BYLINE: Dan Adkins Georgetown News-Graphic
Scott County, KY
admitted stealing narcotics
Day in court: Former Scott County Sheriff's Deputy Jeremy Day leaves the courtroom following a hearing. Dan Adkins - News-Graphic
Video images captured then-sheriff's Lt. Jeremy Day reaching up and redirecting a camera in the Scott County Sheriff's Office's evidence room away from a safe that kept narcotics evidence, a Kentucky State Police detective and Sheriff Tony Hampton testified Wednesday.
"What we were being shown was Mr. Day manipulating the camera... There's even one video part that shows him turning the camera back, and there's something in his hand," KSP Detective Kevin Calhoun told Scott County Circuit Judge Rob Johnson.
Hampton, meanwhile, said he reviewed part of the video after sheriff's narcotics investigators expressed concern that evidence was missing from the evidence locker.
Day, 37, of Georgetown, headed the sheriff's department's patrol division, named to that post by Hampton shortly after the sheriff took office in January 2011. He resigned the department in September 2011, a few weeks after Hampton asked state police to investigate the missing evidence.
He is charged with six counts of theft of controlled substance-first offense and one count of theft by unlawful taking.
Hampton and Calhoun testified before Johnson in a hearing sought by defense attorney Jerry Wright of Lexington that asked the judge to throw out the videos along with any testimony about a possible confession by Day.
Calhoun testified that on Sept. 15, 2011, Day at first denied taking narcotics from the evidence locker, but soon admitted it. Day was not read his rights against self-incrimination at any time during the interview, he said.
Calhoun noted Day was not charged with any crime until after he was indicted by a Scott County grand jury in April 2012.
Hampton and sheriff's Capt. Jearl Porter testified that Day tried to explain his actions after meeting with the KSP detectives.
Day testified he felt pressured into talking with the detectives although he was never told he could not leave the interview room or that he was under arrest.
Day's trial is set for late July.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
International Association for Property and Evidence
"Law Enforcement Serving the Needs of Law Enforcement"
www.IAPE.org