Pat Reavy, Deseret News
RICHFIELD, Utah -- Jeremy Pavia was sleeping at a remote rest stop somewhere near I-70 in Sevier County when he heard someone tapping on his car window about 12:45 a.m. on June 28, 2007.
The man identified himself as an officer, flashed a badge and had a gun in a holster around his waist, Pavia said. At one point, the man put on a jacket bearing the Utah Highway Patrol’s beehive logo.
The man made Pavia get out of his car while he allegedly searched it for drugs or weapons. When Pavia got back into his car, money from his center console was gone. Prosecutors believe the man who searched Pavia’s car that night was 48-year-old Christopher Mark Topham. The gun, badge and jacket Pavia saw that night might have been real since Topham did work for the UHP. The problem is that Topham retired in 2003 after 12 years of service.
Topham is charged in Sevier County’s 6th District Court with seven counts of aggravated robbery, all first-degree felonies; three counts of impersonating an officer, all class B misdemeanors; and misdemeanor theft.
Monday was the first day of a preliminary/evidentiary hearing before Judge David Mower. Because most of the witnesses, including the victims, are from out of state, the court is attempting to combine hearings to help with travel arrangements. Topham, who is free on bail, was excused from Monday’s hearing.
Three victims testified of similar scenarios: all were out-of-state residents passing through Utah along I-70, made a pit stop in a remote area in the middle of the night to sleep and were awakened by a man knocking on their windows who either appeared to be, or directly claimed, he was an officer. All happened between last May 23 and June 30, according to court documents.
Daniel Ibanez and Avana Andrade, of Fort Collins, Colo., were traveling together on their way to a camping trip when they were awakened last June about 1 a.m. by a man wearing a dark ball cap with the words “State Trooper,” a jacket and a holster with a gun. The man also flashed a badge, both said. The man said there had been some vandalism in the area and he needed to check them out, Ibanez said.
The man asked for both Andrade and Ibanez’s IDs. Ibanez pulled out his money clip that also had his driver’s license, he said. The alleged officer commented that he had never seen a money clip that small and asked if he could look at it, Ibanez said. He handed the trooper his money clip and Andrade’s ID.
“He said, ‘I’ll be right back,’ and took (the money clip) to run our IDs,” Ibanez said. “It was just odd that a policeman would take my wallet.” The officer walked to his white car, which both Ibanez and Andrade assumed was an unmarked police vehicle. When the officer returned with their IDs, he also gave them his own wallet.
“‘Why is his wallet out with mine?”’ Ibanez asked himself. “I flip my wallet over, I see a $1 bill, but the rest is gone.”
Ibanez said $50 was missing from the money clip. The officer suggested Ibanez dropped it. When he told the trooper he was sure the money was there when he gave him the wallet, the officer offered to let Ibanez look in his car.
“Inside his car was very clean. I didn’t see the gadgets that you normally see in a cop car,” he said. “How did he run our IDs if he doesn’t have any communication equipment?” Both Ibanez and Andrade said they also found it odd the officer stood so close to them, not giving himself any protective space as troopers normally do, and he seemed extremely informal and chatty to be a real trooper.
“Something about the whole situation really didn’t feel right,” he said. The trooper wrote down his name and number on a piece of paper for the couple. The name he wrote was “Trooper Jim Thomas,” according to Andrade. But the couple has since lost that paper.
“It didn’t feel right from the beginning,” she said. “My trust in authority figures had been violated.”
Similar to Ibanez’s situation, Pavia said after he was asked for his wallet, the trooper commented, “You don’t keep much cash in your wallet, do you?” It was after Pavia told the trooper he kept cash in his middle console that he was asked to step out of the car and wait several feet away as the trooper searched the vehicle. After Pavia was back in his car and realized his money was gone, his biggest concern was leaving. “As soon as I saw my money was gone, I put it all together and wanted to get out of there as fast as possible,” he said.
Topham is accused of stealing more than $9,000. His defense attorney, Ron Yengich, spent a lot of time Monday questioning officers from the Fort Collins and Long Beach, Calif., police departments about the way the photo lineup that was e-mailed to them by Utah authorities was administered to the victims. At one point, testimony of Pavia and Long Beach police detective Steven Prell contradicted each other. Pavia, who now lives in Burbank, said he was initially told he was going to be shown eight pictures. Prell said he intended all along to only show him five. The same photo lineup was sent to both police departments. All three victims picked the same man. Andrade and Pavia’s picks were immediate. “That’s him, that’s him. That’s 100 percent the guy,” exclaimed Pavia as soon as he saw the picture. He said he was confident because of the “creepy eyes” of the person he chose. Ibanez initially picked a different person, but then changed his mind and picked the same as the other two, saying his was “60 to 80 percent sure” it was him. Andrade said she was 99 percent confident the person she chose was the man who confronted them. It was not announced in court whether the pciture was of Topham.
Yengich pointed out that in two of the five mug shots the victims had to chose from, the suspects had mustaches and a third man had glasses. None of the victims ever told police the trooper who talked to them had facial hair or glasses. Topham does not have either in his mug shot.
Yengich also questioned witnesses on how much time had elapsed before they initially wrote down their stories in official police witness statements and whether or not they had talked with other witnesses or friends about the events since then. The state said it had seven or eight more witnesses to call, including five more out-of-state victims. The other witnesses are detectives. Emergency dispatch tapes are also expected to be submitted as evidence.
Monday’s hearing took the entire day to get through five witnesses. Mower set aside the Aug. 14 to get through the remaining five victims and Aug. 27 to finish with whatever other witnesses are left. E-mail: preavy@desnews.com