SECTION: CONNECTICUT; Pg. B1 

LENGTH: 1760 words 

HEADLINE: MARQUIS VIEWS FIRST YEAR AS CHALLENGE;
WITH DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS, DISSENT AMONG RANK-AND-FILE OFFICERS, BUDGET CUTS AND THE UNFORTUNATE SHOOTING OF TAKIRA GASTON, THE NEW POLICE CHIEF GOT OFF TO A ROUGH START. 

BYLINE: TINA A. BROWN And MATT BURGARD; Courant Staff Writers 

Hartford Police Chief Bruce P. Marquis is completing his first year on the job Tuesday , and his fingerprints are everywhere at police headquarters.

Spit-shined shoes, starched uniforms and showing up to work on time are now the order of the day for Hartford's 415 sworn officers. HPD's floors are polished, and even plainclothes detectives are now required to wear ties. 

But while some officers grumble that the changes are mere window dressing to conceal the department's many flaws, the chief sees them as the first step to an institutional overhaul. If nothing else, Marquis, 49, wants his understaffed, underpaid and often discontented cops to act professionally.

"Some of the officers may see these changes as superficial, but to me, they are critical," he said. "For the public, first impressions are lasting impressions."

Last Dec. 4, the former FBI agent with a doctorate took over a police force that had been disgraced by the arrests of more than two dozen officers in recent years, including seven charged with sexually abusing women while on duty.

There was a nagging public perception that rogue cops, often divided on racial lines, had taken over and were devouring police chiefs.

He adopted a get-tough approach and has disciplined 121 officers and 109 civilian employees in his first 12 months.

"They'll just have to take their medicine," Marquis, the former police chief of the Houston school district, declared soon after his arrival. "I don't play politics."

After a year of victories and setbacks, Marquis stands out as a different kind of police chief in Hartford. Unlike his predecessors, he was quick to come clean when one of his own violated the public trust. He called a press conference Nov. 7 to announce the arrest of Officer William Medina on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman while on duty.

 "I'm not sweeping anything under the carpet," Marquis said.

Marquis says the job has proven to be every bit as demanding as he expected.

"I knew going in that it was going to be rough, but I have no regrets," he said. "I don't know if I can say I've been particularly happy this year, but I've certainly been challenged, and sometimes that's what life is about."

The hardest part, Marquis said, has been working and living in Hartford while his wife Traci and two children remain in Houston. The family has not found a buyer for their house, and Marquis now thinks it will take another six months before his family joins him.

"That has been especially stressful, not only emotionally but financially as well," said Marquis, who travels back home at least once a month.

While many officers and community leaders say Marquis is off to a good start, he has been criticized for distancing himself from street-level officers. He doesn't even carry a police radio, one officer grumbles.

The low point in his relationship with officers came in August after respected Officer Emory Hightower had a confrontation with Mayor Michael P. Peters outside a community meeting. Peters hurled obscenities at Hightower for blocking the street with his cruiser and the officer was prepared to arrest him when Assistant Chief Louis Vega arrived and allowed the mayor to drive away.

Afterward, Marquis attributed officers' claims about the mayor's behavior to macho locker-room talk and backed Vega. The police union denounced the chief.

"I think he was making a lot of progress until that incident, which really did a lot of damage to his relationship with the everyday officers," said Sgt. Michael Wood, head of the Hartford police union. "He developed a reputation as a chief who was kind of aloof, someone who relied too much on his command staff and not enough on the officers on the street. But I think he learned from it, and I think things are moving forward again."

Marquis agreed that he needs to spend more time with patrol officers, saying he plans to hold an informal discussion with the rank-and-file officers in coming months.

"So much of my day is tied up on paperwork and meetings, so I don't blame the officers if they think they never see me," he said.

Some officers say Marquis has missed opportunities to promote minorities to supervisory posts in the largely white department. "It says that if you are white, you are qualified," one supervisor said.

But Marquis insists that he doesn't make hiring decisions based upon race. "I'm not the black chief," said Marquis, who is African American.  "I have to be chief of this entire department."

Marquis says his critics, particularly within the department, haven't given him credit for putting new patrol cars on the street, cracking down on crime and hiring more than 20 clerical workers to reduce paperwork.

