HEADLINE: Bones believed lost in case of young murder victim

First, Jennifer Shafiq was killed by her parents, authorities say. Then her body was dumped by the side of the Long Island Expressway 17 years ago. And now, attorneys believe that federal investigators lost some of her remains.

Bones and teeth believed to belong to the 4-year-old girl, who was found 11 years ago buried in a shallow grave alongside the Long Island Expressway, have been lost, attorneys in the case against the child's parents said.

Khairual Abdul, 42, and her estranged husband, Parmjit Singh, 50, are charged with second-degree murder in the 1990 slaying of their daughter, Jennifer Shafiq. The girl's bones, along with a T-shirt that said "My heart belongs to Grandma," were discovered buried in Manorville in 1996.

Shortly after the discovery, Suffolk medical examiners sent two bones and two teeth from the girl to an FBI lab for DNA testing. Mitochondrial DNA taken from one of those bones helped lead to the arrest last year in California of the girl's parents, who are in jail awaiting trial. Mitochondrial DNA is less specific than regular DNA and is passed from mother to child. Prosecutors say Abdul violently shook the child and threw her to the ground, killing her, and that Singh helped discard her remains.

Abdul's attorney, Mary Elizabeth Abbate of Deer Park, said after repeated requests to have the bones produced for testing by defense experts, prosecutors recently said in court that the bones had been lost by the FBI. They include a rib, a humerus bone and two teeth, Abbate said.

"I think it's carelessness," Abbate said.

FBI officials did not comment on the accusations yesterday.

Robert Clifford, spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office, confirmed yesterday that the bones were lost by the FBI but added that new DNA tests were being conducted on other bones "to render the FBI unnecessary to this prosecution."

Meanwhile, Abbate has filed a motion seeking to keep out of evidence any of the DNA findings from the missing bones, arguing that the defense will never be able to conduct its own tests and possibly find evidence exonerating Abdul.

"The lost items are of a significant value to the defense. ... Without the independent analysis, the defendant is devoid of any means of verifying the evidence against her and possibly refute the evidence," Abbate wrote in the motion, which is expected to be decided by Suffolk County Court Judge C. Randall Hinrichs this week.

Abbate said that documents show that the bones made their way from the FBI's New York offices to Miami and back to New York before they were last accounted for in 1996.

Despite the apparent disappearance, several other bones still remain in Suffolk officials' custody. However, defense attorneys said they would oppose further DNA testing, in part because it would not give them enough time to properly examine the results before a trial is scheduled to begin next month. 

Abbate has disputed that the DNA test results ever linked her client to the remains found in Manorville, instead saying that they only indicated that Abdul could not be ruled out as a maternal relative.

Both Abbate and Singh's attorney, Frank Murphy of Sayville, said the missing bones illustrate the overall mishandling of the case by authorities. Both noted that a jawbone found among the remains had also disappeared until prosecutors said in court that it turned up on a shelf in the county medical examiner's office earlier this year.

"These things are just all over the place," Abbate said.

HEADLINE: Prosecutor's Trial On Missing Drugs Begins

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Jeff TeKippe Faces Charges

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- The trial for a former Pottawattamie County official facing drug charges began Wednesday afternoon in Council Bluffs.

Jeff TeKippe, a former prosecutor, was fired from his job in February and accused of allegedly mishandling evidence. He's charged with seven felonies, all related to the theft of cocaine or marijuana evidence in criminal cases.

After seating a jury, the prosecution opened by outlining the charges. Prosecutors said that police found cocaine residue in TeKippe's home in bags and on scales, as well as in his county office on a picture frame.

TeKippe is being accused of theft in nine drug cases. In seven of them, prosecutors said, all of the cocaine evidence is missing. In two of the cases, the attorney said, TeKippe replaced the drugs with flour.

In opening arguments for the defense, Dave Richter said his client had too much going on in 2006 as he worked on some murder trials and threw the evidence away because he did not have time to check it back into the county's evidence room. Richter also claimed that TeKippe threw away other drugs, including methamphetamine and marijuana, along with pipes and other paraphernalia. TeKippe, in each case, claims he was so busy and didn't have time to return the evidence.

Richter said prosecutors are trying to make TeKippe out to be a cocaine addict, and he said that isn't true.

The first witness is expected to be called on Thursday morning.

HEADLINE: More questions in Medford case

ASHEVILLE   Was the mishandling of evidence at the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office negligent sloppiness or outright theft?

The answer to that question could be crucial in determining whether laws were broken by officers in the administration of former Sheriff Bobby Medford, a legal expert says.

If a State Bureau of Investigation probe finds that firearms, drugs or money were taken from evidence rooms for personal use or gain, larceny or conspiracy charges could result. 

