Bob Hughes Case - Stolen items headed home -Update 5-18-2010

[grunt1]

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, start here:
viewtopic.php?t=7640

For the rest of you, I felt this update worthy of it's own thread. (aferg, feel free to put it back when we nail the lid shut on this one...)

Ok............ Here .. we .. go..


I spoke with the prosecutors office today. They told me the "release" document I had been trying to find was called a Certificate of Termination of Prosecution. After a case is finished, this document is created and a copy goes to the police department, with the case name, cause number and police department case number. It's signed and dated by prosecutor showing case is closed.

The case number is 2006-3517 and she indicated there were six victims. It seemed to me that there were more than that? She thought maybe they only listed six names to get the conviction and the rest were legitimate, but unneeded for a successful prosecution. <shrug>

They said the CoToP was sent over to the police department on June 16th, 2008. For some reason this didn't trigger any action. It was unclear if it was lost or they were just busy.

Anyway, she suggested I contact the evidence room, gave me the name and contact info. I called them up and spoke with Wayne. He indicated the prosecutors office had called shortly before and gave everything a green light.

The evidence is stored at an off site warehouse. They are arranging to have it sent to the Police headquarters next week. I'm scheduled to meet with Wayne and Lt. Taylor on January 23rd to help them identify the items and associate them with the various claim lists sent in by the victims.

We will do the best we can to associate the lists you've sent in with whatever they confiscated from his house. I'm hoping they have claim tags or something we can use to mark the items, if not, I'll run to a local store to get something.

At that point, I'm not sure what will happen. I'll try to call Lt. Taylor and see if they are going to mail them out, contact victims to arrange pickup, or what.

This is a small police department so I have no feel for their means to swallow shipping costs. We will see.

[aferguson]

so what happened to him?

[grunt1]

Entry Date: 6/9/2008
Type:
Notice Sent: NO
Order on File: NO
Order Location:
Minute Entry:

OPEN plea and sentencing hearing held. Deft. enters a plea of guilty to
Counts I through VI. Deft. committed to the Dept. of Correction for a
period of 3 yrs. on each Count I through VI, with all of Deft.'s sentence
being suspended except for time served. Deft. placed on probation. Deft.
placed on HOME DETENTION for a period of 120 days. Deft. to pay Court
costs. Upon successful completion of probation, and payment of
restitution in full, Deft.'s convictions shall be entered as an
alternative Class A Misdemeanor. Credit for 1 day, with good itme 2 days.
Deft. has served his sentence. Cash bond to be distributed as follows:
$100 Clerk's adm. fee, $160 Court costs, $5 special death, $100 prob. adm.
fee, and $285 to home detention fees. Order following.(LR) Disk 13,

[Razor17019]

Great Job Grunt, hunting down this information!!!
WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[grunt1]

I'm just the messenger. Credit goes to Cruzin2000, billgiff, all you guys that sent in their evidence and especially the police and prosecutors over in Richmond that took this seriously and got the job done.

Speaking of which, anyone talked to Cruzin2000 lately?

[flayrah]

All good news. I had hoped for a harsher punishment, but realistically I can't expect more than what he was sentenced.

As for the evidence, I have no way to ID what I sent him. My stuff will just be more of the big pile - assuming the bulk of what we sent him was recovered. If anyone gets anything back, feel free to just distribute my share of any unclaimed pieces to whoever wants them.

Thanks for all the work you've put into this.

[Teamski]

All good news. I had hoped for a harsher punishment, but realistically I can't expect more than what he was sentenced.

As for the evidence, I have no way to ID what I sent him. My stuff will just be more of the big pile - assuming the bulk of what we sent him was recovered. If anyone gets anything back, feel free to just distribute my share of any unclaimed pieces to whoever wants them.

Thanks for all the work you've put into this.

Yeah, me too. Oh well.

You did good!!

-Ski

[grunt1]

What did you guys send to officer Taylor? My hope is that if you sent a list along the lines of:

Flayrah (real name)
1:18 German Tiger 1 Tank, Winter version, diecast
1:18 Lou IV Mustang airplane
1:18 S1 German Officer figure and accessories

Board member (real name)
1:18 S1 US Marine Digger w/ accessories
1:18 BBI Zero - White

If that is what you did, we should have a reasonable chance to ID those items and associate them with your claim (assuming that they are in the evidence lot). If there are multiples, you may not get "yours" but you might get one just like it.

Any flavor you can provide on what the claims lists looked like will be helpful since I probably won't see the actual lists until I get there.

Everything left over will stay with the police department and be sold at their annual auction.

