What you got money for me? Bags of cash seized in a South Carolina traffic stop. You got money in every pocket, man. Some of it didn't make it back to the evidence room. A trooper of the year under investigation. So, what do you think happened to the money? I have no clue. If John Holiday hadn't been drinking on the night of July 29th, 2021, he might have been alert enough to avoid the highway patrol roadblock. At the very least, he would not have aroused suspicion by smelling of alcohol. Unfortunately for him, Corporal James Welsh had a keen ability to detect drunk drivers. Welsh was SCHP's Trooper 1 Trooper of the Year for DUI arrests in 2015 and was awarded the patrol's Trooper of the Year honor again in 2019. He was a well-respected officer, known for doing things by the book and paying attention to detail. When Welsh asked Holiday to get out of his car, a second patrolman, Trooper Will Baker, walked Holiday to the front of Baker's car, a car with its dash camera rolling. The video showed Baker setting a red plastic cup on the front of the patrol car. When asked how much he had had to drink, Holiday admitted to drinking half the glass. As Baker arrested Holiday and read him his rights, Welsh got into Holiday's car to move it. Inside, he found a bag of marijuana edibles on the front seat and two bags of cash in the back. The surprises kept coming when they searched Holiday's pockets. Inside each one was a wad of cash totaling around 6 to 8,000 dollars. Good morning. I'd like to introduce myself outside. My name is Jacqueline Gause. I work with the State Law Enforcement Division. Um today's date is August 9th and it is 10:53. Got to go over some paperwork before we get started. I'm going to give you a form. And I will fill out the top portion. You will see that there are boxes here on this form. I'm going to review this form with you. That is your form. On those boxes, as I review as I read those um statements there, just if you understand, put your initials in those boxes, okay? Yes, ma'am. Um I understand this is an investigation to determine whether any criminal laws have been violated. I understand and acknowledge that this is not a internal, an administrative, or disciplinary inquiry. I understand and acknowledge that I have not been compelled or coerced to give a statement or answer any questions regarding this matter. I understand and acknowledge that my cooperation with this investigation is freely and voluntarily given. All right. And where it says signed, if you would, please sign your name for me. All right. And sign it back to me. All right. If you would, please tell me your first name. First name is James. And what's your middle name? Cameron. And last? Welsh. W E L S H. Do you go by What do you go by? Cameron. All right. Cam, what's your date of birth? And a good contact number for you? 803 And what is your address? Welsh was nervous and embarrassed. Being the subject of such an investigation is bad enough, but his attempt to cover up what may have been a mistake only made him look guilty. I will continue with the case from here, but first, a quick message from today's sponsor. I know many of you wish there was a better solution to paying off your debt. PDS Debt has customized 0% interest options for anyone struggling with credit cards, personal loans, collections, or medical bills. With rising interest rates and the cost of living at an all-time high, now is the time to finally take initiative with your debt. PDS Debt is giving our qualified listeners a free debt savings analysis just for completing the 30-second online debt assessment at pdsdebt.com/stranger. You'll receive a full breakdown on how to save on interest each month and the quickest way to take care of your debt. If you're making payments every month on your debt and your balances aren't going down, this program is for you. PDS Debt rolls all of your payments into one low 0% interest monthly payment. Everyone with over 10,000 dollars in eligible debt qualifies and there is no minimum credit score required. Both bad and fair credit accepted, which can help save you thousands in interest and fees and pay off your debt in a fraction of the time. PDS Debt is offering free debt analysis to our listeners just for completing the quick and easy debt assessment at pdsdebt.com/stranger. That's pdsdebt.com/stranger. So, are you So, I'm moving this weekend. The other address is 11 All right. But any mail and stuff can come to the Turkey Hill address. Okay. Who are you currently employed with? South Carolina Highway Patrol. And how long have you been employed with HP? June of 2014. All right. And where are you currently assigned? Troop 1, Post A. That's the Sumter Sumter office that covers Sumter and Clarendon County. All right. Obviously, we're here regards to um a money count that resulted in there being some in discrepancies based off of a count that took place in a count when it was taken to the bank. If you would, um do you recall the night of the money seizure? Yes, ma'am. I do. All right. And could you please review with me and tell me from start to finish what took place that evening? Okay. So, that night, I don't know an approximate time, me and my guys, we did a checkpoint on Pearson Road at Old Stone Road. Um we were there just a short time before a vehicle came through our checkpoint that I actually spoke with the suspect's name is John Holiday. Um he had a strong odor of alcohol and marijuana coming out of the vehicle. He also had a cup sitting in his lap of alcohol. Um at that time, I flashed my flashlight at one of my guys to come I got him out of the vehicle for him to come do field sobriety test. Who was the guy that you flashed the light at? Trooper Will Baker. W E Baker. So, as soon as he I got I asked the guy to get out of the vehicle, um did a safety frisk on him, um Trooper Baker took control of the stop and began doing field sobriety test. The car was still parked in the middle of the road, so I asked Mr. Holiday if I could move his vehicle, got permission from him. I moved it to the shoulder of the road, kind of like a little dirt lane that was right there in the crossroads. And um at that time, when I was moving the car in plain view, in the passenger seat, I could see a plastic bag, kind of like a dark colored grocery bag type thing, with um edibles in it. You could see there were individually packaged edibles. I don't know how many can't remember how many it was, but it was a lot of them. So, um between that, the alcohol, and seeing the edibles, that gave us, you know, probable cause to search the vehicle. Trooper Baker was doing field sobriety. I had another trooper that was still conducting the safety checkpoint. We were all in proximity of each other within 15, 20 feet of each other. Who was the other trooper? Z G Rickard. Last name is R I C K A R D. Do you know his first name? Zachary. Okay. All right. So, Zach's still over there doing the checkpoint. Zach's still over there doing the checkpoint. Um still talking with some cars. And um so, at that point, I just kind of glanced over the vehicle as I was getting out. Could see in the back seat two large bags, so I figured got a big bag of dope here, there might be two more big bags of dope. So, I opened the back door. As soon as I looked in, I grabbed the first brown bag out and stuck it on the trunk of the car trunk of the car. And that's when I noticed it was full of money. I then looked at the second bag, which was a Mario Kart Super Mario Kart bag. And um it was unzipped, just sitting there open. Looked in it, it had money. At that time, I radioed to Trooper Baker to go ahead and place Mr. Holiday under arrest. Just cease his field sobriety test. That we had bigger issues going on than DUI. And um at that point, he went ahead and arrested him, read him his rights, put him in his car. Trooper Baker brought his car over to behind the suspect vehicle. At that time, we didn't touch anything. Didn't touch the money, didn't touch the drugs anymore. Um I notified Actually, at this time, I notified Sumter County's narcotics via the radio. I called them over the radio and they had units on duty. Troopers worked to get Drug Enforcement Administration agents to the scene, but said the DEA could not respond. The patrol later confirmed the DEA adopted the currency and drug investigation regarding Holiday. The patrolman called the Sumter County Sheriff's drug team to the scene to talk to Holiday. And uh they responded actually three of them responded out. And um we sat there kind of went back and forth. I offered him the case, told him I said, "Hey, you got this little guy. He's got drugs, large sum of money. Y'all can work this better than we can." And um he got he made some phone calls and then told me that they couldn't take it. Who's he? Um Deputy Graham. Simeon Graham. Do you have a chance to have to spell his first name? I don't. I know it's S E Y. I think. So, Simeon Graham is one of the Sumter County narcotics? He is. He's the He was He would have been the I guess the lead guy, the more more senior guy. The other two were fairly new. Do you know who the other two were? I do. They were um Brooke Byrd, female, um and Jeremy Shirley. All right. So, after talking with them, um they wanted to take it. I think they called their higher-ups. They didn't want to mess with So, um that's when I started making my chain of command notifications. I don't know who I called. It was