DAVE NEWTON & THE COCAINE PROBLEM… WHAT WENT WRONG?
Before Dave Newton became a candidate for Cape Coral City Council, he spent years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, including serving as a K-9 officer. As voters examine the backgrounds and records of candidates seeking public office, we found a documented incident from Newton’s police career that dates back more than 20 years. It involved real narcotics being placed in a civilian’s vehicle during a police K-9 training exercise, an erroneous drug-possession charge, an internal investigation, a Citizen Review Board investigation, and disciplinary action.
The incident began in July 2004 when Mark Lilly encountered undercover Las Vegas police officers and allegedly offered to sell them drugs. Police searched Lilly’s vehicle and discovered substances that appeared to be narcotics but were fake. Lilly was arrested for attempting to sell bogus drugs. What happened after his arrest, however, created a much more serious problem. According to LVMPD officials quoted by the Las Vegas Sun, K-9 Officer David Newton placed real, department-issued drugs inside Lilly’s vehicle as part of a training exercise for his police dog. Newton hid the drugs so the K-9 could practice locating them, but after the exercise was completed, Newton failed to remove the real drugs from Lilly’s vehicle.
When Lilly’s vehicle was later searched, officers discovered the real drugs. Apparently unaware that the narcotics had been placed there by Newton during the training exercise, police treated them as evidence and Lilly was charged with possession of a controlled substance. Subsequent reporting identified the substance left in the vehicle as cocaine. The result was an extraordinary situation: a man originally arrested in connection with fake drugs was now facing an additional controlled-substance charge because real drugs used by police for K-9 training had been left inside his vehicle.
There is an important part of the story that should not be left out. Newton apparently discovered what had happened and attempted to correct the mistake. According to LVMPD Deputy Chief Mike Ault, Newton completed paperwork intended to notify prosecutors that Lilly should not be prosecuted for the narcotics found in the vehicle. That notification, however, never reached the prosecutor. According to Ault, it ended up in a file where nobody acted upon it.
The situation then became even more serious. LVMPD Officers Kevin Collmar and David Parker were subsequently subpoenaed to testify during Lilly’s preliminary hearing. According to Ault, the officers knew Lilly should not have been prosecuted for the narcotics discovered in the vehicle, yet the circumstances surrounding those drugs were not disclosed during their testimony. Lilly was ultimately bound over for trial. It wasn't until another officer who had been present the night of Lilly’s arrest contacted prosecutors that the District Attorney’s Office learned what had actually happened and the possession charge was dismissed. The incident eventually came before Las Vegas’ independent Citizen Review Board.
Importantly, the board distinguished Newton’s conduct from the conduct of Collmar and Parker. Andrea Beckman, then executive director of the Review Board, told the Las Vegas Sun that Newton leaving the drugs in Lilly’s vehicle appeared to have been an honest mistake. The more serious allegations concerned what happened afterward and the failure to disclose the circumstances surrounding the narcotics during the court proceedings.
That did not mean Newton escaped scrutiny or discipline. The Citizen Review Board recommended that Newton be suspended without pay. Contemporary reports differ on the recommended length of that suspension. A February 2005 Las Vegas Review-Journal report said the board recommended a minimum of four weeks and reported that a disciplinary letter had been placed in Newton’s personnel file. A March 2006 follow-up reported that the board recommended four months and that Newton and the other officers ultimately received unpaid suspensions for undisclosed periods. The Citizen Review Board recommended much more serious punishment for Collmar and Parker, including termination. LVMPD did not follow that recommendation either and instead suspended the officers without pay.
The incident also resulted in changes to LVMPD procedures. According to contemporary reporting, the department changed the process for handling notifications requesting that criminal charges be dismissed so those requests could be tracked and confirmed as received by prosecutors. Procedures surrounding drugs used for K-9 training were also changed, including requirements concerning how those narcotics were identified as police property.
The story did not end with the dismissal of Lilly’s possession charge. Lilly later pursued a civil-rights case stemming from what happened. Archived contemporary reporting states that LVMPD ultimately agreed to pay $24,999 to settle Lilly’s lawsuit. The settlement itself should not be interpreted as a judicial finding that Newton intentionally planted evidence or attempted to frame Lilly. The available contemporary reporting instead indicates that the Citizen Review Board viewed Newton’s original failure to remove the drugs as a mistake.
It is also important to be clear about what we have not found. We have found no evidence that Newton was fired from LVMPD because of this incident. In fact, records establish that he continued serving with the department for many years afterward. An official LVMPD report from 2014 identifies “K-9 Officer David Newton,” and Newton was still serving with LVMPD during the October 1, 2017 Mandalay Bay mass shooting. Public payroll records also identify David E. Newton as an LVMPD police officer through 2020.
More than 20 years have passed since this incident, and that context matters. So does the fact that Newton apparently recognized his mistake and attempted to have the erroneous charge corrected. At the same time, the underlying events are documented: real narcotics were placed inside a civilian’s vehicle during a K-9 training exercise and were not removed; those narcotics subsequently became evidence against the vehicle’s owner; an additional criminal charge resulted; Newton’s attempt to correct the situation failed to reach prosecutors; and the Citizen Review Board later recommended discipline.
Today, Dave Newton is seeking elected office in Cape Coral. How much significance voters attach to an incident from his law-enforcement career more than two decades ago is ultimately for each voter to determine. Ask yourself: Does an incident in which Newton admittedly failed to retrieve department-issued drugs from a civilian’s vehicle raise questions for you about judgment and responsibility? And does it affect whether you trust him with your tax dollars today?
What we can do is put the documented facts in front of the public, including the facts that both support and provide context for Newton’s actions, and allow residents to reach their own conclusions.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has denied our public records request for records related to this matter, stating that the records we requested are confidential personnel records and must be withheld. We do not agree with LVMPD’s denial or its interpretation of the applicable public-records law. However, given the amount of time and resources that would be required to formally challenge the denial in Nevada, we have decided not to pursue that fight at this time.
We want to be transparent with our readers about what we requested, what LVMPD refused to provide, and why those additional records are not included in our reporting.
We have also found no evidence in the records or reporting we reviewed indicating that a different David Newton worked for LVMPD during the relevant period. Based on the information currently available to us, we have found nothing suggesting that the David Newton identified in the contemporary reporting is a different individual from the former LVMPD K-9 officer and current Cape Coral City Council candidate discussed in this article.
All information has been thoroughly investigated and reported by the Take Out the Trash Committee of Cape Coral and/or its authorized volunteers!
