Former McKeesport police captain charged with stealing $260K from evidence room

A former McKeesport police captain has been charged after a monthslong investigation with stealing more than $260,000 from the department’s evidence room.

Christopher Halaszynski, 54, of McKeesport was charged Wednesday with theft and receiving stolen property and immediately waived his case to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

He was released on $50,000 unsecured bond by District Judge Eugene Riazzi Jr.

A message left with his attorney was not immediately returned.

McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko said in a statement that “no one is above the law.”

“It is extremely disheartening that a once-trusted supervisor within this police department was capable of violating his oath to protect and serve by participating in the activities that have been alleged,” Cherepko said. “We have instituted an entirely new process with policies and procedures that will not only modernize our evidence logs, but will provide a system of checks, balances, and safety measures recommended by experts in this field.”

According to the criminal complaint in the case, Halaszynski stole a total of $260,280.27 in cash over four years.

The money came from evidence in 159 cases, which are now considered to be compromised.

Halaszynski is the third McKeesport officer to face criminal charges in the last several months.

McKeesport police Chief Mark Steele asked the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office to investigate potential theft from the department’s evidence room in September, according to the Halaszynski complaint.

Steele said he was supposed to meet with Halaszynski, who had been in charge of the evidence room for eight years, the week of Sept. 3, but the captain called off that day and the rest of the week, the complaint said.

On Sept. 9, Halaszynski was found unresponsive in a police car after a suspected suicide attempt.

On Sept. 17, Lt. Josh Alfer, who assumed control of the room, reported he found an envelope taken as evidence in a case that was empty when it should have contained $383.

Steele and Halaszynski were the only two officers to have access to the evidence room.

In an interview with investigators on Oct. 23, Halaszynski said that he had been in charge of the evidence room from 2018 until late 2020 with no problems. However, when he separated from his wife, the complaint said, he told them he struggled to keep up with his finances.

“It was around this time that he first took money from the evidence room with the intention to return it,” the complaint said.

His first theft, investigators said, was from an envelope on the evidence room shelves with several thousand dollars in it.

However, Halaszynski said, “he just got ‘selfish and greedy, and it became easy,’” according to the complaint.

Halaszynski told investigators the evidence room was in disarray when he took over. He found evidence in drawers like a card catalog dating back several years. He told investigators he first stole money from those cases.

Halaszynski reported taking a couple thousand dollars at a time, cutting the seals on evidence packaging, slipping the money out. He then told investigators that he likely shredded the envelopes, the complaint said.

Halaszynski recalled one narcotics case in which officers had seized $40,000 to $60,000 in a soft cooler bag. He found the bag on the floor of the evidence room.

When he took the money, he told detectives, he deposited it into his bank account. Although the money was gone, Halaszynski told investigators the drugs should still be there.

Halaszynski told investigators that at first he used the money to pay bills, but later used it to go on trips at Christmastime.

“He stated that he did not buy new cars or real estate and that he has ‘nothing to show for everything I’ve took.’”

According to the complaint, investigators and analysts from the DA’s investigations unit conducted a review of all six evidence rooms, going shelf by shelf, box by box and package by package.

In some cases, envelopes that should have contained cash were completely empty, the complaint said. In others, some money was missing.

According to Halaszynski’s bank records, from Jan. 1, 2020, to Sept. 3, 2024, he made 192 cash deposits totaling $189,430.20.

Former Officer Joseph Osinski was charged by the state Attorney General’s Office in September with theft, theft by deception and access device fraud for allegedly stealing more than $1 million from the police union where he served as the financial officer.

Brenda Sawyer, who had left McKeesport to become an agent with the state AG’s office was accused of stealing $121,000 from the office’s AG’s North Huntingdon office the same day.

University of Pittsburgh criminal law Professor David A. Harris said that it is unlikely the evidence room thefts will impact any closed cases — or even open ones.

Typically, when money is seized in an investigation, it is logged in as part of the chain of custody and simply remains in the evidence room. It’s rare that it would be part of the actual evidence presented in a trial, Harris said.

That doesn’t mean, though, that attorneys won’t attempt to raise the theft of the cash to defend their clients.

“As a defense attorney, you look for any possible argument you might have,” Harris said.

Instances like this, he said, can impact the public’s view of a department.

“These are large-scale thefts. It’s not necessarily an indictment of the whole department, but this is enough of a red flag you want to examine the culture,” Harris said. “The public can’t help but look at the officers and question: Is this guy on the take? Is this woman honest?”