Prime Crime: The Drug Planting Scandal That Shocked the Nation

It doesn't look good, he said he found a syringe in a bag that looked like it had been used, he said it was stuffed between the passenger seat and the Senter console, would you have seen it if there was something there? right, yeah, there was something like that, no, they all say they're innocent, they all said it wasn't mine, you know, they all say they had nothing to do with it, so, going into it, you're thinking how many other people have been in my place. testifying against an officer that usually doesn't go very well you never saw him with a needle or a bag or something in his hands until he got out of your car no, he was pretty far inside when he was reaching for the gun, see?

He reached into his pockets or something, no, and he wears short sleeves, so he didn't have anything up his sleeve either, right? But I knew he had to do it. He had a clean record. I was the quote-unquote key witness in this case because of my clean record, so testifying was a big deal for the state, so it was time for Zachary Wester to take the stand. Did you put this substance in Mr. Williams' lunchbox? Didn't I make the report you wrote in that case? Did you falsify anything in this report? Did you plant that? I don't.

No. This case is difficult because you are dealing with a professional witness. Police officers part of their job is to testify to police officers. They are trained to be great Witnesses, the accusation is that you found six but you only presented five as evidence and that would be correct, okay, tell us why it was determined that one that was not used it could have been for his diabetes which he just stated he uses. syringes for um, so I didn't determine that that one had evidentiary value and it was just thrown out. Did you take that other needle and hide it in your car to plant it in someone else's car later?

No, I didn't, there are certain strategies. and techniques when people testify, which are learned and practiced over time, they do not get too excited, they answer only what they are asked, they respond in a way that is not confrontational, not argumentative, in all these cases that we have talked about , you didn't plant any evidence. that never crossed my mind no, these were legitimate searches and he found illegal narcotics yes sir, overall you were very good on the stand, methamphetamine is quite prevalent here in Jackson County, correct, methamphetamine is very prevalent in Jackson County. I've seen firsthand the destruction that methamphetamine has on families, um, on friends and in my job as a sheriff's deputy I wanted to be as proactive as possible.

I didn't feel like the citizens of Jackson County wanted to pay me to just sit somewhere and wait for a call. Wester even tried to explain how the possibly incriminating evidence from Odum's stop in the empty space was sort of bag that I didn't know at the time whether it had probative value or not, it didn't seem like it had probative value. It had narcotics, it didn't look like it had anything that could have been of value, but I still wanted to try to preserve it, so I grabbed it and every time I got into the vehicle it was in my left hand, but I wanted to be still able to use my fingers before put on the gloves I moved my hand and placed that object on the driver's side floorboard and continued my search the status showed these still photographs there is something in your hand there is definitely something in your hand absolutely it was that bag of meth that is there in that spoon at this point was no no, it was obvious to me that Wester had been trained extensively for his testimony, which is not unusual.

Wester had done his homework and had really prepared himself for the questions that the state's attorney's office would probably ask us where on his body camera video do we see him handle that bag and pick it up or put it down or look at it closely to determine what's inside each. time I put that bag on the driver's side front floor I never saw it again. I'm not sure if it's because when a truck passed by it blew him into the road, there was really no need for him to walk down AC via 231 at the busiest time of the day to try it. to find something that I didn't even know had evidentiary value or not, why did you leave it on the floor if you didn't know if it had evidentiary value or not so I could search the vehicle, how about we look for what's in your By the way, what about that?

I didn't expect him to actually take the stand. He kept moving his nose. He was very restless and nervous all the time. He lost his cool on the stand several times with the State's Attorney. Your theory was that because Mom had been in the car at some point and Mom had used meth years before, even if it was accidental possession, you went ahead and arrested them, I did and this is what they mostly deny having. knowledge, so Mr. Williams, you are you are presenting to this jury that in the first circuit where you serve, if someone says they didn't know about narcotics, you will simply drop the case for every narcotics charge that comes across your desk, already know that's not what I'm saying, it seems to me that's what you're saying, well, thanks for your input, I'll remind you, since you're aware that I ask the questions and you answer them, sure, really I think he came. through a little stuck up a little arrogant versus hey I'm really innocent here the whole point of the body camera is to allow someone else in this same court system to maybe see what you or any other deputy would see while they had that body camera on.

