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09/06/02 SPD trafficking inquest
Last revised 12/09/05

Significance of key incidents of these events
Key people involved in these events
Incidents leading up to these events
Detail of these events
FBI contacted during this period
Official reports of this investigation
Some of the later developments related to or that followed these events

Significance

• open display of possible evidence:
  

  • abduction/kidnapping

  • abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process, relating to human trafficking

  • blackmail

  • commercial sex act

  • conspiracy

  • conspiracy against rights

  • crime of violence

  • criminal enterprise

  • criminal street gang activity

  • deprivation of rights under color of law

  • documents, unlawful conduct with respect to, in furtherance of trafficking, peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor

  • domestic terrorism

  • extortion and threats

  • forced labor

  • harassment, relating to tampering with a witness, victim or informant

  • human trafficking

  • intimidation, relating to tampering with a witness, victim or informant

  • involuntary servitude, under 18USC77

  • misleading conduct

  • obstruction of justice

  • officer failing to make returns or reports (possibly applicable)

  • officer returning or delivering a possible trafficking victim to his possible traffickers

  • organized crime

  • peonage

  • severe form of trafficking in persons (see section 103 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000)

  • sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion

  • slavery

  • tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

  • venture, relating to human trafficking

see Laws and Related Acts page

Key people involved in incident

• SPD Beebe

• Wendy Cekala

• SPD James Colandrea

• SPD Ray Curioso

• GPD Curtis

• D

• Daly

• Angie Daughtry

• SPD Jerry Desmond

• Peter Dibble

• Rus Dunbar

• GPD Graves

• SPD Howard

• Laura Joyner

• Josh

• Kim

• GPD first 4 letters of last name and 1st letter of first name: LewiM

• Sam Libby

• John Lowe

• GPD first 4 letters of last name and 1st letter of first name: PapeM

• Bruce "Bear" Shippee

• "sleazy punk gang"

• GPD Albert Smythe

• SPD Darin Stewart

• Tim, fiancé of Jennie

• others

• and by authority

  • Board of Selectmen, Town of Groton

  • Board of Selectmen, other members - Town of Stonington

  • GPD David Vanesse

  • SPD David Erskine

Events leading up to this incident

• 08/08/02 and before Leading up to Dave's abduction
  

• 08/08/02 Abduction & Indications of Total Control

• 08/09/02 Early attempts to help Dave out of his abduction and trafficking situation

  • 08/15/02 through 08/16/02 2 day vigil followed by standoff which ends in my 08/16/02 arrest

Detail of these events

• 08/16/02 requests to GPD and SPD for investigation of Dave's possible abduction and trafficking situation
  

  • Town of Stonington Police (SPD)

  • Town of Groton Police (GPD)
    
    
    

• 08/26/02 follow-up request made to SPD
  

  • Condition SPD required was that I undergo a psychological evaluation.  At the end of the day, I see the what SPD had written on the request the submitted to the hospital and realize that they had had no intentions of investigating
    
    
    

• 09/02/02 Labor Day, SPD Darin Stewart finally agrees to investigate Dave's situation
  

  • from 09/18/03 - Stonington CAN'T plead IGNORANCE!, under Regarding the statements being made that findings negate the possibility of this situation]
    

    On Labor Day, Monday 9/2/02, I told Stonington Police Lieutenant Stewart something like “Even if you think that I am a raving maniac, what may be happening is serious and dangerous enough that, even if there is a 1% chance that it is, it should be investigated.” He said he’d work with Groton Police on it. Later that  day, he called me back and told me something like “I’m not saying anything about the rest of your story, but no one seems to know anything about Dave _________.” Upon my asking him, he clarified that he was not saying that he doubted that David _________ existed, just that it was strange that no one was saying that  they knew anything about him.
    
    . . . . I wasn’t able to contact Lieutenant Stewart again until Sunday, 9/8/02. He told me that “someone said” that Dave _________ had come into the police station and that Dave _________ had said he was okay. But Lieutenant Stewart couldn’t say who, at the Stonington Police Department, had seen David _________ nor if David _________ had been alone. Lieutenant Stewart said that Groton Police had talked with David _________, also. Because of an action Lieutenant Stewart took just after our phone call, I was prevented from contacting Groton Police until 9/16/02.
    

