Durham Police Department Sergeant Mark Gottlieb--a lead investigator in the rape case against members of the 2005-06 men's lacrosse team--has a checkered past with Duke students.
Gottlieb has occasionally used violent tactics and misrepresented the truth in court, students whom he has arrested allege.
Gottlieb also jailed students for noise violations while allowing a non-student charged with the more serious charge of carrying a concealed weapon to walk away with a citation, according to his documented arrest history.
When reached by phone, Gottlieb--who is currently on sick leave--declined to comment.
A questionable record
Gottlieb arrested or incarcerated Duke students at a higher rate than non-students, even when the students were accused of less-serious crimes than the non-students, according to a dossier given to The Chronicle by a Durham attorney close to the lacrosse case.
"In the winter, after seeing a number of students coming to our office reporting aberrant behavior on the part of one officer, we were afraid for the safety of students," the attorney said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We looked to see if there was a statistical basis for it."
The attorney's examination of 32 bookings Gottlieb made in the final months of 2005 and in January 2006 revealed that 19 of the booked individuals were Duke students and the remaining 13 were not students.
While 16 out of the 19 students were arrested--most for nonviolent crimes such as noise-ordinance and open container violations--only six of the 13 non-students were arrested, the crimes they committed ranging from impersonating a police officer to assault on a female.
"I find this very, very inconsistent," said Durham attorney Bill Thomas, who represented a lacrosse player who was not indicted but has no connections to the cases listed in the dossier.
"It seems to indicate a real pattern of arresting Duke students on less serious charges while not arresting non-Duke students on much more serious charges," Thomas added.
Although it is up to the individual officer to decide whether an arrest is appropriate, Thomas said it was unusual for police officers to arrest people for noise and open container violations.
"In over 25 years of law practice, I have rarely if ever seen someone formally arrested on either of those two charges," he said. "I would find this highly unusual and would be very suspicious with respect to an officer who continually, formally arrested people on those two types of charges."
Early morning raid
One of the students Gottlieb jailed on those charges was Urosh Tomovich, Trinity '06, who threw a party with friends at his off-East Campus rental home before last October's Rolling Stones concert.
At 3 a.m. on the morning after the concert, Gottlieb and nine other police officers raided the students' home and arrested Tomovich and his six housemates for noise ordinance and open container violations.
"I was still half asleep, and he put me in handcuffs," Tomovich said.
Tomovich and others said the police dragged his sleeping housemate Justin Bieber, Pratt '06, off of his bed, causing him to fall on the floor, before dragging him down the stairs.
Gottlieb and the other officers led the housemates outside.
"[Gottlieb] said, 'You're going to be in the biggest trouble of your life,'" Tomovich said.
After they were taken to the station, Tomovich--a U.S. citizen of Serbian heritage--said that Gottlieb threatened to deport him for breaking the law.
"He took me to a back room and said, 'Do you need to speak to your consulate? We can deport you.' I said, 'Why would I need to speak to my consulate?'.... I'm a U.S. citizen. I have a different last name, but I'm a U.S. citizen," Tomovich recalled.
All seven housemates were arrested and taken into custody.
Violent behavior
Gottlieb also threatened to deport another student for a minor alcohol violation. That student--and a friend who was arrested at the same time--spoke to The Chronicle on condition of anonymity.
The two students--one male, one female--said they were walking to Shooters II, a popular Durham nightclub, on the night they were arrested. The man was drinking out of a water bottle, and the woman sipped a can of vodka-spiked Sprite.
When a police car drove by, the two said they put their beverages on the ground. The two students said the police car swerved on the curb in front of them.
"Gottlieb drove on the curb to block us," said the male, an international student. "He grabbed me, threw me against the car and put me in handcuffs."
The student said he felt the handcuffs and rough treatment were unnecessary, as he was standing still and--at 130 pounds--is dramatically smaller than the burly Gottlieb.
