HEADLINE: Buckeye Police probe missing drugs

An allegation of missing narcotics from a Buckeye Police Department evidence freezer has prompted an investigation.  Police Chief Dan Saban said his department asked the Department of Public Safety to look into a suggestion that an undisclosed amount of drugs were mishandled.  "I was briefed on a potential loss," Saban said. "I have yet to confirm or deny that anything is missing. To avoid potential conflict, we asked another agency to come in. There are so many people involved, a variety of employees, city employees and citizens, so I asked for them to give us a hand." Advertisement.  Because the investigation is in progress, Saban said he would not provide details about who might be involved or about the amount or type of drugs.

He said the probe should help determine if there's any validity to the claims.  "The entire case has grown legs with inaccuracies and rumors," he said. "We are in control. We are OK. We have 18 months of handling these types of situations and have a pretty good track record."  DPS would not disclose the details surrounding the investigation.  Tim Mason, spokesman for the agency, said he could not provide a timeframe for the completion of the investigation.

"DPS will not be able to comment on this investigation now or at anytime in the future," Mason said. "The findings of the investigation will be sent to Buckeye as soon as the investigation is complete."

This is not the first time an investigation has been launched into Buckeye's police force.

Since Saban joined the town in March 2005, about 70 internal investigations have been conducted.  The findings of those cases are kept in a "Matrix," or case log, containing criminal and administrative investigation updates on Buckeye's police officers. "This is one of those transitional things that has arisen and we are trying to get to the bottom of it," Saban said. "This is one more investigation and we will get to the bottom of it. My appeal to the public is to stand with us and believe what we are doing."

HEADLINE: Potential problems found in police storage of drugs

Some of the drugs seized by Boston police are not where they should be in the department's central drug depository, where evidence such as cocaine, OxyContin and marijuana is stored, the acting police commissioner, Albert Goslin, said yesterday. 

The disarray of the drug depository, discovered during a police audit, has prompted concern among officials, but Goslin said it's too early to determine whether evidence is missing, because the audit is not complete. He did not indicate the amount or types of drugs that have not been found. 

Goslin said the disorganization in the drug warehouse concerns him because of the possibility that drug evidence could be missing, but at this point, nothing points to police corruption. "It's a lot of stuff and a major burden on us," he said. "It's contraband. It's illegal. If the audit doesn't go the way it should go, then we'll look into it." 

Three officers have spent the past six weeks combing through drug evidence from 190,000 cases, some dating back more than 20 years, because the department is modernizing the tightly controlled facility, Goslin said. The department wants to find an easier way to track the evidence; officers are moving the drugs to a different part of the building. 

Some evidence that auditors had initially thought was missing was found elsewhere in the Hyde Park depository. "They'd find things that were supposed to be in one place and would be three bins over," Goslin said. "It's a huge nightmare and problem . . . I haven't found stuff missing but at this point, I can't say."

The site of the evidence and where the drugs were supposed to be according to a log book sometimes do not match, Goslin said. 

According to Boston Police Department rules, drugs, upon seizure, are temporarily stored in a safe at the district station before going to a central drug depository.

HEADLINE: Ex-Idaho prosecutor faces Feb. trial on gun felonies

The other six charges allege Mason used signature stamps of Magistrate Judges Keith Walker and L. Mark Riddoch on phony orders for police evidence custodians to forfeit firearms to the prosecutor.  Mason, 52, appeared briefly before retired 6th District Judge William Woodland, who set a jury trial for Feb. 12.

Mason's attorney, Jim Archibald, is arguing that the plea deal Mason made with state prosecutors last spring gives him immunity from further prosecution.  Under terms of the deal, Archibald said Mason confessed to two counts of grand theft and one count of falsifying a public document in return for cooperating with investigators in tracing other guns missing from the police department's evidence storage. The agreement, dated March 16, reads "the information given by the defendant will not be used against the defendant." Prosecutors say the immunity provision was nullified after Mason lied about how many guns he had stolen. Several weapons that Mason told investigators he had destroyed instead were discovered in a June 2 search of his home, which yielded 40 stolen guns along with knives, brass knuckles and daggers. The discovery of the stolen weapons prompted Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to level the new charges against Mason.

