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The Dakota County Electronic

Crimes Task Force

Tim Leslie, Sheriff, Dakota County Sheriff’s Office

and Daniel Bianconi, Captain, Dakota County

Sheriff’s Office

This project was supported by Grant No. 2015-TA-AX-K027 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this (document/program/exhibit) are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.

DAKOTA COUNTY

ELECTRONIC CRIMES

TASK FORCE

The efforts of the ECU have resulted in several awards, like this one from the

National Association of Counties (NACo), and another from the Humphrey Institute

for the unit’s creative governance, innovative concept, and exceptional

cooperation.

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Challenges to Investigative Process

More and more data

Needing improved turnaround times

Increasing security measures to access data

Increasing hardware and software costs

Increased training time to maintain expertise

Increased Technical Aspect to Investigations

• Peer to Peer file sharing of Child Pornography

• Homicides

• Stalking

• Financial Crime

• Traffic Crashes

Three-year pilot project approved by City Councils and County Commissioners

Joint Powers Agreement signed by 8 LE cities in 2015

Governing board established

Inver Grove Heights Police Department joined in 2016

Lakeville Police Department joined in 2017

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• Current Staffing

• DCSO Detectives 1.5 FTE

• DCSO Forensic Analyst 1.0 FTE

• Apple Valley PD Detective 1.0 FTE

• Burnsville PD Detective 1.0 FTE

• Lakeville PD Detective .5 FTE

• Grant Funded Forensic Analyst 1.0 FTE

• Outreach coordinator .5 FTE

• Total Staff 6.5 FTE

• Current Contributions are $18,000* per member agencies• Includes 10 cities and the Drug Task Force

• That funds;

• Partial salary of 1.0FTE Forensic Analyst

• Annual Software licensing

• Training

• Insurance

• Capital fund to cover hardware replacement cycle• Capital fund is at $7,200

• Each computer is approximately $7,000 to replace

• * Unless they contribute a person to the task force

• Efficiencies from consolidation of equipment/personnel

Greatly improved turn-around time

Synergy of expertise

Superior training and certification. Examiners certified as “Experts” through the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists (IACIS).

County Attorney support- seen as the next “DNA”

Less testimony- improved efficiency

Improved prosecution of criminal offenses.

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Sharing of specialized equipment, which is

typically very expensive, has been of great value to the

unit.

• Electronic Crimes Task Force• Member Chiefs of Police

• Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Grant• Advocacy- MCBW and 360 Communities

• Chiefs of Police

• Prosecutors both County and City

• Judge

• Three Year Grant – awarded 10/17

• $450,000

• Used to hire Forensic Analyst and Outreach Coordinator

• They work on domestic assault violations/Stalking cases

• Outreach to spread the word outside of Dakota County

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• Second grant – last one ended in March 2017

• Increased prosecution rates from 54% to 94%

• Effectively prosecutes misdemeanor violations

• Have been successful in getting stalking cases prosecuted

• Efficient in that it increases guilty pleas reducing the need for officer testimony

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Unit Performance

2015 2016 2017 3 Year % change

Phones 300 265 479 59%

Computer 69 58 125 81%

Hard Drive 56 41 107 91%

Tablets 37 36 49 32%

Other (removable media, Discs, 181 86 559 208%

Total 643 490 1319 105%

Data Examined in Gigabytes No Data No Data 169282

Unit Performance

In 2017, the unit examined approximately161 TB of data!

To keep this in perspective;

Just 1 TB equals roughly 1,000 hours of HD video, or 17,000 hours of music, or 310,000 photographs.

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PC Harassment – Pattern of Harassing Conduct FELONY -Suspect accessed victims Google account-Suspect illegally accessed state Driver’s License data systems through his place of employment to retrieve personal information about new boyfriend-Recovered Spoofing software on suspects electronic devices used to harass the victim-Evidence recovered which shows suspect posted nude photographs of the victim on Craigslist soliciting sex for money

PC Harassment – Pattern of Harassing Conduct FELONY -Suspect paid for and installed tracking software on victims phone, which allowed all text messages, GPS locations, call details, photograph’s, and social media data to be viewed remotely-Suspect installed stalking software systems including call recording software, Verizon Family Locator software, Parental Controls software -Evidence was recovered from the victims phone which linked the installed software back to the suspect by way of email messages

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Arrested and charged with Harassment – Victim under 18 FELONY-Evidence recovered from suspects electronic devices shows web history to GPS tracking websites used to stalk victim-Email evidence recovered detailing the purchase of “Plug and Play” tracker-Videos of suspect conducting surveillance on victim, logging vehicles, and license plate data -Recovered Google web searches of suspect searching “using droid phone as a tracking and listening device”

• Homicide

• Burglary

• Thefts

• Sex Offenses

• Bullying

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• Linked to the office space issue

• Currently a requirement for crime labs that process and store evidence for prosecution

• Could be on the horizon for digital evidence as well

• A consideration for the future

• Some across the nation are seeking accreditation

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Questions?

Sheriff Tim Leslie651-438-4701

Captain Dan Bianconi

651-438-4721