmore doesn’t deny that Carpenter faxed the
time card, but he denies that Carpenter’s actions constituted a
crime. “His intentions
were not to commit a crime but rather to help his confidential
informant,” Elmore says, adding that Carpenter planned to testify
that Probationer A had provided tips that led to seven homicide
convictions, one shooting conviction, and information on five other
shootings. However, Carpenter had never registered Probationer A as an
informant, because detectives in the major case unit believed SPD rules
requiring confidential sources to be registered applied only to narcotics
officers. Had Carpenter been tried on the wire fraud and
official misconduct charges, witnesses were prepared to testify that
Carpenter’s actions were endorsed by his supervisors and fellow
officers, Elmore says. In fact, Elmore says, a Breadline employee contacted
Carpenter to offer help creating a time card at the suggestion of another
officer who knew that Carpenter needed such a document. “If you’re going to commit a crime, why
would you involve all these other people?” Elmore asks. Dismissal of these charges may not be enough to win
Carpenter back his old job, however. Former SPD Chief Don Kliment, who
fired Carpenter and Graham, refused to comment, citing Carpenter’s
pending arbitration hearing. But ISP found that Carpenter had committed 28
violations of the SPD General Orders, including multiple infractions of
Rule 4 (“Conformance to Laws”) and Rule 33 (“Lying and
Untruthfulness”) — either of which could be grounds for
termination. Rule 4 specifies that dismissal of charges in a
criminal prosecution does not preclude the SPD from conducting its own
inquiry and “seeking disciplinary action, including
termination” against an officer in violation of this rule. Rule 33
lists a variety of venues in which officers must be truthful (with
exceptions for undercover work and questioning suspects) and says no member
of the SPD shall “knowingly sign any false official statement or
report . . . whether or not under oath.” According to the order,
violation of Rule 33 “is a serious disciplinary offense which will
result in termination.”
Elmore, who has known Carpenter for years and always
respected his police work, says his client hopes to return to the field of
law enforcement. “He’s a good guy, and this has been a
living nightmare for him,” Elmore says. If Carpenter succeeds and Elmore someday finds
himself facing his former client in court, could he use the time-card
incident to impeach Carpenter as a prosecution witness? The defense attorney sidesteps that question.
“I think I’d have a conflict. I
don’t think I could cross-examine him,” Elmore says.
Contact Dusty Rhodes at drhodes@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Apr 10-16, 2008.
