The following are all actual new stories, abbreviated for our limited space. The newspaper name does not necessarily reflect the agency involved. In the places in which you read *****, the actual name of a department or person has been omitted. This is to keep the focus on what happened, so that we can learn from it, and not on who did it, which has a tendency to assign blame rather than produce helpful insight. 

Accounted-for money is missing, and unknown amounts of money, drugs, confiscated jewelry and weapons were kept in unlocked drawers and never properly accounted for by the ***** Drug Task Force in *****, a state comptroller's audit found.

The audit, released Friday, lists numerous findings of missing money and drugs, illegal disposition of seized cars, seized drugs and jewelry kept in task force members' offices, and a nonexistent tracking system for seized drugs, money and goods that made it impossible for auditors to tell how much more might be missing. 

A special ***** County grand jury has determined there was "gross negligence" within the task force but could not find enough evidence to indict specific individuals. 

"The problem, as I perceive it, is that we had a division that was out of control," said the ***** County Sheriff. 

Of the 14 people on the task force, ­everyone but the two dog handlers have been reassigned to other duties within their departments, ***** said. Task force director ***** was removed and demoted from captain to deputy April 15. 

The audit is the result of an investigation that began Nov. 30, when the TBI and comptroller's officials came to the task force's headquarters at the request of the task force board. 

Four days later, someone burglarized the task force offices, which are on the third floor of the building that houses the ***** Sheriff's Department. Money, drugs, paperwork and other items were missing. As is common with such audits, both the board members and task force director ***** were allowed to respond to the findings and their responses were included in the comptroller's report. Among the findings: 

• The task force apparently kept no records of the money, drugs, jewelry, cars and other items seized from drug suspects. ***** responded that he didn't know records had to be kept under task force rules. 

• Inventories showed $24,027 in cash kept in unlocked drawers, boxes of drugs and paraphernalia marked to be destroyed had been opened and several of the containers inside were empty. Dates on the evidence showed they were supposed to have been destroyed, by law, more than a year before. *****'s response said the boxes had been opened and searched for evidence needed in a case, and that officers didn't take care to put everything back as before. 

• Task force officials told auditors they had 12 seized vehicles; they really had 42. ***** responded that auditors hadn't asked for a full list. 

• Drugs that were supposed to be locked in evidence rooms were found in officers' desks, and other seized goods were in various offices. ***** responded that those items are commonly stored in his office and were signed out by the officers. He said some of the drugs were used for "show and tell" talks to local schools. 

• A cash shortage of $984 in accounted-for funds is reported. ***** has accounted for all but $650 of the money.

• Records showed seven times officers had purchased drugs during undercover operations, but the drugs couldn't be found in the evidence room. 

• The task force sold cars to its informants in lieu of cash, and payments were made to informants without proper records of the transactions. 

• $8,749 was taken during the burglary of the task force office. 

The six-page report, was forwarded yesterday to the Chester County District Attorney's Office to see if there were any criminal violations. It was not made public. He said it raised questions as to how the police department kept track of evidence confiscated after investigations. 

Unlike most police departments, Carroll said Valley did not keep a written log detailing how evidence was handled. Without such a log, he said, any wrongdoing is difficult to determine. "(A log book) would clearly show how evidence taken in was disposed of by the police department," he said. "At this point, we know there are certain pieces of evidence that have not been accounted for, but we don't know if the items were returned (to suspects) or were the result of some clerical error." 

Carroll said the report indicated that the police department did not maintain a central place for storing evidence. Nor, he said, was there a system for keeping track of what pieces of evidence were checked in and out. 

At a preliminary hearing, charges against the suspect were dropped. According to court records in Parkesburg, the arresting officer, ***** failed to appear. 

The other case, sources said, involved a drug arrest in which about $800 was confiscated from one suspect but there was no account of what had happened to the cash in police records. 

The Donegan report was discussed by township supervisors Tuesday night during a closed-door meeting. It comes in the wake of the embarrassing arrest of its chief, *****, on three counts of felony theft. 

Township supervisors suspended with pay the 44­year-old ***** on May 19, the day after county detectives arrested and charged him with allegedly stealing an Italian-made pistol in 1982 from the evidence room of the ***** Police Department. 

The weapon surfaced in March when it was used in a shooting incident involving the son of *****, a ***** Township police officer who is now the acting chief in *****' s absence. 

Following *****'s arrest, township officials immediately hired ***** to assure township residents that the police department of their small central Chester County township "was being run properly." After hiring *****, the supervisors asked him to take an inventory of the evidence room of the police department. 

Police are investigating the theft of about 150 pounds of marijuana from the police property and evidence room. ***** said the marijuana, which had been confiscated in a drug bust, was in three boxes. "We have some suspects and as the investigation develops, we intend to present the information to the grand jury," 

A ***** drug investigator accused of taking money from the police department's evidence room pleaded not guilty Monday to two felony charges. Officer *****, a member of the ***** Regional Drug Task Force, is charged with theft of property and felony forgery. ***** , 32, is accused of taking $1,677 from the police evidence room. He has been a ***** police officer for eight years. 

