PHOENIX — When Detective Jennifer DiPonzio went on medical leave in June 2021, her supervisor and fellow detectives discovered that she left a mess.
Mishandled evidence. Missing reports.
And they learned DiPonzio didn’t properly impound or document more than 50 audio-recorded interviews.
But for more than a year, police officials kept information about those evidentiary problems in-house and secret from defense attorneys and the court in dozens of murder cases, according to internal records and recordings obtained by ABC15.
“Best case scenario, there’s what I would characterize as a coverup by the Phoenix Police Department of Det. DiPonzio’s misconduct,” defense attorney David Le Lievre told a judge during a recent hearing.
RELATED: Phoenix detective's mishandled evidence impacts dozens of murder cases
The issues with DiPonzio's evidence have impacted at least 37 murder court cases and 61 total police investigations.
Le Lievre has filed a motion to compel that is asking the court to force officials to admit when they knew of DiPonzio’s misconduct.
He filed the demand after conducting a defense interview with DiPonzio’s supervisor, Sgt. Jerry Barker, who admitted information about the detective’s widespread mishandling of evidence was known back in mid-2021.
But prosecutors didn’t notify defense attorneys about any issues until late last year.
“It’s nearly impossible to believe the state only learned of DiPonzio’s mishandling of evidence in November 2022,” Le Lievre wrote in his motion.
He continued, “Defense has asked when (the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office) first discovered the allegations of misconduct relating to DiPonzio. The state has refused to respond. The time has come for the state to unequivocally answer.”
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DiPonzio, who’s married to an assistant chief and retired earlier this year under a disability claim, was a literal poster child for Phoenix PD, appearing in multiple recruitment advertisements.
But newly-obtained records by ABC15 reveal she’s had a history of problems handling evidence and managing her cases during her career investigating both homicides and sex crimes.
ABC15 also obtained a copy of Le Lievre’s interview with Sgt. Barker, which was sent to defense attorneys in dozens of cases.
The interview lasted roughly 100 minutes.
When DiPonzio went on leave in June 2021, Barker said he went to box up her personal items at her desk, where he discovered impounded evidence.
He then discovered she did not impound 55 audio interviews on a digital recorder and write supplemental reports for them.
Barker put together two dozen pages of information, including a spreadsheet of impacted cases, to present to his supervisors about what he discovered.
“I did my fact-finding on what I’m supposed to do as a supervisor,” Barker said. “I discovered what had occurred, turned it over to my supervisors. It went over to (the Public Standards Bureau). And what happened from there I have no idea.”
The Public Standards Bureau, or PSB, handles internal investigations for the department.
Since DiPonzio went on leave, PSB didn’t start a misconduct investigation. Barker said he’s never been interviewed by internal investigators about what happened and said he was blocked from further searching for more missing evidence.
“I was given a direct order that I was not to go into her cubicle and go through anything,” he said. “And that was per our fiscal department, our personnel department, saying we are not allowed to go through her employee area and rummage through her stuff and purge things.”
Barker runs the “Charlie 33” homicide squad inside Phoenix police.
He said DiPonzio transferred into his unit from another homicide squad in October 2020. When asked about the reason for her transfer, Barker’s answer raised a red flag for Le Lievre.
Le Lievre: What was the reasoning for her transfer? Like, why did she want to transfer did you know?
Barker: I don’t have any idea. I had an opening and I think maybe she liked the people on the squad. I needed more bodies, and she put in transfer paperwork to come to my squad, and that’s what happened.
Le Lievre: So you’re not aware of any misconduct, allegations of misconduct, pre-dating that transfer request to your squad?
Barker: There was nothing I could discuss that I was involved in or anything I could shed light on because I was not directly involved in anything like that.
Le Lievre: Umm. Ok.
The defense attorney pressed Barker for more information.
Le Lievre: What did you hear about before she transferred to your squad?
Barker: The only thing that I had heard, and again this is a rumor, is that she did some sort of impound, an impounding issue that she had. And that’s what I heard. She failed to impound something.
The revelation forced police and prosecutors to admit that DiPonzio had at least 17 referrals to PSB for investigation during her career.
Officials then turned over 14,000 pages of PSB files to defense attorneys that show DiPonzio had been disciplined multiple times in the past for mishandling evidence and failing to follow up on cases, records show.
Le Lievre included some of those files as exhibits in his recent motion.
Defense attorneys have been pressing Phoenix police and county prosecutors for more information about DiPonzio since November 2022.
And the state’s recent dump of DiPonzio’s misconduct files to defense attorneys came nearly two years after she first went on leave and information about problems with her evidence were discovered.
In court, the judge hearing Le Lievre’s arguments was critical of how things have been handled.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Judge Korbin Steiner.
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In previous hearings, prosecutors claimed they have been transparent and were not hiding anything.
“There were no mistakes that were covered up, no errors that were covered up. We are not trying to cover up anything. We are not trying to conceal anything,” MCAO Capital Bureau Chief Kirsten Valenzuela told the court during a March hearing.
Earlier this year, ABC15 uncovered that MCAO has put DiPonzio on a more secretive version of the so-called “Brady” list, which documents officers with histories of integrity concerns.
Sources also told ABC15 that Phoenix is currently attempting to block defense attorneys from conducting additional defense interviews with police officials about DiPonzio’s misconduct.
ABC15 sent Phoenix police a request for comment regarding the cover-up allegations and whether the department is trying to prevent further defense interviews.
In an emailed response, a spokesperson wrote: "The City does not have sufficient information to respond to allegations made by defense counsel. The City does and will continue to comply with final Court Orders."
Contact ABC15 Chief Investigator Dave Biscobing at Dave@ABC15.com.
