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St. Pete Officer On Leave; Link Sought To Husband's Drug Case

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 29, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - A detective with the St. Petersburg Police Department is on administrative leave with pay while investigators try to determine her role – if any – in her estranged husband's alleged marijuana dealing, according to police officials and court documents.

They also want to know what Detective Leticia Harrison knows about her current boyfriend's involvement with the drug, according to a search warrant affidavit filed after detectives raided their home in June.

Vice and narcotics investigators say they were told that Harrison, 36, accompanied her estranged Jamaica-born husband whenever he journeyed by car to bring large shipments of marijuana into St. Petersburg, according to the affidavit. Harrison is married to Marvin Wedderburn, 33, who was arrested in June on drug-dealing charges.

"Should the vehicle be stopped by police for any reason, Wedderburn's wife is supposed to display her police badge in an effort to not have the vehicle seized," the affidavit states.

Wedderburn and Harrison, who also goes by her maiden name, Nelson, separated in late 2007, though she continues to have contact with him, the affidavit states.

Harrison is living with her boyfriend, Audra Davon Howard, 40, who has served prison terms for cocaine possession and seven armed robberies, among other things. The two have been living together on Elkcam Boulevard in the Coquina Key area of south St. Petersburg.

Twice in May, narcotics detectives went through the couple's trash after they left it on the curb to be picked up, court documents state. That is a tactic used by investigators trying to build a case against someone suspected of dealing or making drugs.

On May 6, investigators went through a large plastic garbage bag that had been tied at the top. In it they found several bills in Nelson's name with the Elkcam Boulevard address and a small plastic baggie. Nothing was visible in the baggie, but after it was tested by the Pinellas County forensic laboratory, analysts told investigators the baggie contained marijuana residue, court documents state.

On May 23, investigators went through the trash again and again found, along with correspondence in Nelson's name, two plastic baggies that analysts said contained marijuana residue, court records state.

With that information – plus a tip from a confidential informant that Harrison traveled with Wedderburn, her husband, to help safeguard suspected marijuana shipments – narcotics investigators obtained a search warrant and went through the house on Elkcam Boulevard on June 4.

Inside they found less than 20 grams of marijuana, a .38-caliber revolver, ammunition and miscellaneous papers, according to court records. Howard was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was released from the Pinellas County Jail on June 5 after posting $10,150 bail.

Wedderburn was booked into the jail the same day, jail records show. He eventually was charged with five counts of sale of marijuana and five counts of possession of marijuana. He sold marijuana – in at least one case a pound – five times this year, court records state.

Wedderburn is being held without bail at Pinellas County Jail. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a hold on him, jail records show.

Harrison, who is a robbery detective in the crimes against people unit, has not been charged, nor is there a record of discipline for consorting with convicted or suspected criminals. Police spokesman Bill Proffitt confirmed that Harrison is on administrative leave with pay but declined to say anything further.

Since she was hired in 1992, she has been disciplined for a variety of transgressions including failing to follow sick-day policies, driving her squad car in such a way that it crashed into a pole, and failing to turn in police reports in a timely manner, her personnel file states.

In one instance, she didn't turn in an accident report for 14 days, causing problems for a motorist and the motorist's insurance company.

On Oct. 13, 1997, she didn't answer her radio for 10 minutes, and her colleagues became alarmed and started looking for her, her personnel file states. She admitted she had fallen asleep. She had turned off her radio, she said, because she had ear infections and the noise from the radio was giving her headaches, her personnel file states.

In 1998, an oversight on her part led to someone's car being stripped of its rims and tires, her personnel file states.

It was Nov. 12 of that year that Harrison and another officer were dispatched to a bar where two people who appeared to be drunk were arguing in a parking lot. The two got in a vehicle, and when the two officers approached, the pair said they did not own the vehicle.

The two people were separated – one with each officer – and the person Harrison was handling struck her while she was patting him down and attempting to take a gun from his waistband, her personnel file states.

Harrison was given the keys to the car the pair had been in, and she gave the keys to a security guard at the bar without noting his name in a report. The person who owned the car reported it stolen when it didn't turn up, and it was found abandoned in a parking lot, stripped of its tired and rims. Harrison was suspended for 30 days for the oversight, one supervisor noted in an evaluation.

In 2003, her performance cost her a standard raise, records show.

"I have never supervised a person who must be monitored like Harrison," Sgt. Brian Stickney wrote in 1999.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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