Among the pretrial motions that Woodland is scheduled to hear in the case next month is Archibald's request for a change of venue for the February trial. Mason had been held in the state's minimum security prison in Cottonwood, but is now being incarcerated in a segregated area at the Bonneville County Jail.Because he helped send some of his fellow prisoners to jail while he served as Idaho Falls prosecutor, Archibald said Mason is concerned about potential retaliation if he is incarcerated with the general inmate population.

Information from: Post Register, www.idahonews.com

HEADLINE:  Apache Junction to develop policy on destroying confiscated guns

Police Chief Glenn Walp cleared out more than 1,200 firearms from the police evidence locker last month and had the weapons smelted.Initially, some city officials and a former police evidence custodian were concerned he did so without alerting the City Council.R.E. Eck, vice mayor, said Walp's unilateral decision to destroy the guns highlighted the need to develop guidelines.

"I don't think the chief should be taking the brunt of all this," he said. "The chief didn't do anything wrong. What he did was brought it to our attention that we needed a policy."The police department had amassed a stockpile of weapons going back to the 1980s, yet had no policy to regulate their disposal. Some cities auction their confiscated firearms, and others destroy them.Karen Gwaltney, a former evidence custodian, said earlier this month Walp might have destroyed evidence vital to ongoing cases.

Walp's actions also conflicted with a set of best practices laid out by the International Association of Property Evidence, which offers police agencies training related to the handling and disposal of law enforcement property and evidence.

City Attorney Joel Stern said earlier this month Walp's decision to Dispose of the firearms didn't violate city policy because Apache Junction didn't have any established guidelines.

HEADLINE: Cops eyed in drug thefts; Stolen evidence may taint future cases

The Boston police anti-corruption unit is investigating whether cops stole the drugs that are missing from a Hyde Park evidence warehouse – jeopardizing ongoing criminal cases in the latest embarrassing blow to a department already rocked by scandal.

Earlier this month, the Herald reported drugs had gone missing as police moved mountains of seized cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs from one section of the warehouse to another.

While some of those drugs were later found, acting police commissioner Al Goslin said at the time an audit was under way to determine whether more drugs had been stolen or were misplaced.

Late yesterday, Boston police acknowledged that drugs are in fact missing.

"As a result of the audit that had been ordered by the commissioner, anti-corruption is investigating and the audit continues," said police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.

Police would not say what quantity or kind of drugs are missing or how many prosecutions could be affected. Driscoll confirmed that only police officers and department employees have access to the warehouse and the anti-corruption unit is looking at whether someone with legal access stole the drugs.

Suffolk District Attorney spokesman Jake Wark would not comment on what steps prosecutors are taking to preserve criminal cases, but he said they are working with police.

Former prosecutor Jerry Leone, who is running for Middlesex District Attorney, said if drugs are destroyed in a fire or flood, prosecutors can use as evidence a written chain of custody, lab reports and police testimony to overcome that at trial. But if the evidence is tainted by theft or tampering, cases are harder to prove. "If it is corruption . . .the trial doesn't become about the fact that it's missing. It becomes a trial about the process and the people and the integrity of what is being represented to the court," he said. "If you have a cop who either lied about the evidence or stole evidence, that hurts the case itself, but it also gets tied to other cases that cop has handled."

The possibility a cop stole drugs hits a department reeling from federal drug conspiracy charges against three of its own, as well as charges against Officer Paul Durkin for allegedly shooting a fellow cop after a night of heavy drinking.

One veteran cop said last night it tarnishes the entire department.

"I think the biggest thing is when something like this hits the papers, you look at all the cars going by and you say to yourself, 'I wonder what these guys are thinking about me?'"he said. "Do the citizens still have confidence in you?"