Not that the right body cameras are very beneficial. Yeah, not for Reginald Williams, we don't have a right, so why don't we have one for him if Mr. Reginald Williams' body camera video wouldn't have been deleted from the server this jury? He would have had the opportunity to review that body camera. Who eliminated it? Mr. Williams. I don't know if anyone deleted it. Did they remove the front part of the manual video? Did they go in and delete that too? Mr. Williams. I have already testified. As for the first part of that Emanual video, I made it very clear that the body camera experienced a malfunction and happened to miss the part where you would have gotten into the car for the first time and had a chance to see the syringe in the Bagy is true.

I don't agree that that's not when the error occurred. I don't agree with that, so why isn't it in the video? Mr. Williams. I have explained this to him three or four times as to why he is not here. In the video, is there any reason why you won't answer to the jury that the body camera error occurred as soon as the traffic stop was initiated? The defense case was actually quite strong and it's not really down to the defense attorney, it was Wester who covered his case. actions, he had an expla

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for everything, he had perfectly turned his body camera on and off at certain times and explained it as a malfunction, you know, and they questioned the people involved in it in that department, you know, is this a possibility ?

Well, yes, it is a possibility. It's a body camera. Now you testified that you saw Kimberly Hazelwood bend down and put that bottle of Excedrin in that garbage bag. It's true? Yeah, where is that in the video? The body camera doesn't catch it, but every time you look out the back window. You'll be surprised how a body camera obscures things and you have to remember that a body camera sees a narrow field of view, it sees what it wants to see, so I was able to see it with my eyes through that kind of back that was.

It's hard to sit in the courtroom and say, I don't know how he did it, but I know he did it and I hope there's enough evidence to prove it: that the package was in his hand before he put on the glove and that he didn't do it. If he found something in the camera, it was just there, so the jury really had to rely on their belief of whether or not he was a corrupt cop, and for the jury in this case, would they believe that Zachary Wester was following the law or breaking the law? the law after? deliberating over 7 hours over the course of 2 days, this was the jury's decision, the jury determines the following as to the count's charge and information: one is guilty of racketeering as charged, two, not guilty, three , not guilty, four, not guilty. seven guilty of official misconduct related to Teresa odm as charged in a split decision, jurors found Zachary Wester guilty of 19 counts, including racketeering, official misconduct, false imprisonment and possession, but not guilty of 48 other counts , so I think they came back with the correct verdict of conviction. him for the charges that they had the strongest evidence on, there were many more declared innocences than guilty verdicts and that was hard to hear as someone who went through that, he's having fun in all of these cases, but in the end after everything All said and done, he was found guilty of charges related to three of the people involved, Steven Van and Teresa Odum, at that point you're like someone realizes this isn't right and you start to think maybe they're going to get it. the time he deserves to count organized

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, which is a first-degree felony, he is sentenced to serve five years in the Florida Department of Corrections and is asked to count seven official misconduct 18 months to count 31 fabricated evidence a year and one day you are asked to count 64 that is false imprisonment you were sentenced to serve one year and one day therefore it is the court's intention that you be sentenced to serve a total of 12 years 6 months in 8 days in the Florida Department of Corrections there is no one who doesn't like a corrupt cop more than me it is wrong, it pollutes the agency, it pollutes the badge, actions and behaviors like this in law enforcement will not be tolerated and you will be held accountable for your actions , people who lost children, grandchildren, their right to work, no questions asked.

I mean I still have my fair share of side effects to this day, if I see police lights my heart drops and I have a panic attack on the highway, there's a bad apple in every profession but when you run into a bad cop that can change your life and it can be for the better it can be for the worse right now for a lot of people it was for the worse for a moment just think about the impact Zachary Wester had here so in total prosecutors dropped the charges in 119 cases involving Wester, over 30 of the people he arrested took a federal court settlement of almost 1 million, his professional reputation was ruined, he was locked up behind bars for years and you have all these people who are going to go through life knowing that they were falsely arrested by someone who was tasked with controlling the law and all this because that question of why he did it is still not clear and I will honestly tell you what may never be clear that is all we have to go on. you here In this episode of Prime Crime, thank you all so much for joining us.

See you next time and as always, stay safe.