As Gottlieb handcuffed the male student, his partner Richard Clayton handcuffed the female, both students said. The woman said she repeatedly requested that Clayton tell her her rights, but she said he refused.
"He yelled at me and said he would let me out if I would admit I was drinking," the woman added. "After I said what he wanted me to say, he took me out of the handcuffs."
The woman also said Clayton searched through her purse without a warrant or her consent.
Clayton was unavailable for immediate comment.
The international student said Gottlieb asked him for his identification. But when the student produced an ID card from his home country, Gottlieb said, "No, I'm looking for real identification," and threatened to deport him.
The male student added that whenever either student asked the officers about their rights, Gottlieb "threatened to take us down to the station."
After keeping both students in the car for a period of time, the two Durham officers turned them over to the Duke University Police Department, which took them back to their dorms, the students said.
A night in jail
Andrea Brezing, Trinity '06, also accused Gottlieb of disproportionate punishment.
When Brezing and her friends held a party at their off-campus apartment, two sophomores they did not know stopped by and consumed a couple of drinks, Brezing said. She added that one of her housemates kicked the pair out.
Once they were on the street, Brezing said Gottlieb intercepted the sophomores and asked them where they procured the alcohol.
Minutes later, Gottlieb and several other police came to Brezing's home and demanded they break up the party, she said.
"They asked 'Who has the lease?'" Brezing said. "And it was me and one of my roommates, and they said 'You're under arrest for aiding and abetting.'"
Brezing said she complained to the officers that her car had been stolen and asked why police spent time breaking up parties when there were more serious crimes to investigate.
"Gottlieb said, 'Are you being ridiculous? Is that the worst thing that has happened to you? I'm having a shitty week,'" Brezing said.
Then, Gottlieb put Brezing and her roommate in his police car and drove them to the police station.
"We got down to the station and these other police officers asked Gottlieb what we had done," Brezing said. "[When he told them] they started laughing hysterically, because they had brought in people who had been shooting at other people."
Brezing and her housemate spent the night in a jail cell, although Brezing said they were never actually processed.
The two shared a cell with a blood-covered woman who said she had stabbed someone, Brezing said.
"Before we went to the jail cell, Gottlieb had told me and my roommate, 'You guys could be my daughters--I'm just doing this to protect you,'" Brezing said.
Accusations of dishonesty
Tomovich and the two students en route to Shooters said their problems with Gottlieb did not end with being arrested.
Tomovich said he believes Gottlieb misrepresented the facts when he testified at trial.
"He definitely didn't tell the truth," Tomovich said.
One of the two students who were arrested while walking to Shooters said Gottlieb and Clayton lied in their report to the assistant district attorney who was prosecuting their case.
The students initially planned to contest their charges.
They believed Gottlieb and Clayton had violated their rights, and since an independent witness had seen the arrest, they thought their case would be dismissed.
"We were extremely confident on the basis of the witness alone that there would be a strong basis to have the charges dismissed," said the students' attorney, the same lawyer who provided the dossier.
But then their attorney learned that Gottlieb and Clayton had a different version of events than did his clients and the witness.
Both students and the independent witness said the arrested pair had been drinking from a water bottle and a Sprite can and that both were handcuffed and coerced into admitting that they had been drinking.
But Clayton and Gottlieb told the attorney that neither was handcuffed, both had volunteered their guilt without coercion and both were drinking from red cups rather than closed containers.
"They lied," the female student said. "They said they didn't put us in handcuffs, they said they didn't search through my purse. They just weren't being truthful."
Rather than risk being saddled with a misdemeanor charge, the pair pleaded guilty according to the First Offender's program to keep a clean criminal record.
"There was no case here, it was absolutely clear that there was no case. There was a witness who saw the whole thing, and they corroborated what [my clients] said to a 'T,'" their attorney said.
"It is hard to run the risk of trying the case on principle, and run the risk of them getting a misdemeanor conviction that would be on their record forever," he added.
Emily Rotberg contributed to this story
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