|
|
Gary Vasko’s Story Illustrates
Sheriff Dept. Abuses
By Leann Arganbright
The Pioneer
|
|
|
|
Introduction: This story has three possible versions. We will try
to tell all of them. Gary Vasko’s experiences with MCAT, (Major
Crimes Apprehension Team) the Sheriff’s Department and the
Navajo County Jail illustrates how good intentions lead to tragic
outcomes and potential misuse of power. Gary Vaskos story will
be told through another couple who lived with Mr. Vasko briefly
and were arrested with him. Their side is vital to the story, to be
told in part two. The Sheriff’s Department has been invited to tell
their side in the third chapter. This story contains revelations that
will be upsetting to many people. Please remember, there are
THREE sides, to be told one at a time.
|
|
|
|
Gary Vasko sat at his small breakfast table early in the morning on May
22nd, to enjoy the simple pleasure of a cup of coffee to start his day.
Contemplating his future was a full time adventure lately. He had a new start
in so many ways. The old ways were full of drama from a variety of sources.
Being in trouble before, he spent over 20 years in prison for things he did
when alcohol and drugs controlled his life.
When he came home, he found his mother not only welcomed him, she
needed him. She was dying, and so for the next three and a half years the
two of them went through the indignity of her suffering, and his redemption
and remediation. Almost three years after her death, Gary still lives in that
house.
No job was available for a man like Gary in Heber, he wasn’t young,
strong, or gifted, but he could cook, and so, an offer was made to the
Catholic Church who agreed to rent an unused vending trailer, and they
came up with a way to solve the problem of needing a source of money for
him.
“Smoked, by Gary” was created through a loose partnership of the
trailer, owned by the local Catholic Church, and a significant cash investment
(paid for and built by Vasko) to improve the trailer, and get it ready for
barbeque catering with all the necessary licenses. Lining up his summer
agenda was his focus. It was barbeque season and he had the next few
months to make his money for the rest of the year.
The trailer was next to the garage full of food for the next catering job
he had lined up. He had a couple of housemates that shared some of his
costs for a little while. They were moving out to live near relatives in the
Vernon area. They had some problems.
Still dressed in only typical night-clothes; underwear, his robe, and some
socks, at about 6 a.m., Vasko was startled from his chair as his unlocked
door was busted open shattering the doorframe. Police announced that he
was to put his hands up and as he did, he looked down to find that there were
five, maybe six red dots of light on his shirt. He didn’t move.
Through the controlled chaos of being hand-cuffed, his dogs being
rounded up, and his upstairs residents being rousted, Vasko asked for the
warrant from the Sheriff’s deputies, MCAT officers said they didn’t have
one.
Vasko was arrested for “possession” and placed in the back seat of the
car while the Sheriff’s deputies ripped through his house, searching for what
he did not know. He was told that his house was a meth lab, and his house—
his mother’s house really, was being declared a biochemical hazard and
quarantined.
By the end of the day, the house, once tidy and neat, was a disaster.
Every book was off the shelves, every article of clothing on the floor in a
heap. Everywhere one looked, in every room, it was a mess.
No drugs were found. The entire house was cleared by a haz-mat team,
but the sign was placed on the fence, declaring to the world that this house,
on this quiet street in Heber was a meth house and was quarantined. No one
was allowed to enter because of the hazard from the contamination of
cooking meth on the property. It didn’t take long for the word to get out and
his neighbors, it would be safe to say, were not happy.
After sitting in the police car for several hours while they searched,
Vasko and renters, Tom and Michaela, were taken to the County Jail to be
booked and interrogated. Tom and Michaela are disabled and were on heavy
medications prescribed by their doctor. The injuries were so bad that they
could not be operated on without additional risk to their lives, so they were
forced to use lots of big injections to cope.
After they got to the jail Tom, clearly a frail man, began go show serious
distress. After Vasko yelled and screamed, explaining that they were
severely disabled, needed very strong medications and that he was obviously
dying, help was called. An ambulance came and Tom was taken to the
hospital where Vasko believed he stayed for the next ten weeks. It was
explained to Vasko that at some point of Tom’s arrest, Tom was body-
slammed to the ground and possibly hit his head on something. The hospital
staff had a hard time stabilizing Tom and could not allow him to go home until
he was able to care for himself.
Vasko explained what was told to him; Tom’s wife, Michaela was not
allowed to retrieve her prescribed medication and was told that if she
confessed to a lesser charge and accepted probation, she would be allowed to
go home and get her meds. After she did this, it was explained to her that she
also would need to press charges against a friend who was storing a valuable
collector’s car for them while Tom worked on restoring it. She was told what
to say and to write down every word, a complaint that he did not have
permission to be in possession of the vehicle and that it was stolen. The man
was arrested and the car was confiscated by the Sheriff’s Department
(MCAT).
Days later at her hearing, Michaela tried to rescind her confession and
charges against her friend, but the judge would not let her explain why and
denied her request.
Vasko stayed in the county jail for almost 15 full days before he was
able to see a judge and ask for an attorney. He was sent home on June 3,
where he was walked outside the jail at about 3 p.m. with nothing on but the
robe and socks he was arrested in. Vasko was informed that he was welcome
to use the public pay phone outside to call someone for a ride. The heavy
metal door shut and of course, the phone didn’t work.
