New York woman says parole officers stole $6K from her home 'right before the holidays': report

25 January 2023

A Greece, New York woman is seeking justice after she says parole officers entered her home and stole $6,000, Rochester City Newspaper reports.

Shannon Carpenter lives in the home with her boyfriend, John Grandberry, who was on parole following a prison sentence for criminal possession of a weapon.

The four officers who searched the home left with a kitchen knife, a bag of cannabis, a drug scale, a gun, and a whopping $6,000, which was stashed away in a pair of Carpenter’s boots.

Parole officer Doris Hernandez and an “unidentified male officer” can be seen on video captured from Carpenter’s phone-activated web camera rummaging through Carpenter’s room and discussing what they’d do with the money they discovered.

The male officer turned to Hernandez — who is now on leave with pay — and said, “We can share the money.”

She replied, “You're right.”

“As long as there’s enough money to go around,” the male officer said.

Following the search, Grandberry was sent back to jail for “violating parole” with the possession of a weapon, cannabis and a scale.

But Carpenter asserts that she has “never seen the gun” before and that the knife, scale, marijuana and money — which she saved up while working at a local food truck — all belong to her, not Grandberry.

She told the Rochester City Newspaper that the incident has been “both financially and emotionally draining” for her.

“It’s hard because it was right before the holidays,” she said. “I dip into that when it’s time for rent or something like that, and now I have nothing.”

Buffalo defense attorney Brittany Penberthy, filed two notices — both of which can lead to a lawsuit — with the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and the Parole Division, as well as the Greece Police Department, arguing that her client was “a victim of unlawful search and seizure.”

The notices said, “As a result of the aforesaid incident, the claimant, Shannon Carpenter, was subjected to numerous violations of state and federal civil rights, and sustained mental anguish, pain, and suffering and shock to her system as a result of subjects’ unlawful actions.”

Believing that this occurrence is not a “freak occurrence,” Carpenter proceeded to file a complaint with the State police, which led the department to put out a statement confirming an investigation, asserting that “Greece officers were not the focus of the probe.”

The statement read, “The New York State Police is conducting a criminal investigation into the allegations referenced in the notice of claim filed on behalf of Shannon Carpenter. The Greece Police Department is cooperating with the investigation, and members of the department are not the subject of the investigation.”

Penberthy told City News in a phone interview that she doesn’t believe Carpenter’s story is the first of its kind. And she spoke about how residents complain often about the actions of parole officers, and that they are rarely believed.

“The crazy thing is you hear these complaints all of the time from parolees, from loved ones of parolees, that a parole officer did x, y, or z,” the attorney said. “And the immediate rebuttal from any agency or what have you is, ‘Oh, don’t believe the parolee, we believe our parole officers.”

She continued, “There’s bad people in the world. And just because they sit at a desk for parole doesn’t mean they’re good guys.”

Watch the footage below or at this link.

A Greece woman says these parole officers stole money from her closetyoutu.be

Read the full report in the Rochester City Newspaper.

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