"It's very important to figure out if this was done intentionally or was just some sort of negligence on the part of the sheriff's office," said Kami Chavis Simmons, a former federal prosecutor who teaches criminal procedure and legal ethics at Wake Forest University School of Law.

A transition audit conducted by the county finance department after Medford's defeat in November by challenger Van Duncan found that the faulty processing and storage of property seized during Medford's 12-year tenure could compromise convictions and future court cases.

It found that $217,769 in cash was missing, and more than 300 firearms could not be located, proved to have been destroyed or returned to their owner by court order.

In addition, marijuana, cocaine, crack and pills listed on 1,318 evidence entry sheets could not be located or proved to have been destroyed by court order, and bags containing drugs were open with some or all of their contents missing.

The audit prompted District Attorney Ron Moore to request the SBI investigation.

Moore said there's no way to know when the agency's report will be finished, and he wouldn't speculate on what charges could result.

Possible police corruption

Simmons said if investigators find that guns were taken by officers, theft charges could be filed.

"The evidence doesn't belong to them," she said. "It's not their gun to take. It's in the custody of the sheriff's office. You're talking about police corruption-type things. They certainly could be prosecuted."

Likewise, evidence that drugs were taken, and not just lost or mislabeled, could be grounds for criminal prosecutions, Simmons said.

"If you can prove that they stole them, that's theft," she said. "And if you can prove that they sold them, that's distribution."

Vic Hansen, a professor of law at New England School of Law in Boston, agreed.

"It will really depend on whether (investigators) conclude this was negligent conduct or mismanagement on the part of the sheriff's department that may not rise to the level of criminal charges," he said.

But if they find that drugs or money were pilfered by employees, that could undermine the integrity of the department, Hansen said.

"It could be hugely damaging to pending cases and past cases as well as the overall operation of the law enforcement agency," he said.

Moore unaware of compromised cases

Moore said he's not aware of any previous court cases that have been compromised by the mishandling of evidence at the sheriff's office, and only time will tell if future cases will be.

It's important to understand that vast majority of cases his office handles result in guilty pleas, and court officials never see the evidence, Moore said.

Prosecutors try 40 to 60 cases a year, he said.

If police seized a pound of marijuana and $10,000 from a suspect, for example, and the defendant pleads guilty, the drugs and money wouldn't be needed in court, Moore said.

"So there is not anything we would have known one way or the other if there was some issue with the evidence," he said.  It could be that the mishandled evidence was no longer needed because it was for cases that had already been closed. County auditor Sonia Burgin said auditors couldn't discern whether the evidence was related to open or closed cases.

But if the tainted evidence is for cases yet to be prosecuted, that could make convictions more difficult, Simmons said.   In jury trials, officers often must demonstrate that a proper chain of custody was followed in the handling of evidence.

"It's going to make it very difficult in front of a jury for the prosecution to make their case if the defense can show the chain of custody was somehow broken," she said. "The jurors are not going to have confidence in the evidence if a defense attorney can show the evidence was mislabeled or mishandled in any way."Prosecutors are required to notify defense attorneys if there are problems with evidence that is considered material and exculpatory, meaning the evidence is relevant to the case and would tend to show the defendant's innocence, she said.

EVIDENCE ROOM PROBLEMS: WHAT HAPPENED?An audit by the Buncombe County Finance Department of the handling of evidence during the administration of former Sheriff Bobby Medford showed missing money, drugs and firearms.

The report prompted District Attorney Ron Moore to request a criminal probe of the matter by the State Bureau of Investigation.  The audit said the processing and storage of property and evidence during Medford's 12-year tenure were so faulty that convictions and future court cases could be compromised.

Among the findings:

• $217,769 could not be accounted for or proved to have been turned over to the appropriate state or federal agency. Evidence bags containing cash were found on the floor and mixed with other items. Loose cash was found on the floor and on shelves.
• 223 handguns and 114 rifles and shotguns could not be located, proved to have been destroyed or returned to their owner by court order.
• Marijuana, cocaine, crack and pills listed on 1,318 evidence entry sheets could not be located or proved to have been destroyed by court order. Large blocks of marijuana were found on shelves with no identification markings or case numbers. Bags containing drugs were open with some or all of the contents missing.
• 16 rape kits were not labeled with name, bar code number or case number to link the assaults to the victims.
• Evidence bags with contents missing, evidence bags containing items with no identification numbers, evidence with entry sheets attached that were never entered into the inventory database and many loose evidence items with no identifying numbers.
• About 75 percent of the evidence stored in the rooms was in such poor condition that the integrity of the evidence was in doubt.

The State Bureau of Investigation will issue a report on its findings to Moore. Moore will determine whether charges are merited.Evidence Room Audit