By Jonathan D. Silver
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — The Washington County district attorney’s office yesterday charged a former Fallowfield police officer with stealing thousands of dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana seized as part of a 2006 case he investigated.
Allen E. Pettit, 46, of Springdale Township, was charged with a half-dozen crimes including theft and perjury. He was arrested outside his house yesterday morning and jailed on $50,000 straight bond.
“This is a difficult case, obviously, because this does involve a police officer. We’re very sensitive to that. But the public does have a right to have confidence in their law enforcement,” District Attorney Steven M. Toprani said.
Investigators believe that Mr. Pettit either used or distributed the drugs. There was no indication that he was purposely trying to undermine his case against defendant Charles Paith, Mr. Toprani said.
Mr. Pettit had worked until two months ago as a part-time police officer in Springdale despite being convicted of a misdemeanor two years ago.
For some reason, information about Mr. Pettit’s conviction did not appear in a statewide database maintained by Pennsylvania State Police, making it unavailable when a background check was performed for Springdale prior to his hiring late last year.
An effort is under way to revoke Mr. Pettit’s certification to work as a police officer in Pennsylvania. But that move by the Municipal Police Officers’ Education & Training Commission was not triggered until this summer -- a year after Mr. Pettit’s conviction -- based on an inquiry from a reporter, state police spokesman Jack Lewis said.
The current case against Mr. Pettit stems from 2006, when he arrested Mr. Paith, 26, and confiscated 5 ounces of cocaine and nearly a pound of pot. The seized drugs were worth about $8,500.
The district attorney’s office said Mr. Pettit was the last person to have custody of the drugs when he picked them up from a state police laboratory in March 2006.
They were discovered missing during a suppression hearing in April 2007 when Mr. Pettit testified -- falsely, according to a police affidavit -- that the drugs had been destroyed.
J. Michael Aaron, the district attorney’s chief of detectives, said Mr. Pettit tried to blame his department’s former chief for destroying the drug evidence and left two messages to that effect with an assistant district attorney. That information was not accurate, and the messages have been preserved as evidence, Mr. Toprani said.
Fallowfield hired Mr. Pettit in May 1997, and he rose to the rank of captain. He was terminated in October 2006. In July 2007, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of theft for using his municipal gas card to fill his private vehicle.
Mr. Pettit was placed on probation for 12 months. He was supposed to inform the state training commission about his arrest, but failed to do so.
Mr. Pettit applied for a job with Springdale’s police department, and the municipality did a background check in 2007, looking at the National Crime Information Center database and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation records, said Stephen Yakopec, Springdale’s solicitor.
“Both of the checks came up clear,” Mr. Yakopec said. “Mistakes happen everywhere. But the township certainly would not have hired the individual had they known he was convicted of a misdemeanor charge.”
Copyright 2008 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette