ENVY

            Thursday, August 11, 2005, was a hot, humid day just like every other day of summer in Shreveport, Louisiana. After 17 years in law enforcement, I was in charge of the White Collar Crime Task Force which was a combined effort of the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Shreveport Police Department. White collar crimes, better known now as financial crimes, have become a busy part of police forces across the country. Few departments had financial crimes divisions until just a few years ago, but the rise of computers, digital banking, Nigerian scams, and dependence on credit cards has ushered in a new type of criminal. It’s the same old theft done in different ways, and it promises lucrative gains for those who are skilled and a slap on the wrist for those who aren’t. Due to the overwhelming number of financial crimes in Shreveport and Caddo Parish, the detectives in the task force stayed busy catching criminals and staying on top of the latest trends.

            That Thursday afternoon, I was reviewing reports when I received a phone call from an excited woman who lived in Shreveport. She said her 21 year old niece and her niece’ s boyfriend were visiting from Arkansas, and they used two stolen checks to buy chicken from Kentucky Fried Chicken on Mansfield Road. She assumed her niece brought the checks with her from Arkansas. She called me from work, but her niece and boyfriend were at her home with her children, and she was afraid they might involve her kids in something illegal or dangerous.

            I told her it would be a hard case to pursue since, at least at that moment, there was no victim. It would take weeks for the checks written to KFC to be routed to the bank, and when the bank discovered the checks were no good, they would send them back to KFC. KFC would treat the checks like hot checks and make an attempt to collect. Once they found out they couldn’t collect, they would send the checks to the Hot Check Division in the District Attorney’s Office. The DA would use the strong arm of the law to make their own attempt to collect, and when it didn’t work, they would send the checks to us as a criminal case. The process would take months, and even then the case would probably never be looked at because the checks were written for less than $40 each. Unless there were a large number of stolen checks from the same account, the case would not be assigned to a detective. Forgery is a felony, but back then, a theft under $300 was a misdemeanor. Sometimes cases fell through the cracks because the cost of investigating them outweighed the loss. 

            Instead of brushing her off, I told her I would check into it and call her back. I called KFC, but they had no idea what I was talking about. As I suspected, their past deposits (which included checks) had already been taken to the bank, and they had not been notified about any stolen checks.

            Before I could call the woman back, she called me. This time there was panic in her voice. She didn't have new information; she just wanted me to know she was afraid. She said her niece and her boyfriend were on drugs, and she thought they were taking advantage of her and manipulating her kids. She asked me for help. Her call had already gone through dispatch, the patrol desk, and property crimes before she got me. I was her last resort.

            It was an hour before quitting time. Ryan Smith was her niece, and the boyfriend’s name was George. I told her I would go by her house. When I got up to leave, Detectives Alan Davison and Chris Knighton told me they would meet me there.

            Alan Davidson was my long time friend. His brother Richard and I played football together in high school. In the mid ‘80s, Richard joined the Shreveport Police Department. In 1987, Richard answered a burglary in progress call at Kon Tiki Restaurant on Youree Drive. Richard and another officer went inside the restaurant searching for a burglar with a gun. Richard found him in the restroom, and the man shot and killed him that day. He was 24 years old.

            Chris Knighton was a White Collar Detective and a college student majoring in Accounting. A year later, he graduated and passed his CPA test. With his experience and credentials, federal agents recruited him to be an investigator for the Federal Attorney in the Justice Department.

            I found the woman’s house in the neighborhood behind Southwood High School. I parked down the street and walked to the house. Ryan Smith and George were driving a white four door Kia Rio which was backed up to the house which seemed suspicious. When Alan and Chris arrived, I approached the house from the garage side to get the Rio’s plate number. I called it out to Chris, and he called it in to Dispatch. Moments later the car returned stolen.

            Chris and Alan watched the back of the house while I went to the front door. It was open behind a storm door with vertical bars in front of glass. Due to the glare from the afternoon sun, I could see shadows of people inside, but I couldn’t tell what they were doing. It was a position all police officers despise. I stayed in front a brick column between the door and window and rang the door bell. A shadow approached the door and opened it. It was the woman I spoke to on the phone, Joan (not her real name). She invited me inside, and Alan came with me. Knowing her niece and boyfriend were in the house somewhere, I loudly asked Joan who owned the white Rio in her driveway. She called Ryan Smith and her boyfriend, Raul Jeorge “George” Castro from the living room. They were wearing matching black T-shirts with “NOT QUILTY” in red and white letters across the front. Alan told them, “Looks like you knew we were coming,” and took them outside.

