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The head of Douglas County's CSI unit faces a federal jury that was chosen this morning in a trial that stems from a single speck of blood.
Since 2000, David Kofoed and the Douglas County crime scene investigations unit he supervised have uncovered crucial evidence in many high-profile slayings.
His unit has worked the homicides of: Five people in a Norfolk bank branch. UNO student Jessica O'Grady. Tracy Gostomski Tribble of Council Bluffs, whose body was found in the Missouri River. Four-year-old Brendan Gonzalez of Plattsmouth. Wayne State student Amy Stahlecker. Omaha restaurant manager Mindy Schrieber. The list goes on.
His reputation: Meticulous. Hard-working. Authoritative. Highly skilled. Seasoned. A reliable scientific expert. An eloquent courtroom witness.
Starting today, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI will seek to paint a sharply different picture as Kofoed's criminal trial gets under way.
They will argue that Kofoed walked on the dark side of the law in a murder investigation — the 2006 shotgun slayings of farmers Wayne and Sharmon Stock of Murdock, Neb.
Kofoed maintains his innocence. He admits having made mistakes but says he did nothing criminal.
He is charged with two felonies, falsifying records and mail fraud, and two misdemeanor counts, accused of depriving two Nebraskans, Nicholas Sampson and Matthew Livers, of their civil rights.
Sampson and Livers are cousins who spent months in the Cass County Jail, facing double murder charges, even after authorities linked the Stocks' deaths to two teenagers from Wisconsin, Gregory Fester and Jessica Reid.
“I think the U.S. attorney and the FBI agents involved here, they are all honorable people,” Kofoed said in an interview. “I just don't think they have it right.”
At the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Mickle will accuse Kofoed of falsifying evidence, including his CSI investigative reports, evidence envelopes and other log entries. Those items are supposed to ensure the authenticity and integrity of evidence collected by CSI personnel.
Kofoed has been on paid administrative leave since he was indicted in April by a federal grand jury.
Kofoed, who voices confidence that jurors will exonerate him, said he “absolutely, without question” will testify in his own defense.
“It's up to me, and it's my responsibility to get up on the stand and be truthful,” he said. “I guess I really can't see it being the other way.”
Kofoed's lawyer, Steve Lefler, said he wants the case tried on the issue of whether Kofoed misdated some of his investigative reports and envelopes that contained blood evidence during the early stages of the Murdock homicide investigation.
Any wrong dates were careless, innocuous mistakes, Lefler says.
“This trial is not about planting evidence,” Kofoed said. “I'm being accused of intentionally misdating a report, specifically with the date discrepancies. Those things happened. There's no dispute on the report being misdated.
“But there was no criminal intention. It is absolutely one of the most common mistakes on any document for anybody who works in law enforcement.”
At the center of the trial is a tiny speck of Wayne Stock's blood.
It was found by Kofoed in a car from Lincoln owned by Sampson's brother. It became the only physical evidence linking Livers and Sampson to the 2006 slayings.
The U.S. Attorney's Office, in one court brief, contends that Kofoed initially must have thought the blood evidence would strengthen the Cass County prosecutor's murder case. The blood would have backed up law enforcement officials' original theory that Livers and Sampson borrowed the car to commit the early morning slayings 30 miles from their homes.
The initial six-hour search of the car found no link between the vehicle and the crime scene.
A week later, Kofoed went back into the car. He emerged from beneath the dashboard and, in an excited manner, showed another CSI technician a piece of bloody filter paper.
Kofoed said he lifted the blood from under the dashboard. The other CSI investigator tested the same area but found no blood.
Federal prosecutors accuse Kofoed of misdating his forensic services report, his property report and two envelopes containing the blood evidence.
They say he sent those items, along with another investigative report, to Cass County prosecutors. They say he made no effort to amend the reports or tell the prosecutor or other law enforcement authorities about the misdated reports or his questionable handling of the blood evidence until after the charges against Livers and Sampson were dismissed.
Overwhelming DNA evidence eventually excluded Livers and Sampson and linked the Stocks' slayings to the Wisconsin teens, Fester and Reid. Both pleaded guilty to the killings and said they occurred during a random farmhouse burglary.
Kofoed “acted knowing his actions and silence would negatively impact the civil rights of Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson,” Mickle, the federal prosecutor, argues in court documents.
About a year after the slayings, in April 2007, Sampson filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Cass County Sheriff's Office of misconduct for making a false arrest.
At that point, Kofoed stepped forward. He told Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox and the news media that the speck of blood must have gotten into the car through accidental contamination.
In 2008, the FBI confirmed that Kofoed had not found the blood on the date listed in his report but several days later and under circumstances that federal authorities say would have cast doubt on his credibility as a witness in any prosecution of Livers or Sampson.
Kofoed denies trying to mislead anyone in the case.
Several law enforcement authorities are scheduled to testify against him, including Cox. Sampson, who spent some six months in jail, also is scheduled to testify.
Kofoed, 52, began working for the Omaha Police Department in 1990. He took over the Douglas County crime lab in 2000. If the federal jury acquits him, he hopes to resume work supervising the CSI division.
“I still would like to go out back into the field and get dirty,” Kofoed said. “I look forward to getting back to work.”
A conviction would probably end Kofoed's law enforcement career, said Douglas County Chief Deputy Sheriff Marty Bilek.
“Over the years, Dave Kofoed has enjoyed a great deal of respect from his peers in the law enforcement community,” Bilek said.
“Nonetheless, we will definitely have to respect the decision of the jury. If the jury says ‘Guilty,' I don't see any way that David Kofoed could serve on our department.”
In addition to the federal charges, Kofoed faces a felony charge in Cass County of tampering with physical evidence. That case remains on hold.
Contact the writer:
444-1056, john.ferak@owh.com
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