Lieutenant T. Alfred, Teresa Alfred. That is who I called. That is A L F O R D. Okay. Um called her, spoke with her, told her what we had, and um she said she I brought up the DEA. I said, you know, can do we have any contacts with the DEA through our criminal interdiction guys? So, she started making phone calls with that, and then I got a few phone calls from one of our CIU guys, and then Corporal Nix called me, and he told me he said, "Just gather the money up, transport it from that location to your office." And I was in route to your office to take possession of So, Lieutenant Alfred brought up notifying DEA? I brought it up to her to her. Okay. Yeah, just honestly just trying cuz I know the DEA I've I've worked with them before, and they'll come out and seize everything, take care of the whole case, and be done with it. And she made phone calls? She did. Yeah, and also sent me numbers of people to call. I can't remember who they were. But I know everybody I tried calling when they answered. I actually contacted a captain with Clarendon's narcotic unit. And who's that? Matt Kennedy. So, I called him just to see if he had a contact that he knew that I could call that night, and um the one that he gave me didn't answer, but then I guess the DEA got back in touch with Highway Patrol, my my command staff, because they took the case. They just said they would just get the evidence from CEF. And CEF means what? Central Evidence Facility. All right. That's who Matt works for, or Corporal Nix. All right. So, Corporal Nix calls you. He calls me. Yes, ma'am. And then what did he What did he tell you? He told me to gather up everything in my car and take it to the Post A offices in Sumter. Okay. That he'd be in route to it. He said it's Post A? Yep, Troop 1 Post A. Do you need the address for that? If you know it, that would be great. Okay. 520 South Pike, P I K E East in Sumter, 29150. All right. So What items did you gather up? So, I gathered um drugs, that bag of um marijuana edibles, two large bags of currency, and he had loose money that was in his center console, a decent amount. Um Nothing like what was in the bags. I took a evidence bag out of the trunk of my car on camera. Wait, here, let's let's go let's back up a little bit. So, Trooper Baker's car I'm just trying to so you can look at this on the video. You're fine. Yeah, Trooper Baker's car was behind the vehicle. He went ahead I told I instructed him to go ahead and get this guy to the jail. While this was happening, the narcotic agents were talking to Holiday, who had told him that he had information about the money that he wouldn't be able to give them if it was discovered that he had been arrested. They managed to get Holiday to admit he was moving the money for someone else. Go ahead and get him booked in. So, as soon as he did that, I went and got my car, and with my cam in-car camera going, as he's leaving, I pulled my car in. That way camera's always on the car. All right. So, after Baker left, you pulled up behind the suspect's car. activated with everything going. So, that's when we loaded the evidence. So, all of that was on camera. Okay. Um I took the money out the center console, stuck it in a sealed evidence bag, sealed it, and all of that went in my rear driver's passenger seat. Or I'm sorry, rear driver seat, like behind the driver seat. And I did have my camera, my we have in-car cameras, I had that activated, too, the whole the entirety. All right. So, the the edibles, what kind of bag were they in? They were in a big plastic bag, but then they were individually packaged inside of it. It was black packaging. They didn't have any writing on them, and nothing. The plastic bag that they were inside, what color was that plastic bag? It was dark colored, I think. Okay. All right. And then you said you had two large bags of money. Mhm. One bag was in a You said a Mario Kart bag. Like a book bag. Okay. It looked like a book bag, like a child's book bag. All right. And then the You said the first bag of money you grabbed What So, to best way to describe that is a to-go bag from Olive Garden. You know, the big brown kind of rectangular bags. Right. Did it have Olive Garden on it, or is that just No, it didn't. I was just using that That's the first thing that popped in my mind when the lieutenant asked me what kind of bag it was when she was writing down details. So, it was a brown paper bag. Brown paper bag. Okay. All right. So, you took the drugs, the two large bags of money. You took the Mario Kart bag, right? Mhm. Um and then the loose currency you found in the center console, you already bagged that up and put it in an evidence bag and sealed Sealed it, and it went in the back of my car. Okay. So, then you leave from your checkpoint? Leave from the checkpoint. You got So, I notify dispatch that I'm leaving, give them a mileage. I transport the money. Do you need a car number or my turn? Um no, just you left you left from the checkpoint, and you went where? Um went to the Post A office. Straight to the Post A office without stopping. All right. When you get to Post A office, who's there? Nobody's there. I'm the first one to get there. As soon as I get there, um I take all the money, all the evidence, and I get straight inside. And then Corporal Nix arrived a short time later. I don't know the exact time, but it wasn't wasn't long at all. During the drive, Welsh turned his in-car camera on himself, making sure he video recorded his trip while he was alone with the evidence. Baker called Welsh and told him to keep the money in an evidence bag, and to ensure he kept his camera on. Neither officer had ever dealt with seizing such a large sum of money. So, you grabbed all the items that you had loaded up. Well Drugs, two bags, and at least you thought. At least you thought. We'll get there. Okay. Um so, you take it all inside. Mhm. What did you do with it once you got inside? Set it on the kiosk. So, we have a Our office is pretty big. It has a big kiosk. It has files, and has a little counter top. Set it right there. All right. And then Corporal Nix gets there. No, he wasn't. Nix the first person to get there? Yes. All right. Right after me. All right. So Continue. So, as soon as Corporal Nix gets there, then we start kind of going through the money, looking through it. Um you know, just kind of talking about what all we had, some details and stuff out of it. Um it wasn't long after that, um Trooper Baker arrived, and then Riker pulled up right after that. I mean, they were pretty much back-to-back. And um from that point we took all of the money. Um of course, you know, we had to stack it up and take a picture. Okay. Okay. Had to take a little trophy picture. Who took the picture? Um I took one, and I think um I think the boys took one, too. Who? Um my my troopers. When you said the boys, is that who you meant? Yeah, yeah, my guys, my guys. And um cuz I've actually still got the picture. Okay. So, um so, we took that picture. As soon as that was done, then we got to work. Um we had to get We separated all the money because it was in like stacks, but the top I like it wasn't all the same denominations. Hundreds and some 50s, 20s, ones. So, we started going through everything, all the stacks of money that were rubber banded, and separating hundreds to 50s. That took a good while to get all that done. Then um so, Nix told us he said, "We need you to count it first." then he was going to do the second count on it to confirm everything. So we started counting me, Ryker, and Baker. We I'm sorry. It's okay. We did the first count of it for it like when we did it all together so like I can't remember who did what but let's say I took ones, I counted out all the ones, how many bills there were, wrote it on a sticky note, put it to the side. Took all the 50s, wrote it on a sticky note, put it to the side. As we got done with it Corporal Nick's would take it and just verify it. The 20s was the last thing that we did. The patrol policy required the troopers to perform a count then Nick's to perform a second count. Both counts had to match before Nick's could bag the money and leave with it. However, it was late and all of the officers were tired. This resulted in a discrepancy and the money had to be counted again. Rather than taking the time to ensure that they got it right, Nick's and Welsh agreed that the total was $110,482 without bothering to confirm that figure. A later count showed the actual total as being $107,342. There was quite a bit. The majority of this money was 20s. I think it came out to be over $80,000 in 20s. So we had a huge stack of it so we separated the stack in three three parts. So me, Ryker, and Baker, we would take the 20s and stack them, count them in 50, like 50 $20 bills, that's $1,000. We'd walk around other side of the kiosk, put a stack on the table. And so we just lined that entire table up. We actually ran out of room, went to another table and everyone almost 50 so that way when we got done we could go and count how many stacks we had and that would tell us the total amount. When you stack them in 50s was it just one person that counted okay hey there's 50 and then so All three of us were stacking them in 50s. All right so your stacks of 50 did Baker and Ryker come back behind you and verify they were 50s? No ma'am. And then when I say 50s, 50 count. 