Fairfax County Police Watch: Witness: State police detective paid me to lie about Romulus police corruption

Shawn Ley

ROMULUS, Mich. -

Sex, lies and an audiotape.

A Local 4 investigation broke the story Thursday night at 6 p.m. about a witness used by Wayne County prosecutors against former members of the Romulus Police Department accused of staggering corruption while on duty.

That witness now says he was paid $12,000 by a Michigan State Police detective for his testimony, and he says he was paid to lie on the witness stand.

Here’s the background: the witness is named Milton DeSilva.

DeSilva was a confidential informant for Romulus police detectives.

In March of 2011, Michigan State Police conducted several raids of the Romulus Police Department -- as well as a raiding the home of former Romulus Police Chief Michael St. Andre and a tanning salon owned by St. Andre’s wife, Sandra Vlaz-St. Andre.

St. Andre and five defendants, who were Romulus police detectives, at the time are accused of padding their overtime, using drug forfeiture money to engage in drug and sex parties at strip clubs and for allegedly pocking department money set aside to pay confidential informants.

During a preliminary hearing, DeSilva testified for Wayne County prosecutors, testimony that helped bound the case over to circuit court and towards a trial.

Later, DeSilva called the office of one of the attorneys defending one of the Romulus detectives.

An investigator for attorney Mike Rataj taped a phone call with DeSilva.

A recording of that call was sent anonymously to Local 4.

DeSilva is heard telling the investigator, “I was told to lie and I was paid cash for it.”

"Who paid you to lie?”

DeSilva: “The state police. They gave me $12,000 cash.”

Thursday, attorney for former Romulus detective Richard Balzer, Mike Rataj, told Local 4, “It raises some serious questions about the integrity of the investigation.”

Friday, a spokesperson for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy told Local 4, “It is not true about the witness being paid by MSP.” Spokesperson Maria Miller added that DeSilva is not a witness in the upcoming trial against the former Romulus chief and detectives.

Also Friday, Rataj is questioning how prosecutors could use DeSilva’s testimony to help them in a preliminary hearing only now to say he is no longer a witness for them.

“You people (Wayne Co. prosecutors) put him up on the witness stand to have our clients, in part, to be bound over," Rataj said. “You think there should be some sort of investigation conducted. These are serious allegations."

The state attorney general’s office will not confirm if they are investigating allegations being made about how Michigan State Police conducted its probe of the Romulus officers.

The investigation has already claimed its first conviction.

Sandra Vlaz-St. Andre was found guilty of taking part in a criminal enterprise for her role in the corruption case. She is serving 7 to 20 years in prison.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.