"You could give those guys a $1 million and a new car, and they'd complain about the color of the car," Marquis said.

Those who work closest with him say the chief has restored respect for the chain of command and principled leadership.

"His strong suit is his integrity," said Assistant Chief William Reilly, who has worked under five permanent and two interim police chiefs in Hartford. "You can trust him and he does what is right."

Steven M. Harris, an outgoing city council member, agrees.

"The main thing is, he's been consistent," Harris said. "If you screw up, you will be slapped for it, no matter who you are, black or white, veteran or rookie. That's important."

Some officers say Marquis has brought stability and professionalism to HPD.

"Before he arrived, it just seemed like every day we were getting hit with some new crisis or something that was giving us a black eye," said Capt. Mark Pawlina. "Morale was awfully low, but I can see that changing now."

Community activist Jackie Fongemie said Marquis won over many residents when he reopened neighborhood police substations and attended numerous community meetings.

"He's very good at listening to our concerns and providing feedback, which is something we never used to get," she said.

But the chief can also be condescending, she said.

"I remember at one meeting, he said we were all being hysterical about the level of crime going on, and I didn't like that much," she said. "He can be dismissive."

Marquis admits that a rise in violent crime in the city in the spring, including a string of brazen, daytime shootings, caught him off-guard. He had ordered sweeps to crack down on illegal guns, drug dealing and violent crime when the largest crisis of his tenure hit on July 4.

That day, 7-year-old Takira Gaston was hit in the face by a wayward bullet in the North End. The shooting prompted Gov. John G. Rowland to offer state troopers to patrol the streets with Marquis' officers. The four-month crackdown cut crime by 10 percent from the same period the previous year.

Still, Marquis said crime in the city will continue to be a problem until the city addresses conditions that are beyond the police department's control.

"We need to do a better job educating our children and bringing businesses into the city to provide more jobs," he said. "When you have people living in poor conditions, you're going to have crime, no matter how many police officers you have."

In his second year on the job, he says he wants the department to rewrite its rules and procedures, beef up hiring and fix chronic problems in the records and property rooms. He said he's made HPD more accountable and improved relations with residents.

"I think ... people realize we're on their side," he said. "We're here to serve."

A YEAR OF VICTORIES AND SETBACKS

Dec. 4, 2000 -- Bruce P. Marquis takes over as Hartford's police chief. Some officers welcome him, but others, who were never identified, egg his city-issued car.

Jan. 4, 2001 -- Marquis makes his first bold proposal, suggesting that the city's emergency dispatch center should be privatized to make it more professional. By years' end, it still hasn't happened.

Jan. 18, 2001 -- Marquis and state and federal law enforcement officials temporarily close three downtown Hartford nightclubs because of Ecstasy use. The clubs later reopen under strict regulations.

Feb. 9, 2001 -- Marquis suspends an officer and a sergeant over the doctoring of a photograph of two black officers that made it look like one of them was wearing a Ku Klux Klan hat.

Feb. 20, 2001 -- Marquis reopens the department's south and north district substations, drawing applause from residents at a community meeting.

March 7, 2001 -- Marquis privately bristles when told he'll have to cut his budget because of a city fiscal crisis. He says he wasn't warned of budget problems when he took the job.

April-May, 2001 -- With an increase in brazen, daylight shootings, Marquis orders a crackdown on drug dealing, illegal guns and violence in the city.

July 3, 2001 -- In a shakeup designed to improve department supervision, Marquis appoints four new assistant chiefs, winning a fight with city leaders to hire two outsiders for the posts.

July 4, 2001 -- Marquis faces his first crisis on the job when Takira Gaston, a 7-year-old girl playing outside a Fourth of July cookout, is hit in the face by a wayward bullet fired in an apparent dispute between rival drug dealers. A few days later, he cries at her bedside but isn't pleased when word leaks out.

July 12, 2001 -- Marquis accepts an offer from Gov. John G. Rowland to have state troopers help his force reduce violence in the city. Some officers say the chief and other city leaders should instead focus on hiring more local cops.

July 24, 2001-- A team of 30 troopers begin patrolling the streets with city officers. The investigation into the Takira shooting is initially stalled as police fail to find reliable witnesses to identify the shooter or shooters involved. But officers later charge one man in the crime.

