Proximity
The article is about a local Austin officer who had to be extradited from Indonesia back to Austin to face charges.
- found article at Austin American Statesman


NEW DETAILS SAMANTHA DEAN CASE

  Ex-officer extradited to face murder charge

  FBI agents take custody of VonTrey Clark in Indonesia for return to Texas for trial in Dean slaying, sources say.

  By PhilipJankowski and Tony Plohetski  pjankowski@statesman.com    tplohetski@statesman.com  

     Former Austin police officer VonTrey Clark has been charged with capital murder in the death of Samantha Dean, according to a federal warrant unsealed Wednesday.

   Federal officials unsealed charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution against Clark late Wednesday after they took him into custody from Indonesian police. The warrant   showed that Bastrop County officials filed murder charges against Clark, 32, on July 21 after learning he had left the U.S. and traveled to the Southeast Asian nation despite being instructed by Austin police to remain home during the investigation
  into Dean’s death.

   Clark is believed to have offered $5,000 for the death of Dean, a crime victims counselor with Kyle police who authorities think was the mother of Clark’s unborn child. Bastrop County deputies found her body in February after she was shot three times.

   According to the warrant, federal authorities believe Clark fled the country July 17 after he learned the scope of evidence police had gathered
 

  against him. Media outlets widely reported on a search warrant that was unsealed July 13 and described phone records tying Clark and two other men to Dean’s murder.

   Clark’s attorney, Bristol Myers, has said Clark traveled to Indonesia for an unspecified medical procedure.

   “Law enforcement has a vested interest in painting Officer Clark as a fugitive to compensate for the weakness of the evidence against him,” Myers said in a statement Wednesday. “He left the United States using his own passport, on a round-trip ticket, after giving notice to his chain of command that he was taking sick leave and would return on August 14th. Investigators have been desperate to pin this case on him from the get-go, and they just couldn’t risk the picture of innocence that would be painted by allowing Officer Clark to come home under his own power.”

   Authorities wouldn’t comment publicly on the capital murder warrant Wednesday, but three people familiar with the investigation said it had been issued in an effort to enlist the aid of federal authorities in bringing Clark back to Texas from Indonesia — a long trek that began before dawn Wednesday and was expected to conclude late Wednesday.

   The three sources aren’t named because they aren’t authorized to speak about the case.

   Associated Press photographs Wednesday showed Clark handcuffed and dressed in a black Nike T-shirt as Indonesian police moved him from a jail in Bali, Indonesia, and placed him into the custody
  of 13 FBI agents. Agents escorted Clark as the fired Austin police officer was flown from Bali to Guam, then to Hawaii and finally Texas.

   At press time, Clark, 32, was still en route to Austin. His flight on a U.S. Justice Department plane was set to land at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport shortly before midnight Wednesday, sources said. From there, authorities didn’t say where Clark would be taken.

   The Bastrop County sheriff’s office refused to provide details about Clark’s return, but made plans shortly after news of Clark’s extradition became public to have a media briefing at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

   Bali police spokesman Hery Wiyanto said Clark arrived in Indonesia on July 19 on an American Airlines flight through Jakarta. He was arrested
  July 30 based on a red notice from Interpol.

   Wiyanto said Clark moved several times to avoid arrest. Police attempted to capture him at a hotel in southern Bali, only to find he had escaped to another part of the island. They later arrested him in a villa he had rented.

   Clark emerged as a person of interest early in the case after police discovered that Clark and Dean, 29, had an on-and-off relationship. Through phone records and statements from one of Clark’s associates, who was arrested in connection with the case, police have come to believe that Clark hired two men to kill Dean to avoid paying child support for her unborn child. Dean was seven months pregnant at the time of her death.

   The associate, Aaron Lamont Williams, named Freddie Smith and Kevin Watson as Dean’s killers and said they set up the murder scene to look like a drug deal that had gone bad. Clark had offered $5,000 for her death, documents showed.

   At the time of Dean’s death, Clark was seeing another woman and believed that if Dean gave birth to the child it would ruin his relationship, court documents say.

   On the night of her killing, Clark had a fight with his girlfriend and then disappeared for about 3½ hours.

   Police later found records to three “burner” phones they believe Clark, Watson and Smith used to coordinate the killing. Records showed those phones converging on the site where deputies found Dean dead and then were never used again.

   Contact Philip Jankowski at 512-445-3702.

   Contact Tony Plohetski at 512-445-3605.
 

  Former Austin police officer VonTrey Clark is processed by police in Indonesia prior to his extradition to the United States. FIRDIA LISNAWATI / ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

   Samantha Dean, whose body was found in February, had been shot three times, police said.

  Former Austin police officer VonTrey Clark is escorted by Indonesian police Wednesday in Bali. Clark has been charged with capital murder in the death of Samantha Dean, according to a federal warrant unsealed Wednesday. Sources said federal authorities were bringing Clark back to Texas. FIRDIA LISNAWATI / ASSOCIATED PRESS