            Joan was glad to see us. I told her George’s Kia Rio was stolen, and her face turned red. “I knew something was wrong…I knew it.” Her 12 and 17 year old sons were with her, but her 15 year old daughter was at a friend’s house. The boys told me Ryan and George wrote stolen checks to Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Dollar General store. They said the checks belonged to a woman from Keithville, a suburb of Shreveport.

            I spoke to Joan’s daughter on the telephone. She told me she was with George and Ryan in the parking lot of a grocery store a few days earlier when George reached through the open window of a Jeep Cherokee and stole a black bag. The bag had an ID and airline tickets inside of it.

            I joined Alan and Chris outside. Ryan was an attractive and charismatic red head. She spoke for George as if she was his interpreter, explaining to him everything we said, but she did it in English instead of Spanish. Later we found out George didn’t know Spanish at all.

            We asked about the Rio. Ryan said it belonged to a friend in Arkansas who let them borrow it.

I called the car owner on the phone. He knew Ryan and George and felt sorry for them because they were homeless, so he invited them stay in his home. They accepted his invitation and thanked him for his hospitality by stealing his car in the middle of the night. Without the car, he had no way to get to work.

            Ryan pretended to be surprised when she found out the car was stolen. She said they borrowed the car so she could visit her favorite aunt, but the bolo for the stolen car told a different story: “VEHICLE POSSIBLY HEADED TO TEXAS FOR A LARGE NARCOTICS PICK UP DRIVEN BY RYAN MARIE SMITH.”

            I handcuffed George behind his back. Ryan called him baby and hugged him. We read them their rights. Ryan promised not to give us any trouble, but Alan handcuffed her anyway.

            We inventoried the Rio and found two pistols. They were modern versions of black powder pistols. One of them was a single shot .44; the other a .44 revolver. Like the car, both pistols were stolen. What started as charity to help a woman in distress was turning out to be a respectable case.

                We took them to our office. On the way, Alan called me, “You’re not going to believe this...you know those checks Ryan and George used at KFC? Guess what … they were taken in an armed robbery of a Keithville woman at Wal-Mart on Mansfield Road. SPD took the report two days ago.”

In trying to track down two stolen checks, we stumbled on an armed robbery. When we arrived at the office, Caddo Parish and Shreveport Police detectives were waiting in line to interview our prisoners. They would have to wait.

            We led them through separate doors and put them in separate rooms. Alan and I interviewed Ryan Smith first. The first thing a detective wants in an interview is an alibi, and to get it, you have to develop rapport. Ryan wanted us to know she was in love with George which we understood to mean she would to do anything for him. They drove to Shreveport from Arkansas in a car their friend loaned them. She could not imagine why he said they stole his car. She came to visit her family which included her mother, but she stayed with her aunt. Though she had been in Shreveport for five days, she had yet to see her mom. Instead, she hung out at her aunt’s house and spent the days running around with her cousins. Her story was vague, and her time line of their stay in Shreveport was different than the one her aunt gave us. Besides that, why would a 21 and 24 year old want to hang out with three kids?

            Alan and I left Ryan alone in the interview room. Ten minutes later, we returned for an interrogation. An interview is for gathering information. An interrogation is for confronting the suspect about their involvement in a crime. For the first time, Ryan was quiet. We explained how we knew she and George were armed robbers. She dropped her head and started crying. As she moved from denial to acceptance, she started talking again, and this time, she told us the truth, or at least most of it.

            Two days earlier, she, George, and her cousins (age 12 and 17) went for a drive. The oldest cousin drove the Rio. Ryan was in the front seat beside him, George was behind her, and her 12 year old cousin was next to him. A thunderstorm hit about the time they pulled into Wal-Mart on Mansfield Road. They drove around the parking lot through sheets of rain and saw a woman hurrying to her car. George told her cousin to stop while he jumped out of the car with the .44 revolver in his hand. Ryan swore the gun wasn’t loaded, and George never pointed it at anyone. Instead, he showed the woman the pistol, and she handed him her purse. He ran to the car, jumped in with the purse, and sped away.

