Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Recording devices found in Folcroft municipal building

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 02:52:05 -0400

Recording devices found in Folcroft municipal building
05/21/2004

By ROSE QUINN [email-masked]

FOLCROFT -- County detectives looking for audio and video recording devices and tapes searched the office of Borough Manager Anthony Truscello and others in a fast-paced raid Wednesday afternoon. They were looking for evidence that the police department was a target of illegal electronic surveillance -- and they did not leave empty-handed, according to authorities and an affidavit supporting the searches.
Video equipment and about a dozen videotapes were among the items confiscated by detectives Thomas Worrilow and Roger Rozsas, of the county’s Special Prosecution unit. The targeted areas of the hours-long search were the Folcroft Municipal Building, the borough secretary and manager’s offices, and locked office No. 105 on the first floor.
No criminal charges have been filed.

Under whose orders the equipment was installed remained under investigation, as well as whether any conversations were intercepted. Such activities could violate state wiretapping and privacy statutes.
Room 105, according to a nine-page affidavit signed late Wednesday afternoon by Common Pleas Judge Charles J. Keeler, is located next to the district court office.
It’s where a series of cables, which investigators found running through the ceiling and a stucco-covered wall, ended. And, it served as Truscello’s office when he was a district justice.
Truscello and borough Council Vice President Joseph Zito, according to the affidavit, were seen numerous times in borough hall. As recently as three weeks ago, they were seen entering the locked room and watching what some witnesses suspected were videos, the affidavit states.
"Truscello told (the witnesses) to stay out of his office unless he let them inside," the affidavit states.

According to the affidavit, Truscello’s daughter, sitting District Justice Deborah Truscello McHugh, "had made statements that the police were being taped."
And Zito, the affidavit states, "had made statements to various employees that they should be careful that they were being videotaped."
Messages left at borough offices for the Truscellos were not returned.  Zito could not be reached for comment. A message left after hours for Joseph Fioravanti, Truscello’s attorney, was not returned.
News of the raid spread quickly through court circles. Folcroft Police Chief Ed Christie declined comment, noting that the affidavit "speaks for itself."
When police first heard the rumors about surveillance, they "passed this off as paranoia," the affidavit states. Sentiments changed as Christie began receiving information from borough and court employees, from Zito’s statements about being videotaped to daily meetings between Truscello and Zito in the locked room.
One officer speaking on the condition of anonymity said the situation was of enough concern that Christie warned a female officer hired in February not to change clothes in the locker room.
In the area of the affidavit identifying items to be searched or seized, there is mention of "any videotapes or audio tape recordings or combination ..containing conversation or conduct where one party is in the state of full or partial nudity and has the expectation of privacy."

According to the affidavit:

Christie, who along with other officers began to hear rumors of surveillance two years ago, met May 13 with Capt. John McKenna, head of the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Unit. With Christie was Gregory J. Auld, a retired FBI agent and licensed private investigator Christie hired about two months ago to sweep the police department for bugs.
Auld determined that there were several pinhole cameras placed in smoke detectors -- one in a hallway, one in the squad room and one in the evidence room.
It was later determined that one of the cameras had a microphone installed in it, making it capable of eavesdropping.
Auld found more devices, including a coil used to hook up a tape recorder to a telephone line. And he located a monitor room, which contained a four-camera split monitor in the health room of the police department.
The FBI, the state Attorney General and the state police were contacted to determine if they had ongoing investigations in Folcroft. They did not.  The FBI denied a request for an investigation before Christie sought county assistance. It was an FBI agent who suggested that Christie contact Auld.
On March 19, Officer William Bair informed Christie by memo that he found an unknown male working in the ceiling of the police department. The male told Bair he was putting security lights in the ceiling, but Bair became suspicious because he appeared to be using an unsafe ladder that the man said Zito provided.
Bair retrieved a ladder from the police department.

On April 19, Auld and his team placed two pinhole cameras in the police department to watch the cameras in the smoke detectors, with the monitor placed in Christie’s office.

On April 30, Auld reported that a review of tapes showed several males, seen in different areas of the police department, particularly the health room, on April 28.

On April 29, two men arrived at the police station carrying a long box.  They removed the smoke detector and put it into the box. Auld’s tape showed a man in a baseball cap in the evidence room, where wires were seen hanging from the ceiling.

"The males are obviously pulling some type of cable, later determined to be coax cable marked CCTV." Cameras in the smoke detectors were replaced with cameras in emergency light fixtures.
Auld’s full report to Christie contained a breakdown of the equipment, including capabilities and serial numbers. Subsequently, Christie obtained copies of five invoices submitted to the borough --requests for over $4,000 for work by two companies dating back to March 29. All the work involved lighting and wiring.
According to police reports from March 29, an officer told a supervisor that he saw suspicious activity in the police parking lot, involving a man spotted two nights sneaking around the area. He and another man were later identified as employees of a private investigation firm.
This past Monday, Christie provided investigators with a diagram of the police department, with locations of suspected devices. He also provided diagrams of other parts of the municipal building, including Truscello’s former office.
On Tuesday of this week, Christie was told that Zito arrived at the borough hall carrying a bag, met with Truscello in the borough manager’s office and then they both walked down the hall toward the court office, out of sight.
By 8 p.m. - some five hours after Keeler signed the warrant - the search was under way. Three cameras were immediately found and removed: One from an emergency light fixture in the locker room where officers change, one from the squad room and one from a smoke detector in the hallway outside the health room.
A trace of the cables, which went into the ceiling above each of the cameras, went downstairs into the ceiling of a courtroom, traversed the ceiling and entered two holes in a solid brick wall covered by stucco - terminating in locked Room 105.
According to the affidavit, "it’s unlikely that these wires pass through Room 105" because the court office is an addition and a large common area where any recording device could be easily seen.
©The Daily Times 2004

http://www.delcotimes.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11764939&BRD=1675&PAG=461&
dept_id=18171&rfi=6

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