Evidence room shenanigans nothing new to law enforcement, former trooper says

Ronald Letendres, left, and a typical big-city evidence room. (Ketebdres.Dover Police; evidence room photo/Winchester Sun)

A former Florida Highway Patrol officer told The Rochester Voice on Saturday that police evidence room shenanigans were prevalent in the agency when he worked there for several years in the early 2000s.
"It happened all the time," he said.
The comments from the former trooper, who did not want his name used because he still has ties to the department, came just two days after a former Dover police officer was found not guilty of felony falsifying physical evidence, a charge that could have put him away in state prison for seven years.
The case revolved around Ronald Letendre, 48, of Rollinsford, who was working as a Dover patrol officer on Sept. 16, 2016, when he was dispatched to a Dover residence to seize a package of suspected THC edibles sent through the USPS.
The man who lived at the residence told then-officer Letendre that he had mistakenly opened the package - which wasn't addressed to him - and soon realized they might be illicit drugs. He said he them called his lawyer who advised him to call police to have them come to his residence to seize the drugs.
An indictment handed down in October 2020 alleged that Letendre took a portion of the Jolly Rancher-style THC gummies from the package before locking it in the evidence room, which was the basis of the falsifying physical evidence complaint.
An indictment handed down in October 2020 alleged that Letendre took a portion of the Jolly Rancher-style THC gummies from the package before locking it in the evidence room, which was the basis of the falsifying physical evidence complaint, a felony that could have resulted in a seven-year prison sentence.
An internal investigation by Dover Police into the gummies theft may have never occurred, however, but for a widely reported domestic violence incident of July 10, 2020, that involved Letendre and his former wife at their Rollinsford home.
Initially, Rollinsford Police arrested Sarah Letendre after they found her husband with scratches on his chest and a torn shirt.
Soon after, however, Sarah Letendre said on her Facebook page that it was her husband who attacked her breaking four of her ribs.
About two weeks later she filed her own Domestic Violence Petition accusing her husband of breaking her ribs when he "forcefully fell with his elbow into my left ribcage."
All charges against both were eventually dropped, however during a Dover Police investigation into the matter they learned through an inverview with Sarah Letendre that in September 2016 her husband had brought some Jolly Rancher-type edibles home, at least one of which was eaten by Sarah Letendre, who confirmed the THC content. THC is the active ingredient in cannabis that produces a high.
The indictment, in part, said, "believing that an official investigation is pending, he (Letendre) removed any thing with a purpose to impair its verity or availability in such investigation; in that Ronald Letendre did investigate the delivery of controlled drugs to (Dover address), and in the course of that investigation he did remove a portion of the seized controlled drugs before entering the seized controlled drugs into evidence at Dover Police Department."
Strafford County Attorney Tom Velardi said on Wednesday evidence clearly showed there were drugs missing from the 2016 seizure, but public defender Carl Swenson countered that the charge of falsifying physical evidence was wrongheaded.
"The indictment says "with a purpose to impair its verity (truthfulness)," Swenson said. "They are saying he was sabotaging an investigation; what investigation? what sabotage?"
The falsifying physical evidence charge also alleged that Letendre's behavior was executed while "believing that an official investigation is pending," four years prior to when it was investigated.
Ronald Letendre was fired by Dover Police in August 2020 after an internal investigation into the stolen gummies. He had been a police officer in Dover for 13 years.
The former Florida Highway Patrol trooper said that during his tenure with the agency routine audits showed unaccounted for or missing drugs often.
He also said he couldn't recall any trooper or civilian employee being fired after an audit.
"There's just too many variables, so it's hard to prove who might have taken them, especially when you don't know when or how they were wrongfully obtained," he said.
He also noted that being in charge of the evidence room is one of the least desirous jobs in any law enforcement agency, not only for the job liability, but also, "It's a very boring job," he said. "There's no window, you never get outside."