A Message to Residents of Middlefield

November 27, 2014 by Submitted

Dear Residents of Middlefield,

I want to reach out to you personally to address a serious issue involving the Village and the police.

Let me first give you some brief background information.

In October of 2013, the Middlefield Police Department, acting on an informant’s tip, followed Daniel Stovall when he was driving in our village. The informant told police that Mr. Stovall had narcotics in his possession. By checking computerized police records, it was quickly determined that Mr. Stovall’s driver’s license had been suspended and had expired and that Mr. Stovall did not have a current driver’s license.

After officers observed him going left-of-center on State Route 608, he was pulled over. Following procedure, the police officer looked in the van for contraband. Finding nothing, he summoned the sheriff’s drug-sniffing police dog, who showed “interest,” but found nothing specific.

Mr. Stovall was taken to the Chardon Municipal Court where he was subsequently released and given a courtesy ride to his home by a deputy sheriff. The van’s titled owner gave the police verbal permission to drive the van to the police station, located just 500 feet from the point of the traffic stop. There, the police parked and locked the van in the lot immediately adjacent to the police station.

After receiving verbal permission from the van’s owner to do a full search, police officers unlocked the van, searched it and found illegal drugs in the vehicle. The van’s owner subsequently confirmed this consent to search in writing.

As a result, Mr. Stovall was charged with, pleaded guilty to and was convicted of driving without a driver’s license. He was also subsequently indicted on a drug charge.

Before the case went to trial, however, Mr. Stovall’s attorney moved to suppress evidence of the drugs seized from the van he was driving. That motion was successful and the indictment was dismissed.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Stovall filed a $3 million dollar federal lawsuit against the Village, the mayor, the arresting officers and the informant.

You may have heard about this lawsuit from recent media coverage of the incident. Unfortunately, the realities of modern litigation limit the Village’s ability to comment publicly on an incident that is the subject of active lawsuit and for that reason we remain unable to address Mr. Stovall’s assertions point-by-point, something that we look forward to doing in court.

However, we are able to tell you the following:

First and foremost, we have a duty to protect our citizens and enforce the law. Police received a tip that they believed to be credible. They acted on the tip and found drugs in Mr. Stovall’s possession.

Mr. Stovall had every right to ask the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas to suppress the evidence. His success in that request compelled the prosecutor to dismiss the indictment. Frankly, we continue to disagree with that ruling and dismissal — and we now look forward to telling our side in court at the appropriate time.

We hope our residents will keep in mind that just because the court decided to suppress the evidence does not mean that the accusations in Mr. Stovall’s lawsuit are true. Again, it is our contention that we found drugs in the van and that we acted appropriately, properly and in good faith.

We understand that some of you have questions about this situation. We also know it’s not good enough for us to simply claim integrity. Therefore, in the interest of impartiality, and with the support of the president of village council and the police chief, I have asked the Attorney General of Ohio to conduct an independent investigation. As soon as we receive an answer from the AG’s office, we will give you more details about this investigation.

The Middlefield Police Department has a spotless, decades-long record of exemplary professionalism. We are proud of that record and we will continue to serve the residents of our Village to the best of our ability.

Mayor Ben Garlich