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Cops fail lie detector tests in $18K missing money probe

WXIX, FOX19 NOW, fox19.com
BYLINE: Jody Barr, Investigative Reporter
Video

Goshen Township, OH

2015-11-19_Cops fail lie detector tests_01
(FOX19 NOW)

GOSHEN TOWNSHIP, OH (FOX19) - UPDATE: FOX19 NOW has obtained raw interview audio recordings of the two Goshen police officers who failed their lie detector tests. Below is the full story with the interviews embedded.

After nearly three years, investigators still have no idea what happened to $18,000 in cash and drugs missing from a Goshen Police evidence room.

Goshen Police discovered the missing evidence during a March 2013 audit.

After months of internally investigating the possible theft case, the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation took over the investigation from Goshen Police on Aug. 26, 2013. BCI would spend 11 months trying to figure out what happened and who - if anyone - was responsible.

On June 4, 2015, FOX19 NOW filed an open records request with Goshen Township asking for their complete investigative file on the case. Goshen officials never responded to the initial request, claiming in a July 29 email that the “Township has experienced a catastrophic failure with our electronic e-mail/responses and communication efforts came to a screeching stop,” Trustee Claire Corcoran wrote.

VIDEO: GOSHEN POLICE CAPTAIN BOB ROSE BCI INTERVIEW

Corcoran said she was passing the request on to township administrator Lou Etheridge that day.

It would take more emails and calls before the township provided us access to the records. On Sept. 10, Goshen Township released their entire investigative file.

We filed a separate open records request with BCI on August 17. On Sept. 1, BCI handed over 741 pages of its criminal investigation - along with two recordings of interviews with two Goshen Police officers.

GOSHEN PD OPENS INTERNAL INVESTIGATION

In March 2013, Goshen Police Captain Bob Rose opened an internal investigation into the missing evidence. Rose, his report shows, was one of three people with a key to the evidence room. The other two were Sergeant Don Hampton and Officer Katie Davis, Rose reported.

Davis, the report shows, was assigned to manage the evidence room while Hampton would serve as her assistant. The pair conducted an audit when Davis took over the job in March 2012, Rose reported. An audit then showed $39,808.40 in the safe, according to the Rose report.

Davis would later leave on a medical retirement and Davis no longer had access to the evidence room as of December 2012 because Hampton took Davis’ key away, Rose reported.

Hampton and Rose were the only two with keys to the evidence room between December 2012 and March 2013 when Rose started work to “reassign another officer to the evidence room,” Rose wrote.

Hampton performed an audit on March 18, 2013 and discovered “that in 27 cases, cash and money orders that was supposed to still be in the safe, per the records, was unaccounted for,” Rose wrote in his report.

The unaccounted for cash totaled $17,550.94.

All the cases belonged to Sergeant Ron Robinson, the BCI file shows.

Between March and August 2013, Rose continued putting together the internal investigation. Goshen’s file does not show the department turned the investigation over to an outside agency until August 13, 2013 when Trustee Claire Corcoran made a motion during a council meeting to forward the investigation on to BCI to have it independently investigated.

Goshen trustees voted to approve Corcoran's motion.

Corcoran told FOX19 she had several discussions early into the department’s internal investigation with former Goshen Police Chief Ray Snyder, asking him to forward the investigation on. Corcoran said she finally went public with a vote in August 2013 because her requests for an external investigation were being ignored.

“No one would forward it until I gave the chief 30 days. He didn’t respond. I gave him 60 days, he did not respond. On the 90th day, I put it on the bench and asked for resolution to have this investigated,” Corcoran said in an interview last week.

The BCI file shows a criminal case number was assigned to the Goshen PD case on August 26 and an agent was assigned to figure out what happened.

TWO GOSHEN COPS SUBMIT TO LIE DETECTOR TESTS

On August 28, 2013 Captain Rose finished his internal report and delivered it to Chief Ray Snyder. Two days later, the BCI agent in charge of the case read Captain Rose and Sergeant Hampton their Miranda Rights and interviewed the men about details of the case.

VIDEO: GOSHEN POLICE SGT. DON HAMPTON BCI INTERVIEW

Before releasing the file to us, BCI attorneys redacted all the names of the people involved in the investigation. The agency explained in a letter to FOX19 NOW, it did so under an exemption in the state’s open records law that allows redaction of names of people “who at one point was thought to have potentially committed a crime, but were not charged with offenses.”

