Posted on 09/09/2006 2:39:24 AM PDT by abb
DURHAM - If three Duke University lacrosse players face a jury this spring, defense attorneys likely will take aim at Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, the Durham police officer who supervised the investigation into the March 13 party at which an escort service dancer says she was raped.
The 43-year-old detective could be the prosecution's most important witness aside from the dancer herself.
In recent weeks, an attorney for one of the lacrosse players questioned the plausibility of Gottlieb's case notes, provided to the defense as evidence. Attorneys also have criticized Gottlieb for not following the Durham Police Department's guidelines in a photo lineup that he showed the accuser.
Members of the defense team are now closely examining the arrests Gottlieb made before the rape case. Records show that the sergeant arrested a disproportionate number of Duke students, all on misdemeanor violations such as carrying an open beer on a public sidewalk or violating the city's noise ordinance.
Such charges usually earn an offender a pink ticket such as those issued for speeding. But court records show Gottlieb often arrested Duke students on such charges, taking them to jail in handcuffs.
Reached by telephone, Gottlieb declined to be interviewed for this story. A department spokesman said this week the sergeant is on leave, though what kind was not disclosed.
Some residents of neighborhoods where Gottlieb worked and victims' advocates say that the sergeant is a dedicated and fair officer.
A native of Ohio, Gottlieb is married and the father of young twins. The couple is expecting another child soon. Over the past 18 years, Gottlieb has worked as a paramedic in Wake and Durham counties, as well as a Durham police officer.
A barrel-chested man, Gottlieb tends to walk with his shoulders back and chin up. Among his colleagues, he is known as outspoken and sometimes headstrong. In a 2005 court affidavit that noted his qualifications, Gottlieb listed several community colleges he has attended and professional certifications. The affidavit did not mention an academic degree beyond high school.
Students go to jail
Gottlieb got the lacrosse case weeks after serving 10 months as a patrol shift supervisor in police District 2, which includes about a quarter of the city. The district has neighborhoods as disparate as the crime-ridden Oxford Manor public housing complex and Trinity Park -- the blocks of historic homes across from a low stone wall rimming Duke's East Campus.
From May 2005 to February 2006, the period during which Gottlieb was a patrol supervisor in the district, court and police records examined by The News & Observer show that Gottlieb arrested 28 people. Twenty were Duke students, including a quarterback of the football team and the sister of a men's lacrosse player. At least 15 of the Duke students were taken to jail.
In comparison, the three other squad supervisors working in District 2 during the same 10 months -- Sgts. Dale Gunter, John Shelton and Paul Daye -- tallied a combined 64 arrests. Two were Duke students. Both were taken to jail.
Gottlieb often treated Duke students and nonstudents differently. For example, Gottlieb in 2004 wrote a young man a citation for illegally carrying a concealed .45-caliber handgun and possessing less than a half-ounce of marijuana, but records indicate he wasn't taken to jail. He was not a Duke student.
Get-tough tactics
Trinity Park residents have long complained to university and city officials about the boisterous parties thrown by the students who live there. That spurred Duke in February to buy a dozen rental properties in the neighborhood, including the house where the lacrosse team threw its spring break bash two weeks later.
The Durham police officers who responded to 911 calls about the parties were sometimes on the receiving end of defiance and disrespectful taunts. Trinity Park resident Ellen Dagenhart praised Gottlieb's get-tough tactics as a direct response to community concerns about disruptive, drunken behavior.
"There were a lot of homeowners and taxpayers who were calling the cops saying, 'Please come and make yourself seen,' " said Dagenhart, who has known Gottlieb for years. "Anyone who's seen kids passed out in a puddle of vomit is certainly happy to see the police show up. You can't blame Mark Gottlieb for that."
Durham City Manager Patrick Baker said that cracking down on Trinity Park partying was a priority for police last year.
The police department's official policy gives officers discretion in whether to transport someone to the lockup downtown. Factors other than just the "elements of the crime" can be considered, such as whether the suspect is belligerent.
