With guns drawn and flashlights cutting through darkened rooms, Polk County undercover drug investigators stormed the home of convicted drug dealer Michael Difalco near Lakeland in March.

As investigators searched the home for drugs, some drug task force members found other ways to occupy their time. Within 20 minutes of entering Difalco's house, some of the investigators found a Wii video bowling game and began bowling frame after frame.

While some detectives hauled out evidence such as flat screen televisions and shotguns, others threw strikes, gutter balls and worked on picking up spares.

A Polk County sheriff's detective cataloging evidence repeatedly put down her work and picked up a Wii remote to bowl. When she hit two strikes in a row, she raised her arms above her head, jumping and kicking.

While a female detective lifted a nearby couch looking for evidence, another sheriff's detective focused on pin action.

But detectives with the Polk County Sheriff's Office, the Auburndale, Lakeland and Winter Haven police departments did not know that a wireless security camera connected to a computer inside Difalco's home was recording their activity.

The recording obtained by News Channel 8 showed several members of the county's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force entering the house shortly after 8 a.m. According to the search warrant, their mission was to search for drugs, stolen property and the fruits of any illegal drug activity.

Now there are questions on how the impromptu bowling tournament might affect the case against Difalco.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd denies it will have any effect.

"That absolutely is not true; that doesn't invalidate the search at all," Judd said. "Now the defendant would like for it to invalidate the search, but unfortunately for him, it won't."

Judd, who watched the video during an interview last week, called the situation an embarrassment.

"I'm not pleased that they played that Wii bowling game," Judd said. The sheriff's office oversees the drug task force. Judd said he initiated an internal administrative investigation of the incident.

"That is not appropriate conduct at a search warrant," he said. "But I am less pleased with the supervision that didn't walk in and say, turn that off. That's what supervision should have done."

Task force members played the video game at various times during the day, for a total of a little over an hour of playing time. The competition proved to be quite competitive at times. A task force supervisor from the Lakeland Police Department, gun at his side, pumped his fist after picking up a strike on the first ball he threw. The video showed he continued bowling frame after frame, competing with another undercover detective.

"Obviously, this is not the kind of behavior we condone," Lakeland Police Chief Roger Boatner said. "There was a lot of down time, but that does not excuse the fact that we should act as the consummate professionals."

"Certainly this was a case of bad judgment," Auburndale Police Chief Nolan McLeod said. "We will handle it appropriately."

Winter Haven police Sgt. Brad Coleman said Chief E.C. Waters had not viewed the video. "If there is any indication that someone did something inappropriately, we will do something about it," Coleman said.

Court records show detectives placed Difalco's home under surveillance as far back as December 2008.

"We knew he had weapons," Judd said. "He's a bad guy."

His history includes an extensive arrest record dating back to 1995. Difalco, 43, served three years in state prison from 2002 to 2005 for trafficking drugs, owning and operating a chop shop, and grand theft.

In what Judd called "brilliant police work," the task force placed Difalco under surveillance and took him into custody, away from his home and weapons, during the early morning hours of March 6, in the parking lot of a Circle K convenience store on Highway 98.

Documents filed with the court say, in the March raid, detectives removed methamphetamine, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, weapons and more than $30,000 in stolen property.

The 11 charges against Difalco include trafficking methamphetamine, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and operating a chop shop.

According to sheriff's office records, 13 detectives and three sergeants spent nine hours searching Difalco's property, for drugs, stolen property and signs of any illegal drug activity.

The raid cost taxpayers more than $4,000.

Judd, Boatner and McLeod agree the bowling was inappropriate. But they challenge the notion that taxpayer dollars were wasted.

"It was an expansive scene, a lot of searching to be done, a lot of waiting," Boatner said.

"The nature of a search warrant is hurry up and wait," Judd said. "Am I trying to defend the fact that they were bowling, not at all. That was inappropriate."

Not just inappropriate, but Tampa defense attorney Rick Escobar would argue the moment detectives turned on that video game and effectively seized it, they turned the search warrant into an illegal search.

"I've never seen anything like this," Escobar said after he viewed some of the video. Escobar does not represent Difalco and has no connection to the case.

"All the citizens are thinking, 'Wait a minute, we are paying these people to go out and protect us and here they are playing bowling on our time,' " he said.

"The real question here is have they seized property that wasn't described in the search warrant?" Escobar asked. "Clearly if they're using it, they've seized it and for totally improper purposes, because it's for entertainment. Investigations are not for entertainment."

Difalco's attorney declined comment.

Chip Tulberry, a spokesperson for the Polk County State Attorney, declined to comment on the video, or the validity of the search warrant.

"That's a discussion that will occur in court," he said.