We were able to identify Rose and Hampton as the officers who took the polygraphs after both acknowledged taking lie detector examinations in email communications with FOX19 NOW.

The BCI file shows Sergeant Don Hampton voluntarily agreed to take a polygraph examination at BCI’s offices in London, Ohio on Sept. 10, 2013. The examination dealt with questions about whether Hampton knew who might have stolen property from the evidence room. The polygraphist asked whether Hampton committed the act himself.

Hampton, the report shows, denied “stealing any of the drug case money orders” and “denied knowing for sure who did,” the examiner wrote in her report.

The polygraph examiner, an Ohio Attorney General’s Office employee, wrote in the report that Hampton “did not tell the truth during the tests.”

The same polygraph examiner concluded the exact same results in the Bob Rose exam, according to the BCI file. Rose also voluntarily submitted to his lie detector examination on Sept. 12, 2013, denying committing any crimes related to the evidence room case or knowing anything about who did, the report states.

Rose declined multiple interview requests from FOX19 NOW. In a Nov. 18 email, Rose called the BCI report “flawed.” Rose continued, “Sergeant Hampton and I are good people who serve with honor and pride. We are not liars and we are not thieves. In the end, I am confident that the truth will prevail.”

Hampton also declined to be interviewed, but did provide FOX19 with his assessment of the BCI investigation, writing that it “was done so grossly inadequate it had to be redone by another agency.”

Hampton also told us he and Rose took a subsequent polygraph examination after the BCI examination and both passed. Hampton provided us a copy of what appears to be a report from a private polygraphist in Hamilton, Ohio. It’s dated August 20, 2014 and shows a list of questions that the report shows Hampton answered truthfully.

However, the questions detailed on the report do not match the ones Hampton was asked by the Attorney General’s polygraph examiner during the criminal investigation. We’re still investigating the private polygraph examination records Hampton provided to us.

The BCI file shows agents also tried to contact a female involved in the case. The female’s name is redacted as part of the investigative report and we were unable to independently confirm the identity of the female. The report shows BCI was unsuccessful in locating the woman to include her interview as part of their investigation.

WHAT THE CASE FILE SHOWS

The BCI file shows every single case involving missing evidence were cases being investigated by Sergeant Ron Robinson. BCI records do not show that Robinson was ever interviewed as part of the investigation.

Robinson’s name is redacted throughout the BCI report for the same reasons the state gave us for redacting Rose, Hampton and the unidentified woman’s names.

Robinson declined to interview with us for this report and told FOX19 when we contacted him on his cell phone, “All I can tell you is our attorneys said not to talk about this without them present.”

“I was not involved with it,” Robinson added before referring us to a Fraternal Order of Police union lawyer in Cincinnati.

Our analysis of the 26 missing evidence cases shows Goshen Police rarely filed charges after seizing money and drugs. The 26 incident reports show there were 97 total suspects listed in the police reports. County clerk of court records show, 66 percent of the 97 suspects were never charged with a crime.

Of the 38 people charged, 75 percent of the cases were later dismissed.

SECOND CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION NEARS END

BCI delivered its final report to Clermont County Prosecutor Vince Faris in May 2014. After a few months of pouring through the file, Faris called the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office to have that agency re-investigate the case.

“It was inconclusive, not complete,” Faris told FOX19. “They just didn’t arrive at any conclusion.”

Faris said he wanted a second outside agency to investigate the case to give the public a shot and having the matter settled and to give the Goshen Police Department a fair shot at having questions surrounding the case answered.

“Maybe nobody’s responsible for anything. It could be record keeping. We’ll see what the second investigation says,” Fairs said.

Hamilton County’s had the case for 15 months, Faris confirmed.

We questioned Faris about why, in the vast majority of the missing evidence cases, Goshen Police never filed any criminal charges when most of the incident reports show officers seized marijuana, pills, cash and guns.

“It’ll always be a concern if there’s irregularities in the proceedings and things missing. I have not seen anything turned over to me by any investigative department to say that anything illegal has occurred in this matter,” Faris said.

As for the failed polygraph results, Fairs wouldn’t touch that.

“I’m not going to comment on anything that occurred in the investigation,” Faris said.

Our sources with knowledge of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s investigation tell FOX19, the department is expected to release its findings to the Clermont County prosecutor in the next few weeks. From there, Faris will have the final decision as to whether there is enough evidence to seek charges.

As of this report, no one has been charged or accused of a crime in connection to the missing evidence investigation.

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