Grant Rodgers

grodgers@dmreg.com

An Iowa inmate's defense attorneys are probing another possible case of evidence planting by two former Des Moines police officers whose alleged misconduct already led a judge to vacate the drug conviction of another defendant.

More investigation is needed into the roles that senior police officers Joshua Judge and Tyson Teut played in the Sept. 22, 2015, arrest of Larry Perry, defense attorney Andrea Flanagan urged in a February court filing. Perry, 60, of Des Moines, is serving a 15-year prison sentence for a methamphetamine possession conviction stemming from the arrest.

Dash camera footage from the arrest shows both Judge and Teut were at the scene before the meth was found in some bushes, though neither officer was listed by prosecutors as a potential witness against Perry at his trial, Flanagan said.

The review of the conviction was sparked by news in January that a judge had vacated the meth possession conviction of another man, Kyle Jacob Weldon, after prosecutors admitted the two officers planted the evidence on him.

RELATED: Iowan exonerated in Des Moines evidence planting case

Judge and Teut both resigned in December two days after administrators learned about a complaint against them stemming from Weldon's arrest. Weldon has since filed a malicious prosecution and false imprisonment lawsuit against Des Moines, Polk County, as well as Judge and Teut, court records show.

Flanagan said Monday that Perry has maintained since the beginning of the criminal case that he was not carrying methamphetamine at the time of his arrest.

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone confirmed Monday that the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is still reviewing the officers' conduct, but no decision has been made on whether they will face criminal charges. Dan Voogt, a prosecutor who leads the office's drug and gang bureau, is assisting the investigation, Sarcone said.

Sarcone was not aware of the concerns about Perry's conviction when reached by a reporter, but he said any evidence would be reviewed.

"They can make all the allegations they want to and we’ll just see what they have to say if that happens," he said. "Let them present evidence."

Defense attorneys routinely review old cases for problems or red flags that were initially missed any time an officer involved is publicly accused of misconduct, said Robert Rigg, a Drake University Law School professor who teaches criminal law. "This is the kind of thing that prosecutors just dread when you have allegations like this that turn out to be confirmed."

Perry was arrested after Officer Tori Aletheia pulled him over in Des Moines' King Irving neighborhood for driving an Acura vehicle with expired registration tags. Perry got out of the vehicle and began walking away as the officer approached, telling Aletheia that there was "no reason" to pull him over, according to a criminal complaint. Aletheia ordered Perry to stop, but he began running down a sidewalk on 10th Street, according to the complaint.

Aletheia was able to grab Perry and take him into custody. In the complaint, Aletheia wrote that other officers found two plastic baggies of cocaine on the ground outside of the driver's side door of the vehicle, as well as two baggies with meth on the ground along the path that Perry ran. According to the brief filed by Flanagan, Officer Adam Herman found the meth under a bush near the vehicle.

The arrest happened almost 10 months after Judge and Teut arrested Weldon based on now-discredited claims that he had meth inside his pocket when he was picked up on an outstanding warrant.

Perry pleaded not guilty to the charges, but he was convicted of possessing methamphetamine and driving while barred following a trial in March of last year. He was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison with a three-year mandatory minimum due to previous drug convictions.

Aletheia's testimony during the criminal case confirmed that both Judge and Teut were at the crime scene, according to the defense attorneys' brief. A review of police vehicle dash camera footage also showed that both arrived at the scene before the methamphetamine was found, she said.

Flanagan, who was appointed to help Perry appeal his convictions, said the dash camera footage "corroborates" her belief that the two officers planted the methamphetamine based on the timing of their arrival and the location where the drugs were found.

"What it did show certainly supports an inference that the officers had something to do with those drugs appearing there," she said.

Flanagan's brief asked the Iowa Supreme Court to take the rare step of sending the case back to a district court judge for a hearing and further investigation. Flanagan said she hopes Sarcone will decline to prosecute Perry a second time or that a judge will order a new trial.

"I would be surprised if the county attorney's office, upon further investigation of this issue, if they proceeded to prosecute him in the event they get to that point," she said.

Sgt. Paul Parizek, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Police Department, said that Judge and Teut are not mentioned in the case incident report documenting the arrest. It would not be unusual, however, for an officer who arrived at a scene on a call for backup to be omitted from a report. Typically reports include officers who had a specific role in an arrest or incident, he said.

Parizek also described Herman, who found the methamphetamine, as an "absolutely 110 percent stand-up dude." "I'd bet my next paycheck that Adam Herman doesn't do anything outside the lines," he said.

Parizek said the department's Office of Professional Standards is continuing an internal review of the cases that Judge and Teut handled. He previously said the department believes no other officers were involved.

Perry wrote in a letter to a judge following his conviction that he took, "full responsibility for my actions." Sarcone said that the letter suggests Perry is "inconsistent," but Flanagan said he was likely referring to the driving while barred charge.

"Your honor, I am a 60-year-old man," Perry wrote in the letter. "It would hurt me to lose everything I have and start over again. I would give anything to have an opportunity to keep my home and everything in it."

The Iowa Attorney General's Office has opposed remanding the case back to district court, arguing that it should move forward through the appellate process. Attorneys would be allowed to bring the issue forward to a judge at some point after the appeal was finished, Assistant Attorney General Louis Sloven wrote in his brief.

Perry is also being represented in the litigation by Erica Nichols Cook, an attorney who handles wrongful conviction cases in the Iowa State Public Defender's Office.