Prosecutors this month filed charges against a Nassau County deputy they say framed innocent people and a Clay County detective accused of staging a crime scene after a hit-and-run. Both men, the State Attorney’s Office said, lied in official documents about the incidents.
Clay County homicide detective Mark Andrews and Nassau County Deputy Kyle Tholl were fired by their agencies.
Nassau Sheriff Bill Leeper said his office has zero tolerance for employees violating the public trust. “The oath we take are words that sets us apart from all other professions. It takes a special person to live up to them, but unfortunately, some fall short.”
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office said it has audited Andrews’ past cases. Public Defender Charlie Cofer and other defense lawyers called for prosecutors to review past cases, searching for potential wrongful convictions.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Mac Heavener said if defendants feel they were wrongly convicted, they can contact the office’s Conviction Integrity Review Unit. Spokesman Dave Chapman said the office will send letters to all of Tholl’s defendants offering to review their cases. About 30 cases have already been dropped since Tholl’s arrest.
Leeper said by email that he didn’t know why Tholl lied.
“Why he would throw away his career for no reason, by not field testing drugs that were found, I’m not sure, but certainly we will not tolerate anyone not being truthful. Once a law enforcement officer’s credibility is compromised, their testimony in a court of law can’t be relied upon, thus they can no longer work in law enforcement.”
Tholl’s and Andrews’ attorneys weren’t available for comment.
LYING ABOUT DRUG TESTS
This month, prosecutors filed charges that said after Andrews, a 10-year veteran of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, was involved in a New Year’s Eve hit-and-run, he staged a scene to make it look like his car was stolen, then he lied to his colleagues investigating the crash.
And in Nassau County, after a string of complaints from defense attorneys, police investigated one of their own for lying about conducting drug tests. They examined four traffic stops in which Tholl claimed to have identified drugs with field tests when in fact he hadn’t, according to the Sheriff’s Office. In one case, he falsely identified aspirin as ecstasy. In another, he falsely identified a small plastic bag as holding methamphetamine; it didn’t.
When Tholl pulled over Philip Curtiss on Nov. 14, Curtiss confessed to driving without a license, according to Curtiss’ arrest report. Then Tholl saw pills inside Curtiss’ car.
Curtiss explained he had a prescription for a heart medication, but, Curtiss said, Tholl wouldn’t look at the prescription. Instead, Tholl declared the medication was hydrocodone, and he arrested Curtiss.
A month later, Curtiss pleaded no contest and the court found him guilty of possessing drugs without a prescription and driving with a suspended license.
While he was still serving his sentence, investigators looked into his case and found that Curtiss was telling the truth, according to prosecutors’ charging document against Tholl. The pills were heart medication, and the prescriptions were in his wallet.
Despite that, the investigators left Curtiss in jail. He finished his sentence two days later. Police and prosecutors didn’t tell him they had found evidence of his innocence, he said. The first he heard of it was when a reporter called. Prosecutors have not filed any motions to try to vacate Curtiss’ conviction.
It’s not clear if prosecutors or police intend to investigate Tholl’s other cases.
Asked about that by email, Leeper didn’t respond to the question. Leeper also didn’t answer questions asking whether deputies were previously required to account for their field drug tests or attach documentation. He said the office has a new policy that requires deputies to conduct field testing in front of their car’s video camera or in front of another officer.
A FAKED STOLEN CAR
In the early hours of last New Year’s Eve, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office responded to a hit-and-run in Keystone Heights, according to Andrews’ arrest report. The driver whose car was hit told police she believed the other vehicle was an unmarked police car. A few hours later, police received a report of an abandoned Sheriff’s Office vehicle just a few houses from Andrews’ home.
They found a Taser, magazines loaded with ammunition and other Sheriff’s Office property scattered across Andrews’ yard, according to the arrest report.
Andrews spoke to officers and gave a written statement. The arrest report said that he swore that his car was stolen, that he was asleep when it was stolen, and that he didn’t know anything about a traffic crash.
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office investigation, Andrews’ arrest warrant said, found that his sworn statements were wrong.
His cell phone records, the warrant said, showed he was making calls during the time when he was supposed to be asleep. The records also showed that he was “in numerous areas around Keystone Heights prior to and after the” crash.
The Sheriff’s Office own computer records showed that he was on his agency laptop after the crash.
Police interviewed witnesses who said Andrews had two mixed drinks before leaving the American Legion, which was less than a mile away from the crash. Records showed purchases made on his debit card.
The State Attorney’s Office filed two misdemeanor charges against Andrews: false report of a crime and leaving the scene of an accident. The State Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
Andrews had been at the Sheriff’s Office for 10 years, and wasn’t the first time he was accused of lying. In 2014, his supervisors said that he asked for bereavement time because his mother-in-law had died of a heroin overdose. But they later found out that it was his wife’s sister-in-law’s mother who died. The Sheriff’s Office sustained an allegation that he didn’t follow procedure in documenting his leave, but they did not sustain an allegation that he had lied.
‘THAT’S MALICIOUS INTENT’
“You don’t turn into a bad apple in the middle of your career,” said Nicole Jamieson, a defense attorney who said she had issues with Nassau Deputy Tholl in a number of cases. “You either don’t care about the rules that govern your profession or you do.”
In one case, Tholl arrested someone for possessing hydrocodone without a prescription, but investigators later found the defendant’s prescription pill bottle in Tholl’s car.
“That right there alone is evidence of his intent,” Jamieson said. “That’s not laziness. That’s malicious intent.”
Heavener said that Florida law limits prosecutors’ ability to bring felony charges against police officers who may have lied. A felony false-imprisonment charge could be used for unlawful arrests, but lying to police is a misdemeanor, he said.
“As a criminal defense bar, we had all been discussing [Tholl] for some time,” said Tom Townsend, an assistant public defender in Nassau. “Everyone’s human, I suppose, but when these things happen repeatedly, you begin to wonder if there’s a problem. We were all on the lookout for anything involving him testing drugs or identifying pills.”
Townsend said he believes innocent people pleaded guilty so they could get out of jail.
The State Attorney’s Office usually does not test drugs until a case is set for trial. The policy requires defendants to wait before they can potentially vindicate themselves.
“If we’re looking for best practices and making sure we aren’t falsely charging people and falsely convicting people, [testing drugs quickly] would of course be the best practice,” Townsend said.
Heavener said he would encourage defense attorneys to file motions to reduce bail or to ask for drugs to be tested more quickly, but he doesn’t think it’s wise to do so in every case. “It would be a significant waste of taxpayer resources to do criminal lab testing of every possession arrest.”
Jamieson said she had issues with Tholl ever since he moved to Nassau County after leaving a job at the Dallas Police Department. “He was a problem from the minute he hit the streets of this county. It was evident to the defense lawyers handling these cases. It should’ve been evident to the State Attorney’s Office as well.”
Jamieson filed motions alleging unconstitutional policing by Tholl in at least five cases. In one case, Tholl stopped a driver because when the driver put a new registration sticker on his license plate, he didn’t remove his old one.
When Jamieson tried to depose Tholl, he showed up with a lawyer and refused to answer any questions, invoking his right against self-incrimination, Jamieson said.
One of Jamieson’s clients was included in the list of four traffic stops in which Tholl is accused of lying. Jamieson said after the arrest, her client lost his job, his housing and his car.
“He was an hourly wage worker in the back of a restaurant. If you disappear even for a week, no one is holding a job for you when you get out.”
Curtiss, too, said he lost his job after the arrest.
Andrew Pantazi (904) 359-4310
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