Sheriff Detective Kreg Sloan testifies to lost evidence

James (Strat) Faire and Attorney Stephen Pidgeon appeared in Okanogan Superior Court on June 28, 2018 for a limited evidentiary hearing; Okanogan Superior Court Judge Christopher Culp presided. While under oath, Okanogan County Sheriff Detective Kreg Sloan testified to lost evidence in the Faire case. The specific evidence pertains to a video that Ruth Brooks took of the violent attack that George Abrantes launched on James and Angela Faire with a deadly weapon consisting of a heavy lock and chain. More information on the lost evidence can be found in the Offer of Proof, which was filed with the Okanogan Court Clerk on June 25, 2018.

 

Detective Kreg Sloan gave the following testimony:

• On June 18, 2015, a phone was collected from the Sourdough property. The phone was found next to Debra Long’s body. It was assumed the phone belonged to Long.
• 06/23/15 11:47 Received call from George Abrantes and he was asking for his cellphone. Told him we only took one next to Debra. Pulled phone and found it was George’s cellphone.

• 06/23/15 14:49 Got search warrant for Georges cellphone.

• 06/23/15 15:38 Obtained file system and logical extraction of Georges cellphone data

• 06/24/15 08:37 Telephone contact with PA [prosecuting attorney] Sloan regarding returning Georges cellphone and cash. PA Sloan said if we were done with cellphone we could return the items.

  • NOTE: Detective Kreg Sloan is referring to contact with his brother, Karl Sloan, who was the prosecutor until the end of July, 2017.

• 06/24/15 08:50 Fed EX Georges cellphone to him at Sacred Heart

• 08/12/15 10:45 started to back up extractions from laptop to WD [Western Drive] external hard drive

• 08/12/15 11:17 laptop [Detective Sloan’s work laptop] corrupted with ransom ware virus

• 08/12/15 11:17 called Central Services. Steve said to pull off whatever files that were not encrypted and bring down my laptop. I recovered some files but none of the extraction files were recovered. Took laptop to Central Services

• 08/13/15 11:40 Pick up laptop from Central Services. They had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system

• 04/25/18 10:52 Telephone contact with PA Platter and told him about laptop virus and lost data

When Detective Kreg Sloan was asked why he did not immediately notify the prosecutor or defense counsel of the lost data back in August of 2015, Detective Sloan replied, “I didn’t.” The detective offered no further explanation.

Several questions arise pertaining to the data and how it is handled by the Okanogan County Sheriff. In today’s world of technology, just everyone carries a cellphone. It is a reasonable expectation that law enforcement has strict processes and procedures in place to safeguard electronic data which may have exculpatory evidence of a defendant’s innocence or evidence of a defendant’s guilt. This writer would think the data would be dumped to a computer which is not connected to the internet. The data from a SINGLE DEVICE would go through a virus scan process. It is foreseeable that a cellphone could have a virus on it and infect the first computer. Hence, why only one device should be dumped at a time and moved off (not copied) the computer before another device is dumped. It is imperative that the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office implement modern day processes and procedures so it can do an effective job. Lives are at stake.

The court audio is a matter of public record; the proceedings can be heard in its entirety: State of WA v. Faire, June 28, 2018, Evidentiary Hearing