• 09/03/02
  
  

• 09/05/02 receive evidence of a possible attempt of another false arrest charge by SPD
  
  

• 09/08/02
  

  • I am finally able to reach Lt. Stewart again
    

    • I've called to question him regarding the additional incident and arrest included in the SPD Dispatch Press Log that was faxed to me the previous Thursday afternoon and I was able to review when I returned home early evening, that day. 
      

      • He tells me to disregard it
        

    • He he told me he had been off work for the last "few days" then also casually mentions, as a "by the way," that "someone" had told him that Dave had come into the Stonington Police station sometime during Stewart's recent days off and that someone from Groton Police also talked to Dave and that "he's okay."
      

      • Stewart knew, and GPD also knew, how distraught I'd been since Dave's abduction and how anxious I was to hear of any word on him
        

    • Extracted from journal:

Sunday, September 08, 2002

Surprising info from Lt Stewart . . . .  Dave supposedly safe and went into Groton police to say that he doesn’t want me to bother him.   He said that Fortier of Waterford was supposed to have notified me.  (I) Explained that I would have to follow-up on this with Groton (got names from Lt Stewart ...) because this would not be in keeping with my relationship with Dave as it stood now but would be in keeping with the what the people I suspect are holding him have been saying.

Told him that I have had messages passed to me, would not say from whom/how, that indicated Dave was still wanting me to be looking for him.  Stewart asked “You don’t believe me?”  I told him basically that my experiences so far with his Dept left a credibility gap.

I also asked him about the record of the 2nd arrest and second charge of false report.   He said there were no other charges that he knew about, basically to disregard that.
 
I told him how hideous this whole thing has been, that my blood pressure has been up.  He said “Then you’d better get to a doctor” I told him that I had and that it was being treated as a temporary condition, because I do not ordinarily have high blood pressure.

I said that I hope that no one ever has to ever again go through what I’ve been going through.  Stewart emphasized that their only concern all along has been my well-being.   Thanked him and again told him I’d have to follow-up.

• I had also informed Stewart that WPD had not notified me
  
  

• 09/08/02 intended to follow-up with GPD
  

  • In that conversation with SPD Stewart: I also told him that I was going to follow-up with GPD on what Stewart had just relayed to me
    

    • Told him that I have had messages passed to me, would not say from whom/how, that indicated Dave was still wanting me to be looking for him
      

    • Stewart asked “You don’t believe me?”
      

    • I told him basically that my experiences so far with his Dept left a credibility gap
      
      

• Stewart's sleight of hand
  

  • 09/08/02 SPD Stewart has WPD relay police orders on threat of criminal charges against me: no longer contact SPD or GPD
    

  • 09/08/02 "no contact" orders prevented me from verifying what Stewart had just told me
    

    • what he had said Groton Police reported to him
      

    • that Dave may be "okay"
      
      

  • [ 09/10/02 - You may want to hear the latest before tonight, which relays this, with some additional details, will soon be added to the website]
    
    

  • 9/16/02 I finally acquire copy of WPD record of 09/08/02 "visit" and police "no contact" orders
    

    • It did not include the restriction against contacting Groton
      

    • I could not verify the "official" "no contact" orders until I received a copy of WPD's report, because no one from Waterford Police would respond to my questions regarding the incident
      

    • This "sleight of hand" prevented me from following up with Groton Police in a timely manner
      

      • possibly alerting GPD to something involved in that "investigation" that would have motivated them to do something to actually rescue Dave from his actual situation at that time, a little over a month after his abduction
        
        

• Repeatedly later told by numerous other law enforcement entities requested to investigate Dave's situation and that of other "possible slavery victims" of the "possible" operation in Southeastern Connecticut, that SPD is advising them that SPD has already investigated the situation and that there is nothing to my claims
  

  • FBI New Haven is one of the entities that refuses to investigate, based on this "advise"
    

    • FBI NH Special Agent Pat Ford told me, on 06/20/03 (?) that FBI was not going to investigate, due to "advise" he'd received from SPD
      

    • Copy of FBI's investigation report was received 09/04/04 in FBI FOIPA #0993702-000
      
      
      

• 09/17/03 letter sent to SPD Chief Erskine
  

  • This "investigation" is referenced in the letter dtd 9/17/03 to Stonington Police Chief David Erskine under Regarding the statements being made that findings negate the possibility of this situation
    
