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Police gear is hot stuff in online auction
Wednesday, December 19, 2001 By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
BEDFORD, Pa. -- When investigators with search warrants sorted through the homes of a suspended state police sergeant and his friend, they were hunting for a few pilfered pieces -- a couple of state police hats and a straitjacket -- that somehow had turned up for sale in an online auction.
What they found was a police gear bonanza.
The hats and straitjacket were there. So were two radar guns, three riot helmets, insignia for the doors of state police cruisers, a raincoat, a fire suit -- all among 53 pieces of police property discovered, according to newly filed court papers.
"I'm surprised by the amount of stuff they found," Bedford County District Attorney Dwight Diehl said yesterday. "Initially, this looked like just a couple of things taken from state police and then offered for sale. Now, it looks like a lot more than that."
The investigation began last month when state police found some of their gear for sale at the online auction site, eBay, decided that it was stolen property and moved in before anything was sold.
"These aren't things that could be sold to a collector or should be in the hands of a private individual," Diehl said. "These are things the state police own and are supposed to stay with state police."
No charges have been filed, although Diehl said he expects that to follow.
Two weeks ago, after state police suspected that he had a role in the auction scheme, they suspended the commander of their Everett, Bedford County, Pennsylvania Turnpike barracks, Sgt. James Murphy, 39, a 17-year state police veteran.
Two days before that, they searched Murphy's house and a Bedford home that he rents to friend William Lee Crawford, who investigators suspect was a second player in the eBay auction, Diehl said.
It was in Crawford's house where they found almost all of the gear, from a first-aid kit to a chart of road fatalities.
Neither man could be reached for comment yesterday.
From here, Diehl said, investigators have to decide if there are more people who should be under suspicion.
"We have to see if there should be more search warrants," he said.
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