[flayrah]

Actually there's a good chance I sent:

What did you guys send to officer Taylor? My hope is that if you sent a list along the lines of:

Flayrah (real name)
1:18 Lou IV Mustang airplane
1:18 S1 German Officer figure and accessories

If that is what you did, we should have a reasonable chance to ID those items and associate them with your claim (assuming that they are in the evidence lot). If there are multiples, you may not get "yours" but you might get one just like it.

Any flavor you can provide on what the claims lists looked like will be helpful since I probably won't see the actual lists until I get there.

Everything left over will stay with the police department and be sold at their annual auction.

I had multiple LOU-IVs at the time (planning on making an F-82), and a ton of first series Germans and GI's. I clearly remember sending some figures, and I think also a jeep, but there were so many trades going on at that time among board members I can't remember what vehicles I sent out or to whom. I DO know I sent him at least two seperate packages. I guess I'm a sucker or just have lots of good faith.

The problem is, there is NO way I can provide any proof of what I sent.

[grunt1]

Did you send a list and your information to Lt. Taylor?

[Austeyr]

I have previously sent a list to Sgt Taylor regarding my item. It is a customised, green bbi japanese zero and pilot (the one where the engine pulls out for detail).
I have sent photos for proof that it was mine. If you see it there can you please let me know. I know they have it because I was sent a photo of it from the evidence room.
I can provide pictures that Sgt Taylor sent me of the Zero, he also said in an email to me that he was 100% sure that the zero is mine.
Please dont hesitate to contact me at austeyr@dodo.com.au if you need any more info.
Thanks for all your help. It's been a long, hard fight but it's good to see this douche bag has been nabbed and charged.

Sean.

[grunt1]

Aust, with that level of interaction with Lt. Taylor you should be good to go. If anyone else wants to make sure that their list accurate, please send me a PM. We (razor is going to help) are only assisting the police and will likely be restricted to any lists they have received from the victims.

That being said, the reason we're there is to provide the additional level of detail that someone not into this hobby or military items in general that these officers just can't provide. So, if your zero was a custom (and there are three zero's), we'll make sure you get yours if at all possible.

Same thing with figures, armor, etc.. If yours was carded and there are loose/carded ones, we'll try to make sure you get carded.

Custom paint, vs stock, etc..

Again, feel free to send me a PM, but this detail needs to be e-mailed to Lt. Taylor if it hasn't been already.

Oh and regarding condition /accessories, keep in mind this stuff has been in an evidence "locker" for over a year. I would say expect the worse and hope for the best.

[Killerf6]

I personally wasn't effected by this scum bag, but I would like to say thanks to all those that helped bring him down, and those that are assisting in the recovery of other peoples property.

You all deserve a medal. 1/8 scale of course.

[ParatrooperCarbine]

I sent my data to the officer also-my list was the US and German paratroopers plus the 21st Century buildings.

[parrish333]

A HUGE thanks again to grunt1 and razor17019 for working with Lt. Taylor to bring this case to a close. The Lt. wrote an e-mail today indicating his own huge thanks to them for their assistance with the evidence distribution, and also attached a picture of one Mr. Jerry Napier.

If it would be appropriate, I'd like to post Lt. Taylor's e-mail here, but I'll wait for grunt/razor's permission as they've been closer to the case.

[grunt1]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grunt and Razor's Excellent Adventure (to Richmond, Indiana)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So today was the big day many of us have been waiting for. I headed out to Richmond at about 8am, stopped at a few Walmarts on the way (zilch) and arrived there about 11am to meet Razor in front of the Richmond Municipal Building.


The Municipal building houses the police and apparently the Richmond SWAT department. They were there in force taking training, doing hand to hand combat drills and other nifty SWAT moves in the building somewhere.


There was also a cool building across the street that looked like a Castle.



And it had Tanks!! This is our kind of town..


Anyway, Lt. Taylor came out shortly and we went to lunch at a nearby Chinese place. He shared with us the timeline of the case and various details. It was the communication from billgiff and the evidence that he, catman, digger, parrish333, austeyr, and robertr74 submitted that really got the case going. Lt. Taylor is also a computer forensics expert so he was able to recover corroborating information from "Mr. Hughes" computer.

The majority of the items seized in the raid were essentially the same types of items that could be purchased off the shelf so there was only circumstantial evidence to prove they were the actual stolen goods.

The case really broke open when Lt. Taylor received photos from Austeyr of his stolen Zero.

Austeyr had heavily weathered his Zero and when Lt. Taylor compared the photos to the Zero in the evidence room, they were an exact match. Case closed...