    There is also reason to believe that representatives of your department are continuing to relay that a proper investigation has been conducted in the human trafficking of David _________ that resulted in findings that he is not a victim of human trafficking. However, the “investigation” that was conducted in September 2002 was that for a “missing person ” versus a possible human trafficking situation, even though Stonington Police were well aware of the situation I was describing. Evidence of that is in Stonington Police Emergency Examination Request I02-12498, issued by Lt. Stewart on 8/26/02. Admittedly, over the course of efforts I’ve been making for over the last year, it’s become evident that no law enforcement agency that would be involved in investigating David _________’s situation has an appropriate protocol in place for interviewing a possible victim of human trafficking. This includes the FBI.
    [continued in 09/18/03 - Stonington CAN'T plead IGNORANCE!, under Regarding the statements being made that findings negate the possibility of this situation]

   

FBI contacted during this period

• 09/06/02 FBI NH inquiry

Official reports of this investigation

• Town of Groton Police (GPD)
  

  • Over the next year or so, I also learn many of the details of GPD's part of this investigation
    

    • 09/06/02 GPD trafficking inquest
      
      

• Town of Stonington Police (SPD)
  

  • Incident report:

    • 09/06/02 SPD#2002-013717

      • acquired 12/16/03, copy on website is that received 09/04/04 in FBI FOIPA #0993702-000

    • SPD Incident #2002000013717 (notated copy)

     

    • Although, when I spoke to Stewart on 09/08/02, he said that he couldn't find any record regarding Dave coming into Stonington Police station, didn't know who was supposed to have spoken with Dave nor when that was supposed to have happened, other that it "must have been" when Stewart was "off," over a year later, after SPD broke their own "no contact" orders themselves (05/03/03 SPD#2003-05958 and 06/16/03 SPD arrest incident), I finally received a copy of SPD's report of this 09/06/02 "investigation"/"interview" on 12/16/03, upon receipt of Stonington Police records for this investigation.
      

      • According to Stonington Police records of this investigation, Laura Joyner and Rus Dunbar brought someone into the Stonington Police station who was supposed to be Dave
        
        

        • Dave's last name is misspelled throughout reports by Stonington Police, indicating
          
          

          • SPD did not verify the identification of the person Joyner and Dunbar brought in
            
            

          • SPD did not attempt to determine whether or not there was evidence of possible unlawful conduct with respect to documents, in furtherance of trafficking, peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor
            
            

          • There is nothing in SPD's incident report that indicates that the possible trafficking victim brought into Stonington Police station by Laura Joyner and Rus Dunbar was questioned alone.  Instead, it seems to imply that the person was "interviewed" in the presence of Laura Joyner and Rus Dunbar.  This would be consistent with similar "interviews" reported to me by GPD and WPD, of someone who was presented to them who was supposed to be Dave
            
            
            

        • Also according to that SPD report "09/06/02 Dunbar and Joyner requested that SPD "contact the court and advise them of the problems being cause by LaBrecque so that a judge could possibly order her to treatment"
          

        • There is a very good possibility that this visit to Stonington Police occurred between the time of my early morning call that day to FBI, New Haven, and by the end of the day, when I was finally able to speak to the FBI Duty Agent for that day.
          

        • See additional comments regarding this incident in 02/17/04 - crazy > integrity - Pt 1 [modified & reformated]
          
          

    • SPD recorded this request for investigation of a "possible" human trafficking situation, and the investigation, itself, as "SLANDER, Business Name: John's Cafe", 09/06/02 SPD Incident #2002000013717 (notated copy)
      
      
      
      

• FBI NH
  

  • SPD incorporates GPD's " investigation" into SPD reports of its 09/06/02 SPD trafficking inquest and relays this to FBI NH who, in turn, uses that information as part of the basis of its 08/12/03 response to FBI HQ 08/08/03 inquiry  However, it appears that FBI NH reports it as an "interview" that has been done by Waterford police
    

    • Information acquired through FBI FOIPA #0993702-000

   

Some of the later developments related to or that followed these events

• 05/13/03 (beginning by at least this date) SPD is making false claims and apparently other statements about me to other law enforcement and other entities, including FBI:
  

  • mostly heard from me in response by various law enforcement entities that they'd been advised by SPD to not investigate and/or to disregard my claims

    • see  Authorities' Efforts page
      

  • see my appeal to SPD in 09/17/03 Letter to Stonington Chief of Police Erskine

    • that I have “serious mental problems:”

    • that there is a restraining order against me

    • that findings negate the possibility of this situation

    • that a proper investigation has been conducted in the human trafficking of David

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