50 count. Yes ma'am, I got you. So no one no one checked whether or not those were accurate 50. No ma'am. Okay. All right so once y'all get these And I told them now I can I would bet my life I know all the stacks that I did were 50 because I know how serious this is and I told both of them because I know they never really dealt with this stuff. I said if you're not sure on your stack of 50, I said recount it, recount it again. You know, they would verify that how strict I was telling them to make sure it's accurate. And I I looked at them and said it's your job, your job depends on it. Are you sure they're stacks of 50? Both of them said yes. And that's Baker and Ryker. Baker and Ryker. Okay. So after that we tallied up everything, how many 20s we had, I came up with a number on my tally sheet and that's when Nick's went back through and counted everything and we agreed on a number. I think the initial number that he did was off from ours because I don't think he counted I didn't I don't think he saw the table behind him. Because you know he had the big kiosk right there in the middle then we got some computer tables that actually are that size of this. They don't have computers on it and we put our excess over there so I think when he went back and counted that we all came up with that 110 and some change. Was there any was there any other point that y'all had counted and the numbers were not accurate? Was that the only time that y'all counted and nothing was Yeah. And then once Nick's went back and counted the excess that was on the other table. Mhm. I guess that's what he was doing at at this time so as soon as I finished and we got all that tallied up and I got my tally stuff done, I mean he was way behind us because he was one person doing it and we were three people doing it so we got through our first count a lot faster than he could. So as soon as that happened I went and sat at the desk with Baker and helped him with his report. I actually wrote a lot of the narrative in that report because it was a DUI report, seizure, drugs, everything. So I was sitting with him getting all that straight while Nick's was getting his final count. So I really wasn't paying too much attention to what Nick's was doing at the time, you know, when he was counting. We were just all trying to be very quiet so we didn't mess up a count. When when y'all were counting the 20s you had already said that nobody went back behind and counted the 50 stacks. No ma'am. Um Do you remember what your final total of $20 bills were? I don't. Okay. I know it was it was over over $80,000 in 20s. I do remember that. If I'm not mistaken but I'd have to look back at it my tally sheet you know. It's okay. So as you're going through you're counting these bills the numbers that you tallied up on your sheet, were those numbers that you specifically counted yourself or those just numbers specifically that were given to you by other troopers? That was collectively. Okay. Yeah. On our tally sheet we all three counted that sum of money. But nobody did a recount behind anybody. All right so once you finished filling out you helped Baker with the report. Mhm. Um what else did you do? So as soon as so that report was a big deal because everything's electronic now. We don't do chain of custodies like handwritten anymore so that had to be done before Matt or any of us could leave. So as soon as we got that done then I called Sergeant Debose. That's Jennifer Page Debose. Counting the money took most of the night. By the time they were done it was nearly 3:00 in the morning. Um woke her up because she's the evidence custodian. So I had to get her to so when we submitted it transfers it to post state's evidence which is she's in control of and she had to I don't know much about the process. And she has to release it to CEF or send it to CEF so Matt can get a hold of that chain of custody. I don't know much about it that. We just started this stuff. That's fine. All you know is you called Sergeant Page Debose. Sergeant Page. Yep. And she's the evidence custodian. Is she the evidence custodian for your troop? For just my office. Just your office. Her and the first sergeants. They're we have two at each office but she is she's primary. All right so once she had everything handled on her end Mhm. And hers was just a click of a mouse. Okay. And then what did you do? Um we sat there, we talked for a few minutes or whatever while Matt was loading up the money and we all left. All right so how did Matt how did Matt load up the money? Did he put it in any kind of bags I know he put it cuz I had initially thrown that brown bag away that it came in and he didn't really have bags big enough for it to go in. I remember him saying that. So we grabbed that bag out of the trash can. I know he put it back in that but I can't remember if he put it in I think he did put it in evidence bags. I'm pretty sure he did put it in evidence bags but he put used that brown bag to kind of tote it all. All right so what what do you remember seeing him put in the evidence bags or do you just think he put it in evidence bags? And if you don't remember you don't remember. I remember him having evidence bags and I remember him asking me if I had big evidence bags because I know he didn't have anything big enough, like huge ones. So I looked in the kiosk where we keep them and showed him. I said this is the biggest we got and that's all he had so Did you give him any of those evidence bags? No. He he already had some identical to it so he may have packed it all in. I think he did. I'm pretty sure he just did a bunch of small ones. I'm almost positive he did. Um do you recall if he ever put if he took photographs of the bags of evidence? No ma'am. I don't remember. But you do remember he put the money that you had brought in and counted out into that brown paper to go bag. Yeah. Yeah, I know he used that. And I am 99% sure I that he put it in evidence bags. He was just looking for a bigger one that way he could stick it all in there rather than using separate ones. All right so what happened after that? Um well a little bit ahead of that to go back to the drugs. Um the drugs were put they he didn't take those. They stayed at our office. They were put in an evidence locker. Um like I said after that was all over with we talked for a minute, few minutes or whatever. We were all tired. I almost fell asleep. I was supposed to get off at midnight. I was working a split shift and this was early in the morning. What was your split shift? What hours does that 12 to 12. I was doing a background investigation on a new hire so they moved me from 6:00 to 6:00 to 12:00 to 12:00. So I could be out in the daytime and make phone calls to employers and stuff. Right. But um like I said we talked for a minute and we all cleared up. I'm pretty sure Baker and Ryker left right with us too. All right. So, Nix, Matthew took them to So, I was um I was scared. Um the following day I I called my stepdad, who's the sheriff of Clarendon County. Um I always call him for advice and stuff. And we sat there and talked about it. And he told me, he said, "You know, just call Paige. Get this straight, you know." But it was later on that evening when I talked to him. And So, I said, "Well, I'm working tomorrow. I said, I'll go in before work and I'll call Paige and get my answer here and figure out what the best way to get this turned in with the least amount of damage to me. And I'll try to get this figured out." Well, didn't have time because the this would be the 3rd. That That morning I got up. Um had to go do a little small little job. I have a plumbing plumbing and home repair business. I'm a contractor. So, I had to run into town, take care of something. It took about 30 minutes. And I was going to go home, go back to sleep. Well, anyway, um I was on my way home that morning. Nix called me. And he told me that they were missing 3,000 or over $3,000. On August 3rd, a patrolman in the forfeiture division took the money to the bank to be counted and to have a cashier's check made out to the federal government. After three separate counts using automated currency counting machines, the bank found a $3,140 discrepancy between what the troopers and Nix claimed on their tally sheet and the amount that truly existed. The night before, Welsh said he went into his patrol car and found some of the evidence he took from the car at the roadblock lying in the back seat of his car. Welsh said he moved a briefcase he keeps in the rear passenger floorboard and found that clear plastic evidence bag he used to seal the money he found in Holiday's console. Welsh panicked knowing that this could be a career-ending mistake. He did nothing that day, still numb from the shock. The following day, Welsh called his stepfather, who was also the sheriff of Clarendon County. His stepfather advised him to inform his superior right away to explain what happened. Welsh did not follow this advice. From the final count or they took the money to the bank and the bank says it was only like 107, something like that. And we counted like 110. So, I was like, "Dude, I don't know. I have no clue what's going on with that." I said, "But I I just went ahead and told him then. I said, 'Listen, I found an evidence bag of money in my car. I said, "It's not $3,000. I said, "So, it has to It wasn't even counted. This fell in between the briefcase in my backseat. I said, "So, it has nothing to do with the missing money. I said, "But tell me what I need