"Our general order, it basically gives the officer room to use his or her own judgment," said Cpl. David Addison, a police spokesman.
But a standing order encourages officers to use alternatives to arrests for misdemeanors, including the use of written citations because of "jail overcrowding, crowded court dockets, staffing problems and the intrusiveness involved in a physical arrest."
Party house
On Oct. 8, Gottlieb and officers he supervised responded to a call about a rowdy student at a duplex at 203 Watts St. -- a Trinity Park address familiar to the police as a party house.
In an affidavit, Gottlieb wrote that officers arrived about 6:30 p.m. and told partygoers to be quiet. After the police left, party-goers urinated on neighbor Lee Coggins' home and threw a beer bottle in her direction that shattered on the sidewalk, Gottlieb wrote.
Police obtained a search warrant, and Gottlieb's squad entered the duplex at 3:19 a.m. They seized three beer kegs -- one empty -- and "beer bong tubing." On the wall was what Gottlieb described as a "stolen Duke flag." A Duke flag had been reported stolen from an administrative building on campus the previous spring.
Five students there were arrested by Gottlieb for violating the city's noise ordinance and alcohol-related misdemeanors. Another housemate, Mike Kenney, was arrested the next day.
Kenney, then 21, was charged with a noise ordinance violation and possession of an open container of alcohol on public property and taken to jail. Two days later, records show, Kenney was arrested a second time and taken to jail on charges of possession of stolen property. The flag had been in his room.
When the case went to trial in January, Gottlieb testified that in the wake of rowdy parties in Trinity Park, the department's policy was to take alcohol-related violations seriously. But the judge threw out the charges against Kenney, citing a lack of evidence.
Glen Bachman, Kenney's attorney, successfully argued that Gottlieb couldn't prove the college senior was home during the party or that the flag in his room was the same flag that had been stolen.
Coggins, the woman who called police about the party at the duplex, said Gottlieb's actions seemed responsive and professional. He doesn't have a vendetta against Duke students, she said.
"It's not like he's hanging out at their house waiting for them to do something," Coggins said.
Kathy Summerlee, Kenney's mother and a lawyer in Minnesota, called the arrest and prosecution of her son "frivolous."
Though the charges were thrown out, Kenney could have faced suspension if convicted. He graduated from Duke in May and now is looking for a job, she said.
"It was clear to all of us that the police were feeling a lot of pressure to make a difference in the behavior in that neighborhood," Summerlee said this week. "I think there was a lot of damage done in this process. It cost us money. It cost us a lot of worry. It rearranged Mike's life."
Still, some in Trinity Park cite Gottlieb as a dedicated officer. He prides himself on being a victim's advocate, often recounting stories from his years as a domestic violence investigator.
Dagenhart said she remembers seeing him at a vigil for domestic violence victims.
"This was not something he had to do as a part of his job," she said. "It's something he did as someone who cared. I know he cares about Durham. It's not just a job for him."
(News researchers David Raynor and Denise Jones contributed to this report.) Staff writer Michael Biesecker can be reached at 956-2421 or mbieseck@newsobserver.com. News researchers David Raynor and Denise Jones contributed to this report.
If this thing ever gets to trial, though. I'm theorizing the case is all but dead and everyone's now looking for a chair to sit in when the music stops...
I still believe that there will be a trial over this case, just not in criminal court. Civil proceedings are almost certain and will be very revealing.
It is the trend. Why wouldn't you make your arrests from the pool of people who won't blow you brains out, or be inclined to fight you? Most underaged drinkers SHOULD be picked up and put in jail with a call to the parents to come and get 'em. I would tend to let them spend the night and then come and take them home and ground them for ETERNITY. However, the police have now decided to give permanent records to kids and leave it to the courts to sort out. Now THERE's some good news.
Good point. I wonder if Gottlieb was getting kickbacks.
Always been a favorite explanation of mine: Follow the money!!