So he set out on the 41-mile hike back home to Heber from Holbrook.
He had walked 3 or 4 miles when a young couple was kind enough to double
back to pick him up. His feet were a wreck by then. By the time he reached
the home of Bob and Patty Schuttenhelm, clients and friends, his feet were
so bloody that it was an unpleasant process to get his socks off and his feet
cleaned up.
Still, he was worried about his BBQing trailer and walked three blocks to
his house to check on it where he left plugged in, and full of frozen meat and
canned food. It wasn’t there anymore.
He went to Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church and found The
Men’s Club meeting underway. Most of them left after he appeared at the
door. He was met at the door by Father Chacon and Don King, where he was
told that Sergeant KC Clark with the MCAT division of the Sheriff’s
Department had told them to take the trailer off the property and destroy the
food that was in it. When they took the trailer and the food, they felt that the
frozen food was not bad and so it was distributed to the Catholic Men’s Club.
(This explanation has since morphed to a variety of versions, which include
that the food was all bad because it had been left unplugged for a while, or
that they threw all the food away that day, or that MCAT’s KC Clark took
it. To confuse things more, at least one of the meat recipients has offered to
compensate Vasko for his share. Vasko was promised $400 but was only
paid $200 from one man. $300 dollars of cooked pork butt was supposedly
fed to someone’s dogs after being found in a dumpster. Vasko paid the
church $40 a month for renting the trailer and he was paid up through the end
of June.)
By the time Vasko got permission to enter his house from his attorney,
he found that his clothes had been defecated on by humans, (there were 2
cats left in the home, and cats can’t defecate on the side of a bed) and the
two cats had been allowed to take over the house for more than 15 days with
only a torn open bag of dog food to survive on. (Someone had gone in, and
set the dog food high in a rafter for the cats to get to; presumably someone
in the Sheriff’s dept since there was still a sign on the property that it was a
hazardous meth lab quarantine.) His four dogs had been sent to the Humane
Society and the Schuttenhelms were able to rescue only the puppy, a Lhaso
Apso, from death. Vasco couldn’t afford the charges to get his other dogs out
of the pound, so they were euthenized.
Vasko’s court appointed attorney had explained to him that he was able
to be in the house because it had been declared—in the paper work—that
there was no contamination of hazardous chemicals, so he could take the sign
down and occupy the house.
He did what was advised to him by his court appointed attorney, and
went back to his home, when Deputy Davis drove by to check on the house,
he became “completely unglued” and yelled at Vasko with lots of vulgar
language, that he was not to occupy the house or take the sign down, Davis
put up a new one, which remains today. Vasko asked Davis why he was able
to occupy the house for only few hours if it was cleared, why the church was
allowed to retrieve the trailer if it was contaminated, why someone had gone
in his house to put up dog food for his cats, and why was Davis going in it, if
it was, in fact, quarantined? Deputy Davis had no answers, he left saying
that he would call his supervisor and didn’t return.
Even though there were no drugs at the house, nor was there any meth
contamination, bottles of common household items, such as pain thinner and
engine oil and fuel were bottled up and sent to the lab. They all came back as
the items they were marked as.
Possibly, because of Michaela’s confession, charges remain on all three,
and the house remains under quarantine. Gary Vasko has no income, no food
for his catering business, he was not on the title of the house because the
house was still in his mother and brother’s name and had not been switched
yet. Twelve weeks have gone by, Vaskos bills are piling up, his friends are
trying to help the best they can, but this kind of problem seems to be very
expensive and currently has no end in sight.
The year looks pretty bleak and Mr. Vasko is wondering how he will get
through the next year with his business in the tank from the accusations, the
destruction of his reputation, and once profitable business.
When asked why Vasko thought this was happening to him he explained
that MCAT was losing their funding in this years’ budget battle. He believes
they were on their own to fund their department and were looking for easy
marks with property to seize. He was an easy mark because he had been in
trouble before, served time, had roommates that were up to their necks,
literally, in their prescribed medications and could have been cooking meth
somewhere else to pay for the drugs they needed. They were already in the
process of moving out but he still had no idea of what it takes to cook meth,
because it never happened at his house, as the tests concluded.
Vasko has had a second hearing where Mr. Woods (his court appointed
attorney) explained that the issue could not be heard because the Sheriff’s
Department had not released the information on the bust and arrest he had
requested. They were given another week by the judge.
The Catholic Church and Mr. Vasko have not been able to reach an
agreement on how, or if the Men’s Club will compensate him for the food
they took. (Valued at over $2100) Vasko believes that their actions seem to
indicate that his potential guilt of the charges have something to do with their
unwillingness to help Mr. Vasko regain his property. The Church has been
instructed to give the trailer back to Mr. Vasko, since they have a policy to
not rent their equipment out and because of Mr. Vasko’s personal
investment into the trailer. Vasko has, so far been unwilling to accept the
trailer. He feels that it would be given to him in exchange for the food that
was taken, and he would rather have the food, a far more valuable asset in
his mind.
After interviewing Mr. Vasko, we are not really sure if he knows what
meth is, other than an illegal drug.
A recording of the interview with Mr. Vasko is available to anyone who
wants one at the requester’s expense. Current Mac computer systems only
can play this recording.
|
|
|
|
|