to do to get this turned in evidence." Um Nix told me then that I needed to contact my chain of command, which I did. I called Paige or Sergeant Dubose. Um then I called Lieutenant Danback. And um D A N B A C K D A N B A C K Do you know Lieutenant Danback's first name? Mark. Okay. Yeah. So, then I um I called them. I was already getting dressed cuz Matt told me, he said, "Just come on up to Central Evidence." And so, I was en route to Central Evidence. Went ahead and got dressed like I cuz I had to work that night anyway. And um spoke with Danback and all of them. I got to Central Evidence. Talked with Matt. Matt told me that I needed to go to Troop One Headquarters and turn the evidence in over there. So, I went over there. Turned the evidence in to Lieutenant Danback and Captain Chris Shelton. S H E L T O N Okay. Um they counted it. It came up to be over $800. Um Danback and Shelton counted the money? They did in front of me. It was sticking $894. Um After that, we all just sat around waiting a while. And then Major Patterson, that's Everette Patterson, showed up and gave Lieutenant Shelton or Captain Shelton a piece of paper. And he read it to me and notified me that I was suspended. And Danback took me home. You said Chris Shelton is a Mhm. major? Chris Shelton is a captain. Captain. Major is Everette Patterson. E V E R I C K Patterson. And so, Shelton was the one that reviewed the paperwork with you and told you Shelton and Danback. Well, no, no. That the suspension Mhm. I guess Patterson gave it to Shelton. Shelton read it to me since he's my captain. And what did your suspension include? It was suspended until further notice. Are you getting paid? No, I'm not. I'll lose everything on the 16th. What do you mean you lose everything on the 16th? my insurance. I'm hoping that they'll let me pay it. Just pay it fully myself. And why are you so concerned about losing your insurance on the 16th? I'm having a baby a few days after that. My wife is like 38 and a half 39 almost 39 weeks pregnant. All right. And I noticed you were kind of looking at something over there. What is that that you have? Well, I I didn't refer to this any while I was answering your questions. So, the only thing I referred to was that money amount. But this is a timeline that I typed up this weekend just to make it easier for you. Okay. Um pretty much what we just ran through. Everything that we just ran through is verbatim on this. That is everything that happened, every name, every person I talked to. Is that my copy? That is your copy. How many How many sheets are there? Are there one or two sheets? Two. Okay. Um if you would at the bottom Mhm. right if you would just sign and date that you're giving me those copies. Okay. Please. All right. What I'm going to do is I'm going to go through everything that we just discussed. And then we'll get to the timeline. Okay. Just so I make sure you don't have any questions on there. Um Y'all were conducting a license checkpoint Safety checkpoint. at Pearson and Old Stone in Sumter. Yes, ma'am. Do you remember the day? That was the 29th. It was a typical checkpoint the department set up periodically that usually netted them several speeding tickets and the occasional DUI. It was before midnight, so it was still the 29th that Thursday. It was you Trooper Will Baker Mhm. Trooper Zach Rickard Mhm. Were there any other individuals there? No, ma'am. Any deputies? No, ma'am. Okay. Just us. Just you three Just us three. Okay. Um vehicle came through. You actually made contact with this vehicle. Do you remember what kind of vehicle it was? If not, it's no big deal. a small It was a small I know it was a stick shift. Okay. I do remember that. Um Volvo Audi Okay. Something like that. It was It wasn't an American car. It's okay. Yeah. Um you made contact with the driver. And you remember his name, Mr. Holiday. Yep, Mr. Holiday. Um his suspicion is of he was DUI. You flashed your light to Trooper Will Baker to kind of indicate to him, "Hey, step over here." Um you explained to him he smelled alcohol. You had Mr. Holiday step out of the vehicle. Mhm. And then Trooper Baker began doing standard field sobriety tests. He did. Um as he was doing the field sobriety test, you asked Mr. Holiday if it was okay for you to move his vehicle out of the roadway. roadway. You made note that he had a cup in his lap Yep. when you made contact with him. did. Um what kind of cup was that? It was a solo cup. And it was given to Trooper Baker. All right. If I'm not mistaken. Who was it given to Trooper Baker by? I think I may have. I'm pretty sure I did cuz he had it in his lap. I noticed as he was pulling up he set it in the floorboard right there. I'm I'm almost positive I gave it to Baker so he could put it on camera. Did you ask Mr. Holiday what was in his cup? I did. Did you look inside the cup? I It had a brown substance. Okay. Um I didn't taste test. Right. So, uh you just remember he did have a cup and it was a brown substance. It smelled strongly of alcoholic beverage. Okay. Um you get inside the vehicle and you move the vehicle to the shoulder of the road. Mhm. You said in plain view you saw a dark colored plastic bag Mhm. that you could see the contents of that bag. You didn't have to manipulate the bag in any way, shape, or form. No. Um there were plastic bags open it a little I mean, I could see it. What you saw was I saw it, I did Yeah, I opened it a little bit more cuz it was loosely tied at the top. But you know, a grocery bag when they're just looped you can see you can see everything in them. Um you said that they were edibles. Can you describe to me the edibles? Yes, they looked like um gummy worms. And I don't know what they're called, but they looked like um like little flat sticks that you eat. Okay. Like little gummy sticks. Do you know how many bags were there? I don't recall. There was a lot. All right. Um and what made you think it was illegal to have those? Um just through my past training as it's becoming more popular and popular to have THC edibles. Um a lot of the ones that we see that are really just CBD edibles and stuff that really aren't illegal. They have writing all over them really to to the young crowd and stuff. These were black. They were black packaging. The very front of them was just a clear area so you could see what was inside of them. No writing, no nothing on them. All right. Um so, you move the vehicle over to the side and you kind of look over your shoulder and you see a Mario Kart book bag. Well, this was after I gotten out of the vehicle. Okay. So, all of this vehicle's kind of tied up. I'm spending too much time on it. Right. So, saw that right there as soon as I parked, put the emergency brake on. As I'm getting out, I'm kind of sitting with my hands on the center console, grabbing this, grabbing the drugs. And I do glance in the backseat and I see two big bags. I'm like, "Got more dope." Right. So then, um you open the back door? And then And the first bag you grab is the brown bag. brown paper bag. brown paper bag. Um and you notice there were large amount of currency inside. Yes, ma'am. Then you grab the Mario Kart book bag. Mhm. You said it looked like a child's book bag, right? but it was a child's book bag. And it was actually unzipped. The top was unzipped. And you saw there was a large amount of currency in there as well. You told Baker over the radio or just verbally? I know my He's wearing an earpiece so I knew that this guy wouldn't hear it and freak out. I told him over the radio to 10-67. Okay. Um I was You got with Baker to kind of let him know, "Hey, this is why." After he put him in cuffs, yeah. So, was he placed Why was he placed under arrest? So, at that point he was going to jail for DUI, but they hadn't made it to that point for the arrest for that. But, with me seeing the drugs and the amount of currency and my prior knowledge of distribution, PWID, and him having that amount of currency, he was Court records show only two charges against Holiday from that night, driving under the influence and manufacturing, possessing drugs intending to distribute. The Holiday arrest warrant shows the July 2021 charge is his third or subsequent offense. The Sumter County Sheriff's Office filed none of the charges. Holiday also has not been indicted and both charges are listed as pending in Sumter County. It was definitely he was going to jail. He He's going to at least be charged with So, were cuffs initially placed on him for possession with intent to distribute or was it for DUI? We'll say it's about same time. Okay. Um Cuz I mean And that's just for clarity purposes Yeah, cuz I I talked I talked with uh Trooper Baker. I said, "Hey, you know, after it was all kind of done." I said, "Hey, did you get cuz I didn't really pay attention to him." I said, "Did you get the enough test, you know, to get the DUI?" He said, "Yeah, we didn't quite finish everything, but he's he's definitely impaired." All right. So Okay. So, um he's placed under arrest. Trooper Baker first pulls his vehicle up behind Yes. the suspect's vehicle. with the suspect in the passenger seat. Okay. Um and then he decides to transport the individual I advise him to go ahead and clear and go to the jail. And this is This is after Sumter County's arrived. Sumter County's already there. Um we talk, you know, go through all that. Sumter County even talks to the suspect a little bit. I even talked to him a little