Chief inspector ***** , head of police department internal security, responding to an unconfirmed published report that up to $30,000 in cash was missing from the room, said "We're taking a very close look at everything in room 715, the evidence room." 

Items stored in the heavily barred room include stolen jewelry, furs, weapons seized by police in making arrests, and marked money used by police to purchase narcotics in undercover drug buy investigations. (When drugs are seized, they are stored at the chemical laboratory at the police administration building.) 

Although the items of evidence are to be used in the courts, the police department is responsible for their safekeeping. Eight years ago, after $8,000 in cash and $10,000 in jewelry had disappeared from an ancient safe in room 715, the doors were heavily barred and burglar alarms and new safes were installed. 

Three youths brought in by police for questioning about a stolen vehicle allegedly took home a few souvenirs from their brief visit with *****'s finest: four guns and 1 1/2 pounds of marijuana. ***** police say the youths obtained the items by looting an evidence room in the Town Hall basement Saturday. "It does sound kind of foolish," acting Police Chief ***** said yesterday of the heist. "It makes us sound like a bunch of hicks, I guess. But it's something we knew could happen." 

The juveniles each were released on $5,000 bail. The entire robbery took about an hour, ***** said. "It's a tough way to have to find out that your security is lacking," ***** said. ***** said that an alarm system on the evidence room that would have alerted officers upstairs had apparently been disconnected some months earlier. Officers have questioned security at the police station since 1992, he said. 

A former ***** police officer is under investigation for allegedly stealing hundreds of pounds of marijuana from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and then selling it. 

The officer, sources said, was part of a group of city cops assigned to work with DEA on a drug task force. As part of his duties, the sources said, the officer was assigned to transport the confiscated marijuana to an incinerator for destruction. 

Instead, the sources added, the officer and one or more accomplices are suspected of diverting the marijuana for resale on the streets. The officer was identified as *****, 39, who resigned. He had been assigned to the DEA task force since the mid-1980s. 

According to the sources, DEA retains only a portion of the marijuana it confiscates, sending it to its lab for testing and then to its evidence room for safekeeping. The rest is earmarked for destruction. 

Federal charges were filed against a ***** police officer for allegedly stealing $336,556 from the department's narcotics unit during a four-year period.

The information was filed by the U.S. Attorney's office against *****, 49, a 25-year veteran of the police department. A source close to the investigation said that ***** took most of the money and gambled it away at Twin Cities area casinos and the Canterbury Downs horse track. The money is all gone, the source added. 

It's a sad day for law enforcement when a police officer is charged with a felony," U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug said. "But all public officials entrusted with public funds must take responsibility for their actions." 

***** allegedly stole the money from a police evidence room and attempted to cover his tracks by filling out forms indicating the money bad been turned over to the federal government through court-ordered forfeitures.

According to the December affidavit, $40,657 was taken from the evidence room in November 1994; $403 and $1,053 were taken on Feb. 17, 1995, and another theft of $3,684 occurred in March 1995. ***** police and the FBI discovered the remainder of the amount missing during the succeeding five-month investigation. 

The city has asked *****'s office to seek restitution as part of ***** 's sentence if he is found guilty, Dunning said. 

A former ***** police chief charged with stealing $5,000 from a department drug-buy fund said he did not take the money, but admitted to investigators that he tried to cover up the theft.

Chief ***** told investigators from the district attorney's office that he tried to fool city auditors inspecting his accounts because he did not want the department disgraced by allegations of thievery. ***** faces one felony count of grand theft in connection with the missing funds.

An audit of 2 1/2 years of Police Department accounting also revealed misuse of funds, shoddy accounting practices and other missing money, according to court records. All told, nearly $28,000 in cash, savings bonds and food stamps that were supposed to be in the departments vault is unaccounted for, aside from the $5,000 that ***** is accused of stealing, the audit says. ***** said he knew of know of nothing of the missing $23,000 in cash and property, but added that some of the mystery may be solved during his trial.

The charges against ***** center on cash that was kept in a locked, 8 by 10 inch metal box. 
The money was used in sting operations by narcotics detectives who pretended to be drug buyers. The box was kept in a locked cabinet in the chief's office and the chief had the only key he told a district attorney's investigator. When auditors descended on his department a year ago, ***** covered up the theft by having a property officer take money from envelopes in the police vault, which ***** then put in the drug buy box.

The ruse was successful at first. But an anonymous caller from the Police Department tipped the Controller *****, according to court records the caller told the Controller to count money in the drug-buy box and property vault at the same time. When the controller did a second audit the chief said the money had been stolen from his office and he was attempting to find the culprit. 

The final audit also found $19,531 missing from the property vault and $8,383 missing from the bail account. In the vault's property locker, auditors found money missing from 46 case envelopes.