Public Complaint No. 1668007419 - 1345929481

In January of 2019, I as a member of the Kissimmee Police Department, was assigned to the Forensics Unit and was asked to review cold case homicides. I found that much of that evidence, such as DNA extracts and swabs were missing. I complained to the administration that we were actually finding a lot of evidence missing but they ignored me. I also relayed to the administration that we had come into our secured office one day and found little white baggies with white powder scattered around on the floor, again, they did nothing. In response I sent a complaint to Orlando FDLE about the evidence mishandling and other incidents that were occurring. It should be noted that the head of Orlando FDLE is Lee Massie, former Chief at the Kissimmee Police Department with a tenure of 2012-2016. When Massie began his tenure as Kissimmee Chief of Police he brought his friend, Jeff Odell on with him as Deputy Chief. In 2016 when Massie departed Jeff Odell became the Chief. On January 24, 2019, Koski received an email from Special Agent Andrew Watts from the Orlando FDLE office that they would not be pursuing an investigation. (Complaint made to FDLE by Koski and response email from Andrew Watts attached) On March 26, 2019, Koski again made a complaint to the City of Kissimmee in writing about the evidence mishandling and other issues within the Kissimmee Police Department. The city did an investigation and found Koski’s claims “without merit”. Prior to Koski coming into the Forensics unit and starting in the Forensics only “spot” inventories had been done on both the high and low liability evidence vaults. Those were “audits” where only a few things were looked for. This procedure was always helped along by Accreditation Specialist Cinthia Pugsley who would inform the evidence technicians what she would be looking for. Koski also complained on this “pre-planning” to Deputy Chief Betty Holland but was told that “it wasn’t Koski’s business to be worrying about” and Holland allowed it to continue. This is documented in writing by the City of Kissimmee where Holland acknowledged I told her about the problem with evidence and Pugsley. In writing Hollands reply again was that "it wasn't my business to worry about it", showing Holland just did not care about solving the problems. To Koski’s knowledge there were no full vault inventories done prior to her entry into the unit in late 2017. In 2019 after Koski kept complaining, a full inventory was completed by Forensics Supervisor Jennifer Helms. That inventory showed numerous items missing, including heroin, interviews with child sex assault victims, sex batteries, unsolved hit and run deaths, and from homicides. Several of the cases were no statutes of limitations cases. Many of the missing items were last seen in 2017-2018 under the tenure of Chief Jeff Odell. Although this inventory was completed in 2019 Chief Odell and Deputy Chief Betty Holland who was over the Forensics/Evidence Unit, did not make notification of these missing items until September 21, 2020. I obtained a copy of the memo completed by Captain Brandon Layne, to Chief Odell in 2022. This memo stated that there was a total of 60 items not located during that 2019 inventory. However, when reviewing the list attached to the memo, I found that there were actually approximately 2,016 pieces of evidence missing, Layne had just put the total number of cases in the memo, falsifying that document in an attempt to make it seem that not that many pieces of evidence were missing. In the memo Layne stated he had contacted Crystal Allen at the States Attorney’s office about the missing evidence to be sent to defendants. I obtained copies of those letters which were also dated 09/21/2020. The letters do not appear to be made to be sent to the defendants, but to the SAO. I am alleging official misconduct and neglect of duty against the Chief of the Kissimmee Police Department who failed to conduct proper, timely, through inventories during his tenure as Deputy Chief and Chief. Odell also failed to make sure defendants, victims in cases and their attorneys in the cases with the missing evidence were notified in a timely manner by his agency. There was almost a year elapsed between the time the evidence was known to be missing and the state’s attorney’s office was notified. It is likely that many of these cases will not be solved now due to the failures of Odell, including several sexual assaults, and homicides, and it is likely that some of the affected cases were adjudicated in the year lapse. At this time, it is unknown if Crystal Allen from the State’s Attorney’s Office in Orlando mailed the letters created by Captain Brandon Layne to the defendants in those cases. It does not seem that letters were created to the surviving family members of unsolved homicides or mailed to the sexual assault victims about the evidence missing in their cases. I am alleging official misconduct, and neglect of duty against Deputy Chief Holland, who during her tenure allowed Accreditation Specialist Cinthia Pugsley to pre-arrange what items she would be looking for in “surprise” vault audits. Deputy Chief Holland was also over the Forensics Unit in 2019 and was aware of the results of the inventory after it was completed. Knowing this, Deputy Chief Holland did not make notification to the SAO or the defendants, victims, or attorneys in those cases for over a year. It should be noted that this complaint does not involve the evidence destroyed in a vault flood in 2019 at the Kissimmee Police Department which involved over 6500 pieces of evidence. That complaint will be made at a future date. Attached is the inventory list and memo created by Captain Brandon Layne and the denial of FDLE to investigate the problems with evidence.