bit. He'd already been read his rights. Um cuz initially he told me he didn't want to talk to me. And I said, "Fine. I didn't ask him any other questions." And then later on he wanted to talk cuz he actually made a comment. I asked him, I said, "Are you in the game, you know, what's the deal with this money?" And I said, "I know what these edibles are." He said, "I'm in it a little bit, you know, in the game a little bit, but not too big." I said, "Well, how much money is it?" Cuz when I told the county and told command when I made notification I said, "It's probably 200 plus thousand dollars." Cuz I didn't see all the 20s and ones and small bills. All I saw was stacks, hundreds, and what I thought. And uh he told me he said it's probably 70, maybe 80 thousand dollars there. So, he didn't make that comment. Um but that's about all the talking I did to him. I didn't talk too much. He kept making a statement to me like, "His name can't get out." And I said, "I don't I don't have any control over that. I said, you got to go to jail tonight." Right. So but I didn't talk too much. Like I said, the narcotics guys from Sumter spoke to him a little bit. But um I wasn't over there for that. That's okay. Yeah, whatever you can whatever you can attest to. So, the Sumter guys, you talked to him, you Mirandized him. He said he didn't want Trooper Baker Mirandized him. Okay, Trooper Baker Mirandized him. He said he didn't want to talk. Later on the Sumter guys talked to him and he made that statement that he suspected there was probably 70 to 80 thousand dollars there. Um Trooper Baker was informed taking him and transporting to the jail, put him on the breathalyzer. B A. Um you pulled your vehicle up behind the suspect's vehicle As soon as he left. with your camera running inside your vehicle. Um What was Trooper Riker doing? Trooper Riker does just kind of standing around. Okay. Yeah. Um Did y'all call tow truck for the Mr. Holiday's vehicle? Trooper Riker when I gathered all the money and stuff. And I did photograph. So, I did take pictures of the money and everything in the car before I took it. On scene? On scene. Yes, ma'am. So, I did leave that out. I'm sorry. It's okay. Where are those photographs at now? Um they were on my work phone, but I've sent them to this phone also. Welsh made an additional move that made the investigators look at him more suspiciously. On August 4th, he factory reset his department-issued phone before turning it in. He claimed this was because he had personal numbers stored in his contacts and wanted to remove them. But this could have been done without resetting the phone. He also sent the evidence photos to his personal phone which went against department policy. All right. Yep. I can get you those pictures. So, those were prior to you removing anything from the vehicle you took pictures? Prior to me collecting it. Cuz you know, when I first searched it, I put the evidence on I'm pretty sure the edibles I put on the roof and the money I put on the trunk deck. So, once I got to that point, I seized everything. You know, like I said hoping Sumter County would take it. I didn't want to mess with it. If they wanted to take it I didn't want to do anything with their evidence. So, you didn't take pictures of where the gummies were or the money was inside the vehicle. You just took a picture of it once you had placed it on the exterior of the vehicle. I don't remember. That's all right. I I can We can We can verify that. we'll check that. Um All right. So, photographs were taken. Uh Riker stays with the vehicle waiting for the tow truck. Yep. Um and then you notified Lieutenant Teresa Alford. Mhm. Um started talking to her. You brought up, "Hey, because there's a large amount of money here. Suspected to be close to 200,000." I told him 200 or better. Um you indicated, "Hey, might want to call DEA." Phone call started rolling. Um Captain Matthew Kennedy. Did you talk to him? I talked to him on the phone. I did. I called him on the phone cuz see, he has nothing to do with the case. He's just a good friend of mine that has been in this for a long time. And he's with Clarendon, right? He's with Clarendon. And um so, I called him just to see if he had some friends, some contacts with the DEA that he could put me in touch with. Was he able to put you in contact? You know if they would answer the Nobody answered the phone. They were in the middle of another seizure. I found out later they were in the middle of another seizure. That's why they couldn't respond that night. All right. So then later you get a call from Corporal Nix, Matthew Nix. Like almost like while I was on scene, immediately. So, while you're still out there Pearson and Olds are there. That's right. He tells you gather everything and meet me at post A. And that's at the Sumter office, 520 South Pike East. Right? Mhm. All right. So, you place everything in your vehicle. You said you had found some money in the center console. Yep. Did Mr. Holiday have any money on him? He did. All right. What happened to the money that was on Mr. Holiday? I didn't tell you that. All right. So Did I? No. Yes, ma'am. Um so, anyway, um when I was en route to the Sumter office with the money, Trooper Baker called me. He was already at the jail. He said, "Hey Corporal, there's he's got a good sum of money on his person. What do I do with it?" I advised him to seize it. I said, "Go get Go to your car, get evidence bag and go back in the jail, place it in a sealed evidence bag in the jail, and then make sure your camera's running. Call out your mileage when you leave the jail, come straight to the office." Yep. Okay. Sorry I left that out. That's why we like to go over things to make sure. And obviously it'll probably come in that statement, but I just want to make sure for for my notes purposes we've got everything we need. Um so, he makes that phone call, tells you, "Hey, found money." Tells you to put it in the evidence bag, seal it, you know, make sure you're on your camera, give your mileage, things of that And that conversation is actually recorded. So, I was in my car driving down the road while I was having the conversation with him. Okay. So So, you kept your in-car camera running from the time you left the checkpoint location until you arrived to to the post. When did you turn your car camera off? When my car turned off. I actually never deactivated it. Honestly, I wasn't thinking. Hindsight, I should have left it on the whole time, left my car running. But, just out of habit, as soon as I pulled up, cut my car off, went and started gathering money, not thinking, and it cut off. Okay. So, it turns off when the car is cut off. Does it immediately turn off when the car turns off or is there maybe a 30-second I don't think it I really don't know. I know it has the It doesn't just bam cut off. It's not like a computer. It slowly shuts off. So, it may have recorded me taking the money in. All right. So, once you got there, you removed the drugs and two large bags of currency. Two large bags being the brown paper bag and the Mario Kart bag. You thought that you had also grabbed the the evidence bag. Was that evidence bag clear? During the drive to the police department, the money that Welch had placed in a clear evidence bag slipped down to the floorboard under a briefcase that he usually carried. The bag's material was slick and in the dark, it would be easy to miss. The excuse was a little too convenient, but still within the realm of possibility. This is a evidence bag is writing on it. But it is clear. You can see what's inside of it. You can see what's inside of it. Yes, ma'am. And it's plastic. It's plastic. You thought you grabbed that, too. Once you get inside, I honestly I didn't even think about it, you know, at that point cuz I just grabbed everything that was sitting in my seat cuz initially it was in my seat. And I guess it slipped Back seat behind you, right? Back seat behind me. I guess it slipped forward on top of my briefcase and down in front of it. So, was it underneath your seat when you found it on Sunday? We're now we're getting a little ahead, but just curious. Back seat, briefcase. There's about that big of a gap. It slipped. So, it slipped closer to the seat versus sliding to you. Did you initial down at the bottom like that or no? Not the first one because that was just for us to keep track of the first count. Matt had Matt's That was the official one, the one that I actually signed. Okay. That was right by the chair. Just mine's going to be circled. Yep. That's me. Okay. And that may have been the first count sheet right there. I may have signed it. Cuz Nick's was kind of walking me through. I've never done it before. So, Nick's was kind of walking me through what we needed to do. Since it didn't have a signature place on it. Okay. But I do remember the final count. He and I both initialed it. I know that for a fact. And he being who? Nick's? Corporal Nick's. Okay. Just want to make sure we don't get confused on who the he's are. Um Okay. So, um do your counts, finally get everything on the same page, everybody's numbers are consistent. Um did Did you place the drugs in the evidence locker? No. Corporal Baker did. Okay. Um you did you call Sergeant Page? I did about this. Tell Sergeant about hey, listen, we've got all our paperwork completed. We need you to go into the system to show that it's been dropped into evidence and is going to