May 7, 2012 | 2:04
pm
The reality TV show “Bait Car” is supposed to catch car thieves in the act.
Undercover cops park a rigged car on the side of the road,
conspicuously leaving the keys inside, while a television crew waits
nearby for an unsuspecting passerby to take the bait and steal the car.
But in one recent sting filmed in cooperation with the Los Angeles
County Sheriff’s Department, the lead detective on the case ended up
getting busted instead.
Footage shot for the TruTV program showed 28-year-old Keenan Alex
come across a parked, shiny, red Cadillac Escalade with the keys in the
ignition and the engine running. After he gets inside and drives off,
deputies pull him over and cuff him. In court, Det. Anthony Shapiro said
under oath that he read Alex his Miranda rights from a card in his
notebook before the suspect made incriminating statements, a transcript
shows.
But unedited video for the program shows the detective never read the
suspect his constitutional rights, including the right to remain silent
and have an attorney present during questioning.
“You watch TV. You know your rights and all that?” Shapiro asked instead, according to the video reviewed by The Times.
Combining law enforcement and reality TV has a long and sometimes
controversial history, dating to the long-running show “Cops.” While
such programs often record the questionable behavior of suspects, the
"Bait Car" case shows the unblinking eye of the camera can also catch
potential police wrongdoing.
After Shapiro’s conduct was discovered, authorities dropped the case
against Alex and launched a criminal perjury investigation of the
detective, citing the conflict between his testimony and the video.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Frisco told a judge in February that
the contradiction “poses a very severe problem” for the detective,
according to court documents. Explaining why the D.A.’s office agreed to
dismiss the case, Frisco said the footage showed that Shapiro violated
Alex’s Miranda rights, which prevented the prosecution from using the
defendant’s incriminating statements. Frisco said prosecutors needed the
statements to counter defense arguments that Alex’s mental illness
played a role in the decision to take the vehicle.
“I believe the statement would be crucial to putting on the case to
win a conviction,” Frisco told the judge, according to a court
transcript.
Alex, whose criminal history includes brandishing a firearm and drug
possession, admitted taking the car as part of a probation violation
hearing in another case. A judge allowed him to remain free as long as
he continued taking his psychiatric medication and sought mental-health
treatment, records show.
Shapiro did not return messages for comment. His captain said the
detective could not discuss the matter because it was the subject of an
ongoing investigation. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Shapiro
has been relieved of duty with pay.
Court documents show Shapiro was almost fired in 2008 over
allegations that he had received stolen property from a known felon.
Internal sheriff’s criminal investigators served Shapiro with a search
warrant on his home and seized alloy car rims, a bicycle, a Honda
generator and a Gibson electric guitar, court records show.
Shapiro denied the items were stolen, saying several came from his
brother. Prosecutors declined to file charges, finding insufficient
evidence the items were stolen. But after a separate investigation, the
Sheriff’s Department, which requires a lower standard of proof to impose
discipline, moved to fire Shapiro.
The detective appealed the decision, arguing there was no proof the
items were stolen, court records show. The department agreed to classify
the allegations as “unfounded,” while he agreed to a five-day
suspension for using law enforcement records to check the criminal
histories of two felons, including the man he was alleged to have
received stolen property from and one of the detective’s neighbors,
according to court records.
The department’s watchdog found serious flaws in the sheriff’s
internal investigation. Investigators, including a deputy who had
previously worked in the same unit with Shapiro, inadvertently tipped
off the detective before executing their search warrant and allowed him
to be present for an interview with a key witness, according to a 2010
report by the Office of Independent Review. The report found that
“investigative deficiencies hampered a potential criminal prosecution
and forced the department to continue to employ a deputy it believed had
committed serious crimes.”
Shapiro’s attorney, Richard A. Shinee, disagreed. “There was no
credible evidence that he stole anything and that’s why the case fell
apart,” he said. Shinee declined comment on the "Bait Car" case, citing
the ongoing investigation.
During the case, the defense attorney raised questions about whether
the problems she encountered were common in prosecutions resulting from
"Bait Car" filming.
Deputy Public Defender Priya Bala said she doubted the county was
regularly turning over relevant video to defense attorneys, who may be
able to use that footage to exonerate their clients. In her case, it
took weeks before she was told the arrest had been filmed and an
additional six months before the unedited footage was turned over,
prompting the judge to rule that the county had failed to disclose
evidence in a timely fashion.
The district attorney’s office initially said it could not compel the
production company to turn over the footage but admitted it could when
Bala obtained a copy of the county’s contract, which showed Earth Angel
Productions had agreed to comply with D.A. requests for unedited
footage. Part of the delay, Frisco said in court, was because Shapiro
did not return repeated messages left by the prosecutor.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Alex Karkanen, who works with the auto-theft task
force, said the county has prosecuted scores of similar bait-car cases
and never encountered such problems. Defense attorneys and judges, he
said, are generally notified that the arrests were filmed for TV and the
suspects are aware of the cameras and are asked to sign a waiver by the
production crew at the time of their arrest.
Bala also criticized the county’s decision to conduct the televised
stings at all, saying they wasted taxpayer resources that could better
be used on more serious crimes. She said her client, who hallucinates
and hears voices, jumped into the bait car while walking to an aunt’s
house from a residential facility that houses the mentally ill.
“It’s disgusting,” she said. “Don’t they have any real crime to go after?”
Under its contract with the county Board of Supervisors, the
production company pays the county at least $22,500 per episode, an
additional 10% of the company’s profit from the series and other fees,
as well as the overtime costs for law enforcement officers working on
the stings. In July 2011, when Alex was arrested, the company paid
$156,000 in overtime to deputies and police officers assigned to the
task force during that month, records show.
Whitmore, the sheriff’s spokesman, denied the payments are why the
department does the stings, saying the televised operations act as a
deterrent to car thieves.
“If the general public sees this [TV show], it’s gonna prevent people
from doing it because they won’t know if [a] car is a bait car or not,”
he said.
LINK >>> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/bait-car-tv-show-busts-sheriffs-detective-with-video.html
