RECORDS MESS, PROBE STALL VEHICLE FORFEITURE PROCESS

Times Investigation: Inside Q-C Drug Fight

A Seasprite pleasure boat seized in a drug raid three years ago by
Davenport police still sits in a city impound garage along with 19
other seized vehicles, all wearing thick coats of dust.

The courts already have ruled that the department can sell the
collection of cars, trucks and boats and use the proceeds for crime
fighting. But the process of disposing of the 20 vehicles has been on
hold for 15 months as state criminal investigators probe the records
kept by a former Davenport police vice unit commander, department
officials say.

Evidence in the case now casts doubt on the validity of some of those records.

A Quad-City Times review of five years worth of Davenport police
seizure records and other department documents found:

- - One case in which fired Davenport police Sgt. Greg Collins
falsified court records to show that a seized 1985 Chevy Blazer had
been returned to its original owners when, in fact, he had kept the
vehicle for himself and sold it for an $1,100 profit.

- - A case in which police inventory forms show Collins and other vice
officers seized $898 from three suspected drug dealers. Court
documents for the same case show $165.22 of the money was awarded to
law enforcement but give no account of what happened to the remaining
$732.78 in cash.

Those discrepancies explain why Iowa Division of Criminal
Investigation detectives have to go through hundreds of cases
supervised, or personally handled by Collins, trying to determine if
he should face criminal charges.

In addition, Davenport investigators now say a mess of envelopes
amassed in the police evidence locker includes 171 envelopes
containing $111,442.54 in seized money that should have been turned
over to the Scott County Attorney's office for forfeiture
proceedings. Some of the cases were as many as eight years old.

These findings come more than a year after separate probes by the
Times and the Davenport police internal affairs office showed Collins
had used seized property and money for his own benefit. Collins, a
22-year veteran of the force, was fired in July 2000 as a result of
those probes.

Most Davenport police officials, DCI investigators and prosecutors
from the Iowa Attorney General's office have refused to comment about
the findings until the criminal investigation is complete.

But one police official, who spoke last month under condition of
anonymity, characterized the examples as a "trail of confusion,"
making it necessary for DCI investigators to examine hundreds of
seizure cases to get to the bottom of what actually happened.

Davenport police officials say the mess has created problems for
internal affairs investigators as well.

"Just in our department's review alone, these kinds of things have
made things harder because you can never find what you are looking
for all in the same place," said Lt. Scott Sievert, who had worked as
one of Collins' supervisors. "Records are out of place or don't show
you what actually happened."

The Cause

Davenport police officials and Scott County prosecutors blame part of
the problem on the unbridled control of vice squad accounts and
seized property given to Collins by his supervisors.

A Times investigation published in January 2000 showed Collins had
sole authority over transferring titles and setting prices for
vehicles his vice squad seized in drug raids. He later purchased two
of the vehicles - a 1990 Cadillac and a 1989 Chevrolet Astro Van -
shortchanging the city $2,300.

Collins' vice officers seized the Cadillac from the same suspected
drug dealer who owned the Seasprite boat, now sitting in storage.

And in another case, he falsified court documents to obtain a
Chevrolet Blazer his vice unit seized from two suspected drug dealers
in November 1998, department documents allege.

A letter sent to Collins by Interim Chief Wayne Nelson on July 13,
2000, accuses Collins of using his position to purchase the Blazer
for $500 on June 26, 1999.

Court documents in the case stated the vehicle was returned to its
original owner. But Nelson's letter stated that an internal
investigation showed Collins falsified the court documents and then
sold the Blazer for a $1,100 profit.

These findings have meant investigators have had to review the paper
trails of all vehicles seized by the Davenport vice unit during
Collins' nearly 8-year tenure as commander, police officials say.

And with evidence that at least one document has been falsified,
investigators have not always been sure exactly what they are looking
at, one official said.

According to Scott County Court documents kept on file at the county
attorney's office, the Davenport Police Department was given legal
title to 32 seized vehicles between Jan. 1, 1996, and November of
2000.

Normally, seized vehicles are either used by the department as
undercover cars or sold and the proceeds used to fund crime-fighting
programs.

"But we've been holding on to 20 vehicles because of the problems,"
Sievert said. "And we've only moved to seize two vehicles since
January of 2000 because of the investigation."

The Solutions

Sievert said the department recently received approval from DCI to
begin disposing of the 20 backlogged vehicles.

"We just haven't had time to get to it yet," he said. "Our plates are
full with working through several issues, and it will take time."

When the vehicles are sold, it will be at public auction - not on
consignment through a local used car dealer as Collins had done. The
method Collins used to sell the vehicles was prohibited by state law.

"From now on, they will go through the same auction process as all
other forfeited property," said Sievert, noting that Scotty's Auction
Service, 5403 Rockingham Road, Davenport, handles all city auctions.

Police Chief Mike Bladel also has added the position of department
auditor to the force, naming Capt. Jay Verhorevoort, a certified
public accountant, as the overseer of police funds.

Authority over vice accounts has been split up between Sievert and
the sergeant of the unit, with oversight by Verhorevoort.

"We know we took some hits on this one, and rightfully so," Bladel
said. "But we're getting things in order and have added safeguards to
try to prevent it from happening again."