Alu Strikes Again; Threatens To Overturn Untold Number of Cases

BY BUDDY NEVINS

“Hurricane” Sheila Alu is at it again and this time her work threatens to throw the courthouse for a real loop.Sheila Alu

Assistant State Attorney Alu has delivered to the Public Defenders Office a list of 28 police under investigation by her bosses at the State Attorney’s Office  or internal affairs officers of their own departments. 

The list could throw into question an untold number of criminal cases, past and present.  It could overturn trials.

“This notice is a notice that the State Attorney has evidence that indicates because of conduct of the police, a client could be innocent,” Public Defender Howard Finkelstein says.

“This could be very, very big. It raises a number of questions for our clients,” Finkelstein says.  “We just don’t know the ramifications yet.”

The Public Defender’s Office has assigned a team of lawyers to research Alu’s documents. They are scrambling to see whether the cops are involved in cases against their clients.

 Finkelstein says in his 32 years as a lawyer, he has never seen a prosecutor reveal so many cops under investigation at once.

“I’ve seen maybe two or three (notices about two or three individual cops) in 32 years,” says Finkelstein.

Finkelstein says the document has no explanation of what the officers are being investigated for or even information about when the investigation took place.

He also says he doesn’t know what prompted Alu to deliver the notice to one of his assistant public defenders. 

“Maybe she just wants to do what’s right,” Finkelstein says. “What I am concerned about is that why haven’t we gotten these notices for the past 32 years?”

Some in the courthouse believe Alu is seeking to embarrass her boss, State Attorney Mike Satz.  There is talk in political circles she could be a future candidate against Satz.

Alu has been at the center of repeated controversies in the courthouse in less than two years as a prosecutor.  I have given her the nickname “Hurricane” Sheila because of the hubbub that surround her.

She made accusations against a judge that resulted in an investigation of the judge by the Judicial Qualifications Committee and the Florida Bar and produced a year’s worth of headlines.

Just last week, she was involved in an another controversy when it was learned she was  fund raising for a judge she appeared before as a prosecutor.

Copyright © 2009, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Fort Lauderdale - A Florida man was released from custody on Thursday after spending 26 years in prison for a rape and murder his lawyer says he didn't commit.

Anthony Caravella was ordered released after a private laboratory test revealed someone else's DNA at the crime scene.

Although it was once considered a rare and remarkable event, a growing number of defendants are being ordered freed from prison as DNA tests continue to uncover evidence of false confessions, shoddy police work, and questionable prosecution tactics.

Mr. Caravella's release on Thursday is conditional, pending further investigation. If the release order becomes permanent he will be the 243rd person freed by DNA evidence nationwide, the 11th in Florida, and the fourth in Broward County.

Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, says despite the proven success of such efforts it is becoming increasingly difficult for defense lawyers to pursue DNA testing.

"Across the state of Florida the state is opposing DNA testing more often on the front end, rather than taking a wait and see approach," Mr. Miller says.

"Nobody likes to admit they are wrong," he says.

Prosecutors in the Caravella case have cooperated with defense lawyers in an apparent effort to uncover the truth.

Mr. Caravella was 15 years old in 1983 when detectives questioned him in connection with the murder of Ada Jankowski in nearby Miramar, Fla. Caravella has an IQ of 67 and is considered mentally retarded.

His lawyer, Chief Assistant Public Defender Diane Cuddihy, said in a court motion that Caravella was threatened, beaten, pushed, and slapped by police. He gave police four taped statements and one oral statement. He eventually confessed to the rape and murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

Ms. Cuddihy said the confession was based on improper coercive interrogations that produced unreliable and false admissions by her client. She said detectives asked leading questions. She said even with leading questions, Caravella was unable to give verifying details of the murder and rape that matched crime scene evidence known to the detectives.

The public defender hired a private laboratory to re-test DNA evidence gathered in the case. The results showed someone other than Caravella raped Ms. Jankowski during the murder-rape. In addition, Cuddihy accused police and prosecutors of withholding a key piece of evidence from defense lawyers during Caravella's trial.

The lawyer said the state failed to turn over to defense lawyers an audio tape of a phone conversation between a police detective in the Jankowski case and a man who said he had killed Jankowski with Caravella.

"The audio tape, although delivered and received by the state attorney, was never disclosed to the defendant or his counsel," Cuddihy says in a court filing.

"The newly discovered DNA evidence proves that the defendant did not commit the sexual battery and murder," she writes. "The hidden audio-tape further undermines the reliability of the verdict."

Miller notes that false confessions contributed to a wrongful conviction in about 25 percent of cases where DNA evidence resulted in a defendant's release.

Frequently such confessions result from a combination of coercive interrogation tactics used against a person with mental retardation, he says.

I recently got a DUI in FL and asked for a formal hearing is my ticket still my drivers license or do i need to go to the DMV.