After lunch, we headed out to the evidence warehouse. It was a very interesting site and I wish I had taken some photos. Lots of crashed cars, two pallets of computer equipment rescued from a fire (but covered in snow), and multiple police cars in various states of damage and repair (they chase those crooks down old school style in Richmond.. ). We met up with two other officers that managed the evidence warehouse and went behind a big blue tarp into the warehouse proper.

The officers stood by patiently (occasionally holding up an XD torso and making "guess his chute didn't open" jokes) while we spent several hours working through the items and matching them to the lists sent in by the victims. Once that was completed, we labeled the bags and gave them back to Lt. Taylor. The condition of the items in some cases was poor and he had used superglue on a lot of them. Many of the figures were disassembled so we did the best job we could to put the proper arms, legs, heads and accessories into each bag.

Anyway, that's the short version of the story, I swear..

If he hasn't already, Lt. Taylor will be in contact with each of you on the list above to arrange shipment of your items back to you. Don't hesitate to send him an e-mail if you haven't heard anything or send me a PM.

Please let us know when your items come back.

Hats off to the Richmond PD..
You guys rock!

[grunt1]

Oh and parrish, no permission required, do whatever you like.

[ParatrooperCarbine]

RobertR74 is me. I'm glad I was able to help!

[ParatrooperCarbine]

His photo:

[Killerf6]

Cool, it looks like Austeyr should get his zero back. and hopefuly every one else that was ripped off by this slime ball.

Again great work to all those involved with this clowns demise.

[flayrah]

[quote="grunt1 The condition of the items in some cases was poor and he had used superglue on a lot of them. [/quote]

Yup, I'm one of the lucky??? LOL ones who actually received a 'trade' from this looser - everything was super-glued together and made of mis-matched parts. I had to toss it all.

Why am I not surprised by his photo? ROTFL!!!

Great work to all. Please post what you get back....and the condition. And don't forget to disinfect with Lysol.

[ParatrooperCarbine]

Hopefully the accessories are still in good shape.

[RED]

Hey yall!!! Great job guys!!! Yall kick-ass!!!---RED---

[parrish333]

Hey yall!!! Great job guys!!! Yall kick-ass!!!---RED---

Hey y'all, here is part of the e-mail that Lt. Taylor wrote to me (and presumably some others). I thought you might want to read it - especially since he wanted to thank Grunt and Razor publicly.

**********************

From: ctaylor@richmondindiana.gov
To: ctaylor@richmondindiana.gov
Subject: Your Items
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:46:50 -0500

Hello!

...be sure to give Grunt1 and Razor17019 a HUGE thank you in getting to the bottom of the evidence problem. The Prosecutor's Office allegedly sent a Termination order on the evidence back in June, however, our lab didn't receive it. When I talked to our lab guys in November/December they were still under the belief that it was being held.

They also came over and did the sorting of the various bits and pieces,
checking Series, etc. They deserve thanks for this, as each one took the
day off work and drove an hour or more to help. Without them, this release process would have taken a huge amount of time, as I've got no clue which model is what, etc.

I apologize for the length of time that this has taken I've had numerous
promotions and reassignments throughout this, making the investigations
difficult. I know that the whole evidence retention/problems caused many of you heartaches, but the light is at the end of the tunnel.

From this point, there is still sadly a lot of stuff that went unclaimed as
far as possible evidence. We must return the stuff that wasn't claimed back to Mr. Napier, or at least make the effort to. We'll send him a letter telling him to pick up his goods within 30 days. If he doesn't show, we'll
hold it for 60 more days, and then add it to our Auction. It may or may not
happen this year, depending on the City Controller's office.

Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Again, please thank Grunt1 and Razor17019 publicly, because without them this process would have taken much longer.

Thanks!

Chris

[flayrah]

From: ctaylor@richmondindiana.gov
To: ctaylor@richmondindiana.gov
Subject: Your Items
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:46:50 -0500


From this point, there is still sadly a lot of stuff that went unclaimed as
far as possible evidence. We must return the stuff that wasn't claimed back to Mr. Napier, or at least make the effort to. We'll send him a letter telling him to pick up his goods within 30 days. If he doesn't show, we'll
hold it for 60 more days, and then add it to our Auction. It may or may not
happen this year, depending on the City Controller's office.

Chris

RETURN!?!?! Well that stinks. I thought it would go directly to the auction. I don't mind any of my stuff being sold to help the departments operating funds, but I certainly don't want it to go back to that slimeball. I wish I could claim my items, but there's no way I can ID or prove any of it. D**M!!!