be transported to CEF. Yep. That she needs to accept it in the post days digitally and then send it to a release that I guess to CEF. Okay. Um placed everything inside of that brown paper bag. I know we used it. I'm pretty sure if Even the Mario bag? He didn't use that. That stayed at the office. That's still at the office. All right. So, the Mario Kart book bag was placed in the evidence. So, where's the Mario Kart book bag? It was at the office. I know we joked around about um about Baker's kid using it to go to school, but So, it was clean. There was nothing in it. That night y'all left, where where'd you last put the Mario Kart book bag? It was sitting on one of the tables, one of the kiosk tables. I remember seeing it. I didn't mess with the little book bag. So, we don't know where that book bag is now. I see we're not allowed to put that that kind of stuff. They tell us, you know, that stuff like that it has to go in evidence. All evidence is supposed to go in evidence bags and we weren't using that book bag as evidence at the time. I mean, I didn't think about it. Right. Okay. So, that gets left behind. But the brown paper bag money was placed in it anyway cuz it was thrown in the trash can anyway. I threw it in the trash. I know for a fact that he asked me where that big brown bag was. Said in trash can. He isn't Corporal Nick's. So, it's in the trash can. We got it out. Opening it back up and I know he used it to put money in. He's 90% sure he put evidence bags with the money in the brown bag. And like I said, I wasn't really paying 100% attention to him. I was dealing with the paperwork. What time do you think you left the office to go home? Oh, I have no clue. Early morning hours? Yes. I was way past due. Was it past midnight? Yes, very much so. All right. Sunday. Sunday. You go to your patrol vehicle. What kind of vehicle do you have? A Dodge Charger. Marked? Semi-marked. And what do you mean semi-marked? I don't know. I'm a supervisor. I don't have a light bar. Just stripes on the side. All right. Going out there to check your briefcase in the back seat. Looking for a paper for your specific skills recertifications or seeing when it lapse. Seeing when it lapse. That's right. I was trying to figure out if my specific skills and my if they did it at the same time. Cuz I've got emails between me and lieutenant. We're trying to figure it out. And um I told him cuz one's every two and one's every like four years. So, I've got to go to the academy and instruct. Keep up your certifications. That's right. So, I was trying to figure that out. My cadence wasn't working. So, I couldn't get on there and look. So, I said, "Hell, I'm sorry." So, I print out I keep all my certificates in the briefcase for court. You know, so I can present as evidence. So, I said, "Let me go out here and see if I got if I printed this one out." So, that's what I was looking for. So, you go to make your briefcase and you realize, "Oh boy, there's a clear evidence bag that is sealed with money in it." Things might have been different if Welch had reported this immediately. It certainly would have been more believable as an accident. And this is about 10:30 at night. Said you had panic. You panicked. Immediately panicked. I got that that's on me. But just panicked and just scared. The following day, you called your stepdad who's a sheriff of Clarion County. And for the record, will you state his name? Tim Baxley. And the sheriff told you and he's your stepdad. Told you, "Hey, you just notify your supervisor." And his exact words, "Hey, call Page. Page will know what to do. Page will be able to get you on track." You did not call Page. It was later that night. I know that I know I don't like bothering her after she gets off cuz she's she's busy. She's working. She does a lot going on when she gets off. And I said, "You know what? I'll just I'll talk to her tomorrow. I'll go into work early and I'll I'll deal with it then." So, Monday rolls around. You still didn't call Page. No, this was Monday. Okay. So, it was Monday night. Yes. No, it was When when you talked to your It was Monday at Monday evening. Yep. When I talked to him. So, found the money on a Sunday. Stressed on that thing all day long. Scared to death. Called him cuz he's always got a good answer for me. All right. So, Monday you didn't call her. I didn't call her. I was going to call her I was actually going to call her that next morning cuz I know she comes into work at 10:00. And so, I was going to call her, but I got that phone call from Corporal Nick's before then. And that was on the 3rd. 3rd. Yes, ma'am. So, you got notified by Nick's prior to being able to call Page. Sergeant of the badge. Sergeant of the badge. Horrible time. Nick's tells you, "Hey, listen, we're missing $3,000." Yep. Asked me if I had any idea why we're missing 3,000. And I was kind of at a loss. So, I said, "Dude, I said I have no clue." I said, "Our accounts were right. You know, that's what we collectively came up with. That's what we all agreed on. We signed." I said, "I have no clue what happened to it." The money that Baker brought from Sumter Jail to Post A, was that money included in that large currency count that y'all did? Yes. When he walked in, he set it straight on top. What he What he set straight on top? The money? The evidence and sealed evidence bag containing the currency. He put it right there with it. On that sealed evidence bag from the jail to Post A, do you remember seeing any writing on that sealed evidence bag? Okay. So, that money that was found on Mr. Holiday was included into this count. All right. So, Nate you and Nick are talking. You know, you're like, "I don't I don't know." Then you say, "Hey, listen. By the way, I've got this going on. I did find some money in my backseat. Still evidence bag. not a part of that total tally. So, it has nothing to do with this missing $3,000. The amount that was found in the bag was $894. And they told you to notify chain of command. Yeah. And you talked to Lieutenant Danback. I talked to Page first. Page and then Danback, right? Yeah. And then Danback. Um so, they come on up here to see if we could get this thing situated. Yeah. Um Danback and Shelton counted the money and it was $894. $894. And then, um Major Avery Patterson did some paperwork up on you. Provided to Chris Shelton and he read you, "You're suspended." Yeah. Um did they tell you why you were being suspended? Just pending investigation. Did you have any idea it was for the miscount or was it for the money that was found in the backseat? Honestly, I I really I really It was all just like a punch in the chest with everything. I figured it was for the missing $3,000 because mishandling of evidence, they wouldn't have sus- I don't feel like they would have suspended me on the spot without pay. I mean, just in in my opinion. And you know, kind of talking and gathering with Lieutenant and the Captain there, you know, cuz I mean, I know them well. You know, I asked them I said, "You know, guys, what's the worst that's going to happen here?" None of them made any insight that I'm fixing to get suspended. So, I'm guessing the suspension without pay is until we get this resolved. All right. Instead of calling your stepdad, why didn't you call Page on Monday? I don't know. Just freaked out. Just dumb dumb on my part. Scared to death. Cuz now it looks like, "Oh, look. Hey, look. Nix brings it to your attention and you're like, 'Oh, yeah. By the way, Sunday night I found, you know, here we are 2 days later.'" I know. Um So, that's where there's a lot of concerns there. There is. Um So, based off of this, we haven't been over your your type statement yet. Did you take any of that money? Out of Out of that seizure that y'all had, from the time you left that checkpoint to the time you went to post A, and from the time you were at post A by yourself, did you take any of that money? No ma'am. Um Do you think anybody else had the opportunity to take it? Absolutely not. And one thing I will say, um cuz I I've I've been thinking of a hundred different ways of how this could have happened. We were all together. I never even walked in my private personal office the entire time we were there. Never left the room. Um nobody left. We all sat in the common area, I guess you could call it, the entire time. The amount of missing money, and I know it's only in 20s cuz they did tell me all the other denominations were correct. It was only 20s. That amount, that's over 150 bills. That's thick. Are your uniforms too tight? They ain't They They They're I can barely put keys in my pocket in my uniform. There's no fit a cell phone in your pocket, no nothing. Um it would have been very very obvious if anybody would have stuck grabbed a couple of three stacks or more more than three stacks, stuffed it in their pockets. So, what do you think happened to the money? I have no clue. Do you think it's possible that y'all did not count the money correctly? I think we should have We should have done a much better job counting. Do you think it's possible anybody took the money? Let me just make ask that for clarification. There's no way. Okay. I mean, Nix was responsible for ensuring the counts matched, but Welch should have pushed the matter when he realized Nix wouldn't do a thorough recount. Everybody that I have dealings with, I'll tell you Matt, I'd bet my job on him. He wouldn't take a penny. My two boys that