Officers found guilty of dereliction of duty

KATE LIEBERS

Staff Writer

Two law enforce­ment offi­cers were found guilty of dere­lic­tion of duty Tues­day for leav­ing a drunk man at Taco Bell before he was killed when he stum­bled into traf­fic while walk­ing along U.S. 36.

Delaware County Sheriff’s deputy Derek Beggs, 29, and Ohio State High­way Patrol Trooper Sean Car­pen­ter, 38, were fined $1,000 plus court fees — a total of $1809.80 for each officer.

The offi­cers’ jobs also remain in jeop­ardy; ongo­ing inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tions by the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office and OSHP will deter­mine what spe­cific dis­ci­pli­nary action will be taken against Beggs and Car­pen­ter, respectively.

“It’s never a good day for law enforce­ment when some­one in the pro­fes­sion is con­victed of a crim­i­nal offense,” Delaware County Sher­iff Russ Mar­tin said Tuesday.

While the defense attor­neys said they plan to file an appeal, Mar­tin said the result of that process would have no impact on the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion. The appeal process can take weeks; Mar­tin said he hopes the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion will con­clude within 10 days. The deputy will not have to pay fines until the out­come of the appeal is decided.

The eight-person jury delib­er­ated for 11 hours before reach­ing the unan­i­mous ver­dict. Jurors could not be reached for comment.

Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor Mary Lynn Caswell sus­pected the recorded evi­dence pre­sented dur­ing the trial was the most dam­ag­ing — espe­cially the record­ing in which Beggs is heard say­ing the dri­ver was drunk.

“I think the videos speak for them­selves,” Caswell said. “The deputies were jok­ing and laugh­ing and talk­ing about going home. And they were not tak­ing the job of law enforce­ment seriously.

“I think the ver­dicts were just and fair in this case,” she added.

Defense attor­neys had argued the offi­cers could not have known for cer­tain that Uriel Juarez Popoca, 22, was drunk when they decided to leave him at a Taco Bell the night of July 28.

Dominic Vitan­to­nio, defend­ing Beggs, said no field sobri­ety test was con­ducted and Sam Shaman­sky, defend­ing Car­pen­ter, said the trooper had not come close enough to Popoca to know his level of intoxication.

Vitan­to­nio also high­lighted law enforce­ment tes­ti­mony that deputies are allowed to use their dis­cre­tion when han­dling sus­pects. Shaman­sky also main­tained Car­pen­ter was less respon­si­ble for the inci­dent because he was last on the scene.

Shaman­sky said he was dis­ap­pointed with the verdict.

“I think this is a case where this jury clearly and unequiv­o­cally lost its way,” he said. “We’re firmly con­vinced that these ver­dicts don’t even remotely com­port with the evi­dence, but it’s the ver­dict with which we have to live. We’ll appeal and see what happens.”

Vitan­to­nio declined to com­ment on the verdict.

Accord­ing to evi­dence pre­sented dur­ing the trial, Beggs was respond­ing to 911 calls of a drunk dri­ver north­bound on Inter­state 71 when he found Popoca’s truck parked on the median. Deputy Christo­pher Hughes arrived later, fol­lowed by Car­pen­ter, and the three of them had a laugh about find­ing a trans­la­tor for Popoca, who spoke lit­tle Eng­lish, at a Taco Bell.

The joke was made after deputies had already called a trans­la­tor, who, after speak­ing briefly with Popoca, con­cluded Popoca would ask a female friend for a ride home. Hughes took Popoca to the Taco Bell with­out telling a shift super­vi­sor and with­out wait­ing for Popoca’s friend to arrive.

The restau­rant employ­ees did not speak Span­ish, but used a trans­la­tion device on their phones to hear Popoca say he was dropped off by law enforce­ment, accord­ing to tes­ti­mony by Taco Bell shift super­vi­sor Ste­vie Ray.

Ray called the DCSO to request they pick him back up, but Popoca had walked away by the time offi­cers arrived. The doc­u­mented 911 calls sug­gest mul­ti­ple motorists saw him walk­ing along U.S. 36 before he was fatally struck by oncom­ing traffic.

A tox­i­col­ogy report revealed Popoca had a blood alco­hol level of 0.23 per­cent, nearly triple the legal limit, at the time of his death.

Beggs and Car­pen­ter were found guilty of two second-degree mis­de­meanor counts, one stem­ming from how the offi­cers han­dled the inci­dent at I-71, and the sec­ond stem­ming from thier deci­sion to drop Popoca off at Taco Bell.

No wit­nesses or evi­dence was sub­mit­ted by the defense. Beggs and Car­pen­ter did not tes­tify in their defense and declined to com­ment before they were sentenced.

Vitan­to­nio had requested Beggs’ sen­tence be a mon­e­tary fine sim­i­lar to deputy Christo­pher Hughes, 27, who was fined $20 plus court costs after plead­ing no con­test to a lesser charge last week.

Hughes was con­victed of fail­ure to aid a law enforce­ment offi­cer, a minor mis­de­meanor, shortly before the trial began on Dec. 13.

Hughes is also part of the DCSO’s inter­nal investigation.

All three offi­cers have been on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave since the inves­ti­ga­tion began.

Posted by Gary Henery on Dec 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.