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Justice demands man's reputation be restored

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published June 5, 2007

Pasco Sheriff Bob White shouldn't wait to help clear the name of a Tampa man falsely accused of attempting to cash a forged check. There has been enough procrastinating, lost documents, conflicting stories, finger-pointing and incompetence from authorities surrounding the botched case of Tallie Gainer III. White has a duty and an obligation to try to rectify the damage to Gainer's reputation, which now lists him as a someone arrested and accused of a felony even though the charge has been dropped.

As detailed Sunday by Times staff writer Thomas Lake, Gainer's trouble started when he left his wallet on the counter of a Tampa restaurant Aug. 1. Someone took it and later attempted to chase a bogus check at a Port Richey bank, using Gainer's purloined identification. A teller identified a photograph of Gainer as the fraud suspect, but authorities paid short-shrift to the key evidence: a fingerprint on the forged check.

Afterward, Gainer's journey through the criminal justice system became an a eight-month string of embarrassing gaffes by the Pasco Sheriff's Office and the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office.

The state failed to provide the case file to Gainer's lawyer in a timely manner. When questioned, prosecutor Mike Halkitis' account resembled that of a courtroom witness' flimsy story under cross-examination. At different times, the chief prosecutor in west Pasco said the detective was tardy with his report, Gainer's counsel should have complained sooner, and maybe somebody in the State Attorney's Office had misplaced the records.

Too bad. It took Gainer's lawyer, John Trevena, to peruse the file and note the ignorance of the fingerprint evidence. Here the authorities start blaming each other. The detective, Roger Turnbow, said he took the check and fingerprint to the state attorney's investigation, the time when prosecutors review the evidence with police to determine if prosecution is warranted. Halkitis doubts that version. If the check had been available, then his office would have ordered the prints compared.

The Sheriff's Office said the print on the check, obtained by the teller, was unusable. Funny, but the technician, now retired, who supposedly made that determination does not recall seeing the print and there is no written record of the detective asking her to review it.

Eventually, at Trevena's request, another technician at the Sheriff's Office compared the print on the check with prints from Gainer. Again, however, there was a delay because someone misplaced Gainer's fresh set of prints. A technician finally relied on prints taken eight months earlier at the time of Gainer's arrest. The prints did not match, and prosecutors dropped the charge.

White can help mitigate future damage to Gainer by seeking an administrative expunction to purge the arrest record. An agency spokesman said the Sheriff's Office might do just that - if Gainer requests it.

Gainer has already waited long enough for justice. He exhausted his savings, is now in debt and missed out on a desired business opportunity to create a surrogate community center in Jackson Heights at a coin laundry he hoped to expand to include health, financial and other services.

He shouldn't have to ask Pasco authorities to help restore his reputation. They should be eager to do so. Telling Gainer to request the record purging is just one more bureaucratic hurdle he shouldn't have to confront.

Besides, given the circumstances of his case, why should Gainer have faith that someone won't lose the request anyway?

[Last modified June 5, 2007, 00:42:53]