I don't know, I just think Gottlieb got some kind of personal satisfaction out of putting people through the Durham legal meat grinder.
To be honest, the faithful on this thread are the only folks I've corresponded with who feel as you and I do. I don't think America is aware of what is going on -- at least that's what I tell myself. Before this thread and those in America who were "on" to what was happening in Durham, I thought I was the lone ranger. Having lived through it, I knew what was happening -- it was like living it all over again -- the total insanity, the more you say you're innocent, the more the authorities say you're not. It used to be like that in involuntary commitments to insane assylums. The more you'd say I'm not crazy, the more meds they'd pump into you. It has been like a nightmare you can't wake up from. All of you on this thread have helped me keep my sanity.
No one in my family has every encountered anything like this. Geez, my ancestors names are on the Declaration of Independence. We don't raise criminals or heathens. We work, pay our taxes and bills, go to church, teach Sunday school and wind up with a kid with a sealed record for what? Telling another kid to stop goofing off in class and wasting paper. Holy Mother of God, I don't know what I would have done if others couldn't see the terror a misguided police officer and D.A. can cause. It's like the old, "If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?" I was yelling and no one could hear.
"I don't think America is aware of what is going on"
Hey, all we see is Adam 12, Perry Mason, Law and Order, and SCI.
The good guys are all on one side and they win in the end.
(Can't remember when I saw a crooked judge or DA on the screen, except maybe in one Al Pacino movie.)
I see lots of movies with crooked priests and politicians, but no judges or DAs. So I'm not prepared to accept that maybe Judge Dimwittle, the epitome of righteousness, might be on the take.
Know this. FreeRepublic was the FIRST bulletin board to get out in front of this hoax. We were the only ones for a while. Before the blogs, before TalkLeft, before CourtTV. We were it. I'm really proud of all the faithful here. And we're gonna stick with it to the very end...
God bless you all.
I know. Until we went through it, I would have written all on this thread off as poor unfortunates or a brick shy of a full load. I really would have. I know I sound that way to others, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I truly believed (having come from a long line of L.E. and patriots on both sides of our family) that this was something that didn't happen in the solid middle class America I grew up in. My heart truly grieves for anyone who must come in contact with our judicial system. It is a place you don't want to be.
I agree this case is essentailly dead. What I am saying is that now any jury in Durham when Gottlie shows up to testify has to contain people who will wonder if he is lying again this time. He has gotten too much notice. Police detective have to testify over and over again in various cases and they can not be effective in their jobs if a large fraction of the jury pool comes to believe they are liars.
I think she is still fuming over the link issue. Someone complained about a link leading to a link to the FA's name, and she closed it.
A LOT of people complained to CTV and she was forced to reverse that decision. Ever since she has been shutting down threads with a vengence. Almost as though she was personally insulted that her judgement was challenged.
There are a couple of really petty posters over there that are trying to stem the flow of information...and succeeding.
Meanwhile, here at FreeRepublic, the unimpeded free flow of information and ideas continue - just like our Founding Fathers intended...
You got that right. I think the main reason is because we knew right away what lax players were up against. We've seen the game plan many times before. This was simply an ugly and malicious variation.
This case has been dead for a dog's age but somehow it still keeps going. Everytime something like this comes out I say to myself - oh, that's it. It's over.
But then it isn't over.
Gottlieb is one seriously dirty cop. His notes are a work of fiction. The thing that gets me is this is all so blatant. His conduct is blatantly and obviously dishonest and reckless. He lies, fabricates evidence and arrests and threatens Duke students on nothing charges. He took nine other cops to arrest a few students for a noise violation. I'm surprised he didn't call in a SWAT team. And then there's the Blincos incident and running a red light and plowing into another car. And that's just the stuff we know about. It's probably just the tip of the iceberg. He obviously thinks he can get away with whatever he wants. So far, he has but I hope this is the end of the line for him.
I'm curious. What got the hook in you on this? IIRC, it was the 911 call that first set my BS meter off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.