HEADLINE:  Former police officer sentenced to five years in prison 

DATELINE:  BATON ROUGE La

Former police officer Daryl Davis was sentenced to five years in prison for selling evidence seized in an arrest. 

State District Judge Bonnie Jackson said Davis cultivated the most sinister of relationships - a friendship between a police officer and a known drug dealer. 

"Your actions are just indefensible given your position in the community," Jackson told Davis. "When the police commit criminal acts, then it makes it very difficult for anyone to have confidence in the criminal justice system." 

Davis, 38, shook his head no when Jackson asked him if he wanted to say anything in court. His attorney, Robert Randolph, said Davis maintains his innocence and plans to appeal. 
Jackson convicted Davis of obstruction of justice and public bribery last year. 

Davis was accused of taking a cell phone cloning device from the Police Department's evidence room in 1998 and selling it back to Charlie Davison, the man from whom it was seized. He also allegedly helped an evidence room student worker and her boyfriend steal a gun that was evidence in a related case. 

Davis was fired from the Police Department last summer for refusing to answer questions posed by Internal Affairs investigators. 

At Davis' trial, Davison testified that he and the officer were friends. 

Police arrested Davison in June 1998 and took marijuana, $7,000 in cash, a gun, cellular phones, a pager and a cellular phone cloning device from him. A cloning device is used to program cellular phones so unauthorized calls can be made on other people's accounts. 

Davison said he asked Davis about getting the illegal cloning device back. A few weeks later, Davis stopped by his house and returned the device, Davison testified. Davison said he gave Davis $1,000 for retrieving the device. 

Davis denied returning it to Davison. He testified that he only told Davison he might talk to the District Attorney's Office on his behalf in exchange for information on another case. 

Last year, Davison pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession of a firearm with a controlled dangerous substance. The charges stem from his 1998 arrest. Davison was sentenced to five years in prison the same sentence Davis received Monday. 

HEADLINE:  Sheriff says stolen drugs were not in evidence room 

DATELINE:  PITTSBORO

Chatham County Sheriff Ike Gray acknowledged Friday that more than 3,000 pounds of marijuana stolen from the department last year had not been stored inside the headquarters 
office before it was taken. 

The cubic bundles of weed couldn't all fit in the evidence room after deputies confiscated it, Gray said. So they put the drugs elsewhere on the premises; Gray declined to say exactly where. The entire stash was valued at $ 5 million. 

"It was not in the actual sheriff's office," said Gray. "It was on our premises. I certainly don't want anybody to think that anyone here is involved." 

Gray revealed this week that the department was missing more than $ 3 million worth of marijuana, after keeping the news under wraps for five months. About 5,000 pounds of weed was confiscated by deputies during a drug bust last February near Siler City. 

The 2,000 pounds of marijuana that remained after the theft was disposed of shortly after deputies determined that the marijuana had disappeared, he said, per department policy. "I'm 
really not sure how they actually disposed of it," Gray said. Two Chatham County commissioners are questioning the department's handling of the case. 

"I am concerned someone was goofball enough to allow it to sit around long enough to have it get stolen," said commissioners' Chairman Gary Phillips. "Somebody somewhere made a mistake, obviously. There's some local responsibility there." 

Gray briefed the county commissioners on the mystery of the missing marijuana in closed session two weeks ago at the request of the county manager, Phillips said. The FBI was investigating 
the case, Gray told the commissioners, and an agent had said there was no reason to suspect that anyone in the department was implicated. 

County Commissioner Rick Givens said there's little the commissioners can do about the situation. 

"I think it's a shame that we're finding out about this now when it's been missing for quite a while," he said. "I'm very concerned. But unfortunately the Sheriff's Department is a separate authority." 

Gray declined to say exactly how the marijuana was secured, or who had access to it. He said he may explore establishing a more stringent policy for seizing and storing evidence. 

"It could be something that we look at down in the future to prevent this from happening," Gray said. 

Gray was deputy sheriff at the time of the drug bust. The commissioners appointed him sheriff in December after the surprise retirement of former Sheriff Donald J. Whitt. 

Whitt, whose four-year term ended in 2002, announced his retirement in late November, citing a weak heart. He could not be reached for comment Friday. 

The county's largest drug bust took place Feb. 8, 2000, after deputies discovered about 2.5 tons of marijuana at a house and barn on Wade Pascal Road three miles southwest of Siler City. The weed, plastic-wrapped and coated in grease to mask its odor, may have come from Mexico. At least three men escaped the raid, driving away in a tractor-trailer before deputies could stop them. Gray said he didn't think those men were ever found. 

Deputies initially charged an Asheboro man and a Georgia man with felony trafficking in marijuana, but those charges were dismissed last year so the men could be prosecuted on the federal level, said Orange-Chatham District Attorney Carl Fox. 

FBI officials in Charlotte did not return calls Friday. 

HEADLINE: EX-SHERIFF FACES DRUG CHARGE 

Charges have been filed against former Fremont County Sheriff Dave King accusing him of ingesting cocaine he stole from his department's evidence locker. 

Five months before resigning, King was hospitalized for kidney and liver failure May 28 after using the cocaine for three days, according to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. King declined comment.