Lenawee County Sheriff's Office looks to acquire digital evidence collection system
ADRIAN — Preliminary approval was granted Thursday to let the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office acquire a system to analyze data from cellphones and other electronic devices.
The system from Cellebrite Inc. of Virginia would allow the sheriff's office to download data from devices without waiting for another law enforcement agency to do that for them, Capt. Jacob Pifer told the county board of commissioners' Criminal Justice Committee on Thursday. The committee members voted unanimously to recommend approval of the $39,000 request. The request next goes to the Personnel/Ways and Means Committee.
Right now, most investigations involve some kind of digital device, but the sheriff's office has to rely on other agencies to access digital evidence, Pifer said. Currently, when a device needs to be analyzed, the sheriff's office usually will take it to the Michigan State Police, but there is about a six-month backlog of cases there.
"They will move things up to the front if you have a homicide case or something of that nature, but for standard human trafficking or other high-level felonies, you're on a waiting list," Pifer said. "So it's six months, and the only thing they do is download it and give you a thumb drive and say, 'Here you go.' Now it's your job to analyze all the data."
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office has its own digital evidence collection equipment and has helped out Lenawee County investigators when they've needed something analyzed more quickly than the state police could do, he said.
Monroe County has found being able to do its own downloading and analysis of digital evidence beneficial, Pifer and Lenawee County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Allison Arnold told the committee.
"The main benefit is when you have someone committing ongoing crimes or you want to solve a crime quickly, you can get that phone dump done immediately," said Arnold, who previously was an assistant prosecutor in Monroe County. "I know Monroe has assisted Lenawee on some cases, but I think it's well worth the money, in my experience."
The delays are frustrating to the families of victims and investigators, Pifer said.
"We've had two or three cases recently where the families call us constantly — and we're in the business of trying to help victims — the victims are calling us constantly wanting an update for the case, and we are at the mercy of the state police and others to get the justice for the victims," he said.
"The ability to download our own evidence, analyze it with our own in-house expert, has become paramount to our investigations at this point," Pifer said.
One of the sheriff's office's detectives will be responsible for processing digital devices, Pifer said.
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The system includes storage equipment that keeps the devices charged and can block wireless signals from reaching the devices, which prevents someone from remotely deleting data from the device, Pifer said. It also includes gloves so that the investigator handling the device within the box does not get their fingerprints on it.
The sheriff's office intends to use the system for felony cases and will make it available to other law enforcement agencies in the county, Pifer said.
Funds from assets forfeited in criminal investigations will be used to buy the system, Pifer said.
The sheriff's office will partner with the Region of Irish Hills Narcotics Office, which will buy a forensic computer to do the downloads, Pifer said. The sheriff's office is looking to partner with another agency to acquire additional equipment.
— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Lenawee County Sheriff's Office seeks digital evidence system
