The surveillance video at Kopy’s Bar on the South Side showed undercover Pittsburgh police detectives downing drink after drink before getting into a brawl with members of a motorcycle club in October.
The detectives were there, police said, as part of an official undercover operation. So how much was their tab?
They’re not telling.
Pittsburgh police are not required to submit receipts to the city controller’s office that detail their undercover spending from the bureau’s Confiscated Narcotics Proceeds Imprest Fund. But they do have to give a reason when they request money, and those records show police spent at least $3,000 on “undercover bar investigations” during 2017 and 2018.
That’s part of $56,000 that investigators say they spent on undercover operations, homicide investigations, payments to confidential informants and undercover drug buys, according to expense vouchers filed with the controller’s office.
None of that undercover spending was documented with the controller’s office through receipts or similar proofs of purchase, and police last week would not release additional details or answer a list of questions posed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Chris Togneri, a police spokesman, was unable to say whether police keep an internal ledger to track their undercover spending, whether that ledger includes receipts or similar supporting documentation, or how police ensure that a detective who takes money for an undercover operation doesn’t just pocket the funds.
“In general terms, I can tell you that the process in place for spending money on investigations is heavily audited and includes multiple checks and balances,” Mr. Togneri said, without providing details.
In the wake of the Kopy’s incident, public safety officials discovered several other instances in which undercover detectives drank alcohol on the job. The officials created new guidelines for undercover alcohol use, a police spokeswoman said, although police have declined to release details.
A review of the bureau’s spending from the imprest fund — which is funded by money or assets seized during joint federal and local narcotics investigations — shows that police requested funds for “undercover bar investigations” 12 times during 2017 and 2018.
Those withdrawals ranged from between $100 and $930, according to the vouchers. An additional $2,000 was requested by Detective David Honick for an “undercover operation” the week that undercover detectives busted two dancers at Blush Gentleman’s Club for prostitution.
Detective Honick, who was at the center of the incident at Kopy’s Bar, requested $1,000 on July 20, 2017 — the day of the Blush bust — and then asked for an additional $1,000 on July 26, 2017, saying it was connected to the previous request, records show.
A July 20 form said the money was to be used for an “undercover operation.” On July 26, a second form noted that the cost of that operation was “now 2000.”
An affidavit written by Detective Honick said the two women offered to have sex with two undercover detectives in exchange for $2,400.
Mr. Togneri would not say Friday whether Detective Honick’s expense requests were related to the operation at the strip club or what the money was spent on.
Tipsy Cow
Seven of the 12 requests for funds to be used for “undercover bar operations” during 2017 and 2018 were made by now-retired Detective Rebecca Meder, who said Thursday that she had been assigned to the nuisance bar task force.
“That’s why all the money went through me,” she said. “I would sign money out, and it was used for the operation.”
Sometimes, the money she signed out would actually be spent by someone else, she said, adding that she kept a close eye on it.
“I had no reason to believe it wasn’t being spent on an investigation,” she said.
In one instance, Ms. Meder used fund money to pay for a glass of sangria and a burger at Tipsy Cow, a Shadyside burger joint, because a “kitchen employee might be involved in drug sales.”
She noted in the $20 expense voucher that she did not observe any “activity” during her meal.
She said that the meal was part of an official operation in which she assisted narcotics detectives.
Pittsburgh city code says the imprest fund should be used for expenses related to narcotics investigations, as well as other expenses in line with federal guidelines and as approved in writing by the city’s public safety director.
Most of the purchases police made using the fund in 2017 and 2018 were documented with receipts, invoices or bills. A review of records showed that the money is used for a wide variety of expenses, including vehicle repairs, clothing for officers, translation services, training and food.
For undercover operations, police officers, detectives and sergeants requested the money in chunks as small as $100 or as large as $3,000, and listed a general reason for the request. Often, detectives wrote, “Funds for CI payments and undercover buys” or “Funds for CI payments and homicide investigations.”
Audit underway
City Controller Michael Lamb said Wednesday that police are not required to submit receipts for undercover expenses because of the confidential nature of the investigations.
“Whenever you’re doing an audit on this kind of stuff, you bump up against these kind of limitations,” he said. “It’s a hard line to draw. For our purposes, we would love to be able to know more. For police purposes, I know they want to keep as much confidential as they can. A lot of it has to do with the investigative nature of their work and the safety of their officers.”
Mr. Lamb said he believes that police previously kept an internal ledger of undercover spending and said his office was able to review that ledger during a 2013 audit of the imprest fund. He was not sure if such a ledger still existed. The controller’s office is currently in the middle of an audit of the fund, which happens every four years.
Mr. Lamb said the police bureau can reduce the likelihood of misuse by ensuring that multiple people within the police department are involved in supervising the money, so that any scheme to misuse funds would be caught.
“You’ve got to rely on the higher-ups within the investigative unit,” he said. “That’s part of their job. They entered into the same kind of ethical oath we all do.”
It can be difficult or impossible to get receipts in some undercover investigations, experts said, but there are a variety of ways officers can keep a detailed account of their spending.
Receipts when possible
Superintendent Coleman McDonough of Allegheny County Police said Friday that his agency keeps a ledger of undercover spending, and the spending is also documented in bank statements and detectives’ reports. Once a month, he said, a narcotics supervisor checks those various documents against each other to ensure money is being spent as it should be.
“If we can get a receipt for something, we do,” he said. “But obviously if you are on the street buying narcotics, you’re not going to ask for a receipt.”
In those scenarios, the spending is documented in other ways, he said. Payments to confidential informants, for example, typically must be witnessed by more than one detective, and usually the informant is asked to sign a form documenting the payment, he said.
“We try to limit the number of people in the agency who have access to the identities of informants, for obvious reason,” Superintendent McDonough said. “Generally speaking, in reporting they’re not identified by name but by number.”
Harold Johnson, an agent who retired from the attorney general’s office last year after 29 years, said agents there were also required to have confidential informants sign a form acknowledging they had received a payment from police.
“When I did my undercover work, we spent a lot of times in clubs to make connections. Every penny of that was accounted for,” he said. “We would say, ‘This is what we spent’ and sign a receipt, or make a report.”
Richard Odenthal, who retired from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department after a 32-year career, said there are times when it can be difficult to verify spending in undercover operations.
“There is no real way to backtrack,” he said. “I’m not going to ask the suspect, ‘Did they give you $200?’ At some point you have to rely on the fact that the officers and their supervisors are being truthful in what they are doing.”
Superintendent McDonough said need for integrity is one reason why it is important to be careful when selecting detectives who will have undercover duties.
“They may not be as intensely supervised as some of the traditional duties, so you need to pick people with integrity and maturity,” he said.
Elizabeth Pittinger, executive director of Pittsburgh’s Citizen Police Review Board, said Friday she believes that the incident at Kopy’s has already begun to spur needed reforms of the Pittsburgh police narcotics and vice unit.
“We have obviously learned a lot and learned that there were significant deficiencies operationally and accountability-wise,” she said, adding that she believes that the bureau has taken steps to fix the problems. “The illumination on that worked, and they’re fixing all that from the inside.”
Shelly Bradbury: 412-263-1999, sbradbury@post-gazette.com or follow @ShellyBradbury on Twitter.
First Published: July 29, 2019, 10:45 a.m.