            They left Wal-Mart and drove south on Colquitt Road to Keithville. George took the checks and credit cards and tossed the purse under the trees across from Grawood Baptist Church. They continued west on Colquitt and turned around in the parking lot at Flashback Casino. The Casino had been robbed by a Hispanic male a week earlier, but Ryan said she and George were together the entire time they were in town, so he couldn’t have robbed anything without her knowing about it.

            She claimed her cousin drove the car during the robbery, but we didn’t believe her. We pressed, and she acknowledged knowing beforehand George was going to rob someone that evening, but she denied driving.

            The couple used the checks from the robbery at Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Dollar General Store. Ryan said they threw the credit cards away in the dumpster behind Sonic on Linwood along with the airplane tickets they took from the suv in the grocery store parking lot.

            Chris and I interviewed George. Like Alan, Chris was good at talking to people, but George was difficult. He rarely responded to Chris’ questions, and when he did, his answers were brief. After thirty minutes we had no more no more information than when we started. We took a break, and Alan went in to talk to him.

            Fifteen minutes later, I checked the monitor in the interview room and saw Ryan sitting in George’s lap, hugging and kissing him. Wondering what happened, I rushed in the room, startled the young lovers and found Alan sitting in the corner. He said everything was fine.

             Normally it is best to keep offenders separated, but Ryan already confessed, and we were getting nowhere with George, so Alan brought her in. The pressure from his amorous girlfriend proved irresistible. He broke down and confessed to the armed robbery at Wal-Mart, but he denied any other other robberies.

            We had them. The other detectives spoke to Ryan and George about their cases, but they didn’t get anywhere. George had alibis.

            I picked up Ryan’s 17 year old cousin and brought him to the office. In the eyes of the law, he was an adult, but he looked like he was in middle school. He admitted he was with Ryan and George during the robbery at Walmart, but he said Ryan was driving. He did not know they were planning to do a robbery. Ryan and George used him and his brother as cover. Who would expect a young couple with two kids in the back seat to be robbers? We took the 17 year old to Keithville, and he showed us where they threw the purse out. 

            We arrested Ryan and George for armed robbery. They had potential. Both were able bodied and intelligent. If they pursued jobs instead of crime, they could have had a good life together.

            In May 2006, Ryan Smith and Jeorge Castro came up for trial. Both pled not guilty initially, but George changed his plea to guilty. He was sentenced to 18 years.

            Ryan chose trial by jury. Whatever deal the DA offered wasn’t good enough for her. Her trial took place on May 24, 2006. Her defender was Bill Nader, a fair and likable local attorney. The Prosecuters were Lea Hall and Damon Kervin.

            The trial lasted only one day. Chris and Alan went on the stand before me. We were under the “rule” which meant we could not go into the courtroom unless called or talk about the case with anyone except the attorneys. The defense’s strategy was simple: the man who committed the robbery at Wal-Mart had already been convicted of the crime. Little Ryan was only along for the ride.

            Lea had me tell my story in court. The defense cross examined me and had me tell the jury Ryan said her cousin was driving during the robbery. For emphasis, he asked me if she admitted to driving the car during the robbery. I said no.
            The defense called for the recording of the interview Alan and I did with Ryan on the night of her arrest. The bailiff brought out a television on a library cart, placed it before the jury, and started the DVD. It was the only time I ever saw a suspect interview played for a jury. In the video, Ryan did not look like the innocent girl who showed up for trial. Instead, she was talkative and fidgety. She admitted to being there and knowing what was going to happen. Though she denied driving the car the evening of the robbery, the defense called her cousins to the stand. They told the jury she was driving the car during the robbery, and she worked with George. It left them wondering why Ryan would blame her young cousin for being involved in the robbery.

            The jury deliberated for two and a half hours before returning to the court room with a guilty verdict. Ryan Smith was sentenced to twelve years at hard labor. Afterwards, she found a new attorney, Percy Jones. Jones appealed her case all the way to the State Supreme Court, and Lea Hall had to try it all over again, but he won the second time as well. A short time later, Percy Jones was disbarred for conduct unbecoming a defense attorney.

            The worth of the car, guns, and items in the purse Ryan and George stole was less than half a year’s salary, but it cost them years of their lives. They had a promising future together, but they allowed envy to alter their lives forever.