were with us, Baker and Rucker, they wouldn't take a penny. I I know I would I don't need it. I mean, I just say I mean, I work hard. I have I have a plumbing business that I make triple what I make with highway patrol. I mean, I just don't need I've got 11 almost 11 years in. I wouldn't need that. Matt uh Matt's got He's got a ton of time. He's got more time than I do. He did my background investigation back when I started. I He and I I mean, we're not I consider him a dear friend. I mean, we don't hang out socially. I only see him when we're in uniform, but I mean, he's he's a great guy. I trust him with my life. I trust him with that money and the state should, too. I mean, that's It's got to be a miscount. Um would you be willing to do a polygraph? Absolutely. Welch was polygraphed on August 13th and again on August 31st. SLED records show deception indicated on both polygraph results. Do you have any medical conditions that would potentially enable you So, I'm going to say no, but I do have heart issues. Um my heart I have an irregular heartbeat. And my heart goes into A-fib and that's documented over the past couple of years from stress and lack of sleep from this wonderful job. When you were hired at highway patrol, did you take a polygraph? I did. When you were hired, did you have this heart issues? not. So, you have established these heart issues come to the training officer with highway patrol. Okay. Come on. But you said it is medically documented. That's what I have. Um I'll give you my cardiologist's name. Cuz we'll probably have to get a medical waiver Okay. for you to get back It's not I mean, I'd sign a waiver saying it's not going to kill me. Um my heart just like even now, no no stress, no nothing. It could skip a beat and that's something that's come on with lack of sleep, stress. I noticed it the first time I was training somebody that was kind of tough to train and um woke up one morning, had no energy, no nothing. And I run. I run often. Cardio is great. I couldn't hardly walk to my patrol car without being out of breath. Mhm. And so, a friend of mine, we ate That was a I was in the one week that weekend we went and ate with a friend of ours and she's a nurse. So, we were sitting there talking with her about it. She handed me her iWatch. Apple Watch. No lie. Sitting there in the restaurant. We were at um a place down at the lake right outside of Manning. Put it on. She held up her phone and it was blinking red. Go to an emergency room. So, that was the first time it happened. It was bad. My heart rate was like 170, my resting heart rate. I thought I was having a heart attack. I'm sure. So, and it just did it again um couple months ago. I was um I'm a driving instructor for patrol. I wasn't really at To me, that's not stressful. To me, that's fun. But we went Me and my buddy, we went on the track. We did a few students. Couple of cars were running hot. We had to go down to a pond and fill up water in a bucket and I said, "You know what? I said, 'I'll carry it.'" So, I mean, it was heavy. I carried it back up and I noticed halfway there I was just out of breath, couldn't do anything. And by that time, I didn't know enough about it. I felt my heart rate. I said, "Oh, hell. I'm back in A-fib." It wasn't a bad one. My heart rate was only like 110 then, but So, you've said it's gone to a cardiologist. been. That was my I have had everything done. They can't find anything. They say stress, lack of sleep, and not drinking enough water. Who is your cardiologist? Brian Wall. The first time it happened, he was here at McCloud. Then he has since transferred or gotten a new job at Lexington Medical Center. That's where the my second visit was, where they did all the test. And that's documented with the patrol. Well, I had to take some sick leave with them to go do that. All right. We're going to try to get you lined up for a polygraph. Okay. Okay? Um and I'll have you chat with the polygraphers on that the medical waiver just to see about Just like right now, I'm in A-fib. I'm perfectly fine. Yeah. I'm going to read you your timeline real quick. Okay. Okay? Um Checkpoint Pearson Road, Old State Road, Welch, Rucker, Baker make contact with Mr. Holiday. Suspect DUI. Corporal Welch moved Mr. Holiday's vehicle to the shoulder of the roadway. A Trooper Baker conducted field sobriety. Searched vehicle due to an odor of alcohol. You may mention here and marijuana. Yes. So, when did you recognize there was a smell of When I was driving the car. I saw the weed. Was any marijuana located? Mhm. Didn't find any. It smelled like it was burnt marijuana. It wasn't green. He had been smoking in the car. Had he admitted to smoking in the vehicle or just talk to him. Okay. Uh you you located marijuana edibles in the front passenger seat. Mhm. And um you also located two bags sitting on the driver's real rear seat that contained a large amount of currency. Uh you radioed Trooper Baker to place Holiday under arrest. And advise Sumter Sheriff's Office Narcotics to possibly come take care of the case. Sumter Narcotics responded. Advised they could not take it. Did they tell you why they couldn't take it? Said that so I know why they wouldn't take it, honestly. They Their higher-ups must not have wanted to headache. But, they told me that their attorney said that a local agency cannot take over a case from a state agency. It cannot go down. As many times as we have done it in the past. With you working in joint interdictions on the interstate. I mean, I've worked every interdiction there is on 95 over the years. When they told me that, I said, "Um whatever." Yeah. I said, "Y'all just One of the few points Welch had in his favor was that it was documented that the DEA turned down their request to take over the case. The guys themselves, they they were foaming at the mouth. They wanted it. Cuz I They'd been cuz this guy they'd been They knew who this guy was. Um both actually playing in Sumter County. This guy's been in the game a long time that I found out since. So, but it blew my mind they wouldn't take it. Yeah. Um on here it says you notified your chain of command. Your chain of command would be Sergeant DeBose first, and then Lieutenant Alford? Yeah. So, yeah. This was late at night. You call your on supervisor calls the on-call lieutenant, which is Alford. All right. So, you called Lieutenant Alford. And you had the conversation about DEA. Yeah. I was I was trying to find some way that we didn't have to deal with it. I'm sure. All right. DEA Lieutenant called you back and said DEA will take the case. She calls him back and she tells me that she's going to send me some numbers to people that are I guess deal with that with our CIU. Um I know I talked with Shropshire that night. And I tried calling two or three other different people. So, you did actually talk to somebody? Well, Shropshire is one of ours. Yeah, he's CIU guy, and he That's all they deal with. Spell his last name for me. Shropshire. S H R O P Shire. S H I R E. Okay. Yeah, Matt had mentioned Shropshire. That's why I was a little curious. Yeah. Cuz you Earlier you said you hadn't talked to anybody, and now it's You did talk to Shropshire. But, he's one of your guys. You said CIU. What's CIU? Criminal Interdiction Unit. Okay. So, DEA advised says yeah, they're going to take it, but they can't respond. They're working on something else right this second. That's what I found out that day. They'll get back up with you. But, for the time being, go ahead and package everything up. And I was I was told that Corporal Nix would be contacting me that we were seizing money that was going to CEF. All right. Um you get a call from Nix. Told you to take the money to Sumter office. Placed one bag containing drugs and two bags containing the currency in the driver's side rear seat along with a sealed evidence bag that contained currency. That was located on the center console located in the center console of the vehicle. Went to the Sumter office. Made a video in-car camera. You received a phone call from Trooper Baker about the money that was found on Mr. Holiday. You went through the spiel of how to tell him to handle that. Welch arrived at the office and notified SCHP TCC. Telecommunications center. Okay. And that's via the radio? That's dispatch. Okay. Um Gathered the evidence from his vehicle and placed it in the office. Nix arrived a short time after. How long do you think you were in the office by yourself? Not long. 5 10 minutes, maybe. Okay. It wasn't long enough for me to get settled in and get my laptop opened up. My stuff was still all sitting there. All right. TFC record. TFC, what's that? Trooper First Class. Okay. TPR is slick sleeve. He's just a trooper. All right. They get there. Trooper Baker turned over and seized money. They played it from the detention. He turned it over to you, or did he turn it over to Nix? I guess you can say me. Um I don't He didn't hand I mean, he just set it there. With with all of the money. And Corporal Welch Trooper First Class Rucker, Trooper Baker began the initial count of the money and split it into denominations. Corporal Nix began the second count of the money when it was finished with the first count. Corporal Welch and Corporal Nix agreed on the final count and signed the tally sheet. So, just for the first count that was made, y'all did not agree. The count was somewhere The first total between the first count and the