Judge throws out drug evidence, criticizes OKC police detective

CHIEF SAYS DETECTIVE’S WORK WILL BE REVIEWED

Evidence seized in an Oklahoma City drug trafficking case has been thrown out because a federal judge concluded a police detective made false and misleading statements in seeking permission for a search.

The police detective, Keith Medley, “recklessly” made statements in requesting a search warrant “with utter disregard for the truth of the matters asserted,” U.S. District Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti ruled in suppressing the evidence.

Victor “Lil Vic” DeWayne Gaines, 29, still is awaiting trial in Oklahoma City federal court while prosecutors consider appealing the decision. Meanwhile, attorneys representing other defendants are considering raising similar challenges in cases the detective investigated.

Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty said an administrative investigation will be conducted of the detective’s work “to determine to what extent there was misconduct.”

“We obviously take the judge’s comments, the criticism, very seriously,” the police chief said.

The ruling is unusual because such evidence is rarely suppressed. Also, the judge’s criticism of the veteran police detective was particularly strong.

The judge first ruled Dec. 15 and stuck by his decision Feb. 10, after prosecutors asked him to reconsider.

The judge found the detective was recklessly indifferent to both the false and misleading statements made in an affidavit “even though he may not have deliberately intended to mislead the state court judge who issued the search warrant.”

The judge specifically criticized the detective’s testimony to him during hearings about the search. DeGiusti wrote the detective “seemingly did not care whether his sworn statements to the state district court judge were completely accurate or not.”

Assistant Federal Public Defender Tony Lacy asked for the evidence to be suppressed. Prosecutors argued that there were still enough facts in the detective’s affidavit, despite all the mistakes, to justify the search.

Medley has been an Oklahoma City police officer since March 2002 and is assigned to the Gang Intelligence Unit and Violent Crimes Task Force.

Police found marijuana and cocaine in a Feb. 25 search of an apartment where Gaines was staying with a girlfriend and a child. Police also found a Glock pistol. Gaines was arrested during a traffic stop before the search.

In requesting the search, Medley told Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong that police had looked in trash bags taken from the apartment and found “several sandwich baggies ... with marijuana residue” and a pill bottle with Gaines’ name on it.

Medley reported a black male had taken two trash bags from the apartment and left them next to the trash container.

Medley also reported Gaines had prior convictions for shooting with intent to kill and arrests for trafficking drugs and marijuana possession. Medley wrote he had observed Gaines “come and go from the apartment” during surveillance that had lasted 48 hours.

In his orders, DeGiusti wrote that Medley overstated the contents of the trash bags. The judge wrote Medley admitted in testimony that there were only two sandwich baggies in the trash. The judge wrote Medley said the baggies had green flecks he assumed was marijuana but did not test although a field test for marijuana exists.

The judge wrote that a pill bottle did have Gaines’ name on the label but the detective left out of the affidavit that the address on the label was not the apartment’s.

The judge noted that Medley also admitted that Gaines only had one conviction, in 2002, for shooting with intent to kill and no prior arrests for any illegal drug offense.

The judge noted that Medley also left out of the affidavit that the black male carrying the trash bags was only a child of about 8 to 10 and that the detective couldn’t see from his surveillance point whether the child came out of the apartment door.

Finally, the judge pointed out, Medley admitted seeing Gaines enter the apartment on only one occasion even though he wrote seeing Gaines “come and go.”

The judge did not agree with prosecutors that the detective’s statement in the affidavit that “several different sources” had said Gaines was selling illegal narcotics from the apartment was significant. The judge called the reference vague and uncorroborated.

The judge concluded Truong would not have approved the search had she been given accurate information about the surveillance.

Gaines is being held in the Grady County jail. Federal prosecutors will have to drop the indictment if they don’t appeal because they now have no evidence.

Gaines also still faces a weapons charge in Oklahoma County District Court.