second count when Nix came up, they didn't match. Cuz when we got done, we just set our tally sheet over there. Nix got done, he looked at it, he said, "These These don't match." And I said, "Well, there's money over there." I said, and I looked at all the boys, I said, "Are y'all sure that all these stacks are 50?" How many different locations did y'all have money? The long kiosk table? The kiosk big. Right. It's really like it's this this room Right. big. And it's got a table this wide all the way around. Okay. Yeah, on two sides of it. And I mean, it was both sides money. Um the 20s took up that far side the entire the of it. There were 4,899 bills consisting mostly of 20s. And we actually ran out of room and started putting 20s on that computer table that was just next to it. So, there was stacks over there, too. But, not many. So, just two different locations y'all had 20s? right. No other place. All right. Nobody found a loose $20 bill on the floor or anything, did they? Oh god, no. Okay. If they would have, they would Jesus. I would say that just have to go with the money that was No matter whose it was, it was going to be Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Um all right. Final count signed. Corporal Nix took possession of the currency and transported it to CEF. Um Baker completed evidence report and placed the drugs and the marijuana evidence locker. You contacted Sergeant DeBose so the digital chain of command could be transferred. Not the chain of command. Chain of custody. Sorry. Yeah. Um chain of custody can be transferred to CEF. Corporal Welch looked on the first. Located a plastic evidence bag that contained an unknown amount of US currency. The bag was located between a briefcase in the rear of the driver seat. The evidence was found approximately 22:30 hours when Corporal Welch went to his patrol vehicle to get paperwork out for briefcase. The third, Corporal Welch was notified by Corporal Nix that the seized money was taken to the bank, and the bank stated that the money count money amount came out to be over $3,000 less than the total that was tallied at the Sumter's office. Did you indicate what bank they went to? No. Okay. Corporal Nix explained that the tally sheet that was signed was correct on all denominations except for the $20 bills. How that tally sheet was Was Corporal Nix referencing the first count of $20 bills, or is he just saying, "Hey, listen. The amount of 20s that were taken to the bank do not match up our tally sheet we agreed on that night"? That's right. Okay. Yeah. So, everything So, that tally sheet, they took it to the bank, and I guess they use money counters at the bank. And I'll say if there was They said there was $47 in ones, whatever it is. I'm just throwing a number out. They made sure that that money counter counted out 47 in ones. Same thing with 10s, 20s. And 20s was the only one that was off. But, I mean, that was the that was the big one. When y'all had the money laid out, did y'all take a photograph of the money laid out? Not that I recall. In different denominations? Do you know if anybody took a photograph of the money laid out in different times? Honestly, during this time we were all being so quiet. We weren't talking to each other. There were multiple photographs of the money stacked on the tables. Yeah, you're trying that way we didn't throw anybody off. I knew nobody had their cell phone. Everybody's hands before money. Nobody had their cell phones out or anything. You took the glory shot? I have one. Yes, ma'am. And then um you photographed the items not where they were found, but where they were placed once you found them on scene. I'd have to look back at my pictures. Cuz I know I took a picture of the um Cuz once Sumter County got there, I was thinking they were going to take it over. They kind of looked in the car and stuff, too. And when the supervisor told me they weren't taking it, one of the narcs was kind of I mean, wasn't digging or anything. Was kind of looking in or whatever. I said, "Hey." I said, "Make sure y'all don't touch anything." I said, "If y'all are not taking the case, y'all should get out the car." I said, "I got to photograph it." I knew for a fact I photographed the money that's in the center console before. Okay. All right, let's see. Bring the money to the CEF. Took the money to the CEF. You're advised to tell her to go to Troop 1. Transported evidence to Troop 1, and that was Captain Shelton and Lieutenant Danback. Opened the money and they counted it. 894. Major Parson arrived. Told you you were being suspended. Shelton advised you you're being suspended without duty without pay till further notice. You turned all your stuff in? Everything. What about your uniforms at home? Did they get those, too? So, when They have suspended me as if he said as if I was terminated. I don't have a single thing. All right. Transport you back home. And you gave your remaining stuff to Jonathan and back. Okay. I'm going to check about the polygraph. Um Anything else you could think of you all could have done differently at this point? Oh, good god. We don't have enough time for me to have time see that there were potential errors in what took place. The first thing that I should have done as a supervisor and looking out for my guys, I should have never let them in that office. Once I took that money from Once we got the money from Baker that was on his person, me and Nick should have been the only two in there. That way they can never Nothing could ever be said about them. Um And I've told them that. You know, just by speaking to them cuz they're upset over it. They're upset that they may be miscounted and it's gotten me and Nick in trouble. Um There There's a bunch of stuff. Honestly, in my opinion, that amount of money I'm supposed to get off at 12. I know there's no excuse. Maybe I'm tired. We shouldn't be counting that amount of money by hand. I wish we had money counters. I mean, they're everywhere. I mean, you can get them cheap. And as far as my other stuff, that was just lapse of judgment on my part. All right. And maybe also, too, recount and count and recount again. Yeah. Yeah. This is my first time ever. Cuz every time I've ever worked interdiction and we've hit big money Got a money counter. Generally plus five or it just gets done Normally it's just our DAs with us. And they take it at a sum. You know, they go count it. Or either if we ever count it I've never counted money. I use money counter. Or if it's daytime when we do it, they take it straight to a bank. Right there. Is this the largest seizure you've ever been involved with? That I personally done? Yes. I've been working interdiction when they've gotten like 300,000, you know, 100,000, 20,000. I've been I've been around it. I've seen it. I've seen 800,000 before. So, but as far as me being Good for you didn't have to count the 800,000. Good god. And the bad thing is, so that was all hundreds. And it was Okay, well, that's a little easier than It wasn't Hey, it really wasn't much more money a stack than this. I thought we we talked about that at the office cuz Nick remembers the bust that uh Clarendon County got it years ago. And they were talking The boys were talking about, "God, I bet that was a bunch of money." I said, "No, it was all hundreds." It was It's like a Easy count if it's all hundreds. a little stack of it. Yeah. But this is the first time I've ever dealt with an incident like this where I've been the supervisor and it was all on me. I've never never had any experience in it. Is there anything else you could think of you'd like to add? No. I think you know every second that that has happened. And if not, then obviously, if we have a follow-up interview, we'll definitely do it. But I'll try to get something figured out for your polygraph. So, we can get that um squared away and done. Welsh's interview was short but thorough, and his answers aligned with those of the other officers. All right. If you have nothing further, we'll talk about the pictures once we get out there. Um that will conclude this interview. The time now is 12:18. Take this back. I don't want to steal your pen cuz I I will pay. If I steal anything, I will steal a pen. And just take a look through your phone and see if you can get those pictures. I can send them to you. All right. Can I go now? Yes. On October 21st, Welsh received a letter from SCDPS notifying him the patrol's internal investigation found multiple violations against him. The investigation found Welsh failed to count and document the seized cash in accordance with patrol policy. Welsh destroyed or deleted agency documents by resetting his state cell phone. And Welsh mishandled evidence and inappropriately stored the money in his patrol car. Further findings stated that Welsh texted and sent evidence photographs from his state phone to his personal phone. That Welsh was untruthful with his chain of command about when he found the evidence bag in his patrol car. And that he took money from the cash seizure for his personal use. Welsh was demoted from corporal to lance corporal and was reassigned to a different troop resulting in a pay cut. The highway patrol still employs him and his disciplinary action has not changed. That'll do it for today. If you like this video and want to support the channel, there's a Patreon link in the description below where you can do just that. Thank you for watching. And stay safe.