Aug. 17, 2001 -- Reports of shootings and drug dealing are down in the city.

Aug. 29, 2001 -- Marquis deals a serious blow to his relationship with the department's rank and file when he backs his new assistant chief over a seasoned street cop in a flap with Mayor Michael P. Peters.

Oct. 18, 2001 -- Marquis learns from a city auditor that as much as $280,000 in cash remains unaccounted for in the department's embattled property room.

Nov. 7, 2001 -- Marquis announces the arrest of Officer William Medina, who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman while on duty. The chief says Medina's conduct will not be tolerated, but the arrest revives questions about the behavior of Hartford officers.

-- Compiled by Courant Staff Writer Matt Burgard

SECTION: LOCAL, Pg.B-5 EAST 

LENGTH: 702 words 

One of the two Somerset County men accused of selling sick dogs from an unlicensed kennel is a state trooper.

Jeanne Martin, a spokeswoman for the state police in Greensburg, confirmed yesterday that Trooper David A. Holtzman, who is based at the Somerset barracks, is a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed Monday by state Attorney General Mike Fisher.

Holtzman and Timothy B. Schliesser, both of Somerset, are accused of using false ads, documents and names to sell puppies to at least 20 people in 14 states from 1999 through this year. Most of the dogs were pugs, cockapoos and bulldogs. 

Fisher alleges that the men misrepresented the health of the dogs and failed to tell buyers about their rights in violation of the state's Puppy Lemon Law.

Holtzman and Schliesser could not be reached for comment.

State police will not investigate the allegations against Holtzman unless the attorney general proves that he violated state laws. If a judge or jury finds Holtzman did violate a state law, the state police would conduct an internal investigation.

Sgt. Patrick Madigan of the Somerset barracks said Holtzman joined the state police in November 1991.

A Greensburg man pleaded guilty to three attacks, including one against his pregnant girlfriend, and was sentenced to 11 1/2 to 23 months in the Westmoreland County Prison yesterday.

Dameian L. Williams apologized for the attacks. He told Common Pleas Judge Debra A. Pezze that he was particularly sorry for kicking the pregnant Southwest Greensburg woman in the stomach.

Assistant District Attorney Patricia Elliott said Williams, 30, was offered a plea bargain because none of his victims would testify against him.

The most recent attack occurred in June. State police said Williams entered a Derry Township woman's home and subjected her to dangerous and degrading physical and sexual acts. The more serious charges were dropped several days later when the victim refused to testify at a preliminary hearing.

Williams, who has a lengthy criminal history, attacked his girlfriend in May and assaulted a man during a dispute at a Greensburg convenience store in April.

Testimony began yesterday in the Westmoreland County homicide trial of Doyle B. Daniel Jr., who is accused of killing Edward "Lo" Jones.

Daniel, 33, of Arnold, is charged with first-degree murder, criminal homicide, carrying a gun without a license and reckless endangerment in the Jan. 6, 2000, death of Jones, 22, of New Kensington.

Witness Jennifer Price told the jury that she was in Sha Kei's Place, a New Kensington tavern, that night and Jones was sitting at the bar when Daniel entered.

She said Daniel walked up to Jones, said hello and then began to shoot. She said she heard four or five shots.

Jones was wounded twice in an arm, once in the back and once in the neck.

A former State College-area police detective was sentenced in Centre County Common Pleas Court yesterday to 11 1/2 to 23 1/2 months in jail for stealing $3,490 from a police evidence room.

Robert McClure, 39, resigned from the Ferguson Township Police Department last December. Investigators said he stole the money to cover gambling debts. He subsequently repaid the money.

The sentence was suspended while McClure files an appeal.

A former Penn State University student was sentenced yesterday to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail and faces deportation to his native Vietnam for an episode last year where he walked in on 13 coeds as they slept in their University Park dormitory rooms, fondling some and harassing others.

Hung Troung, 22, a junior from Harrisburg until Penn State expelled him, was drunk after partying with friends and began walking randomly into dorm rooms, police said. The sentencing raised the possibility of deportation, although federal officials said no decision has been made.

Council last night approved a $486,200 budget last night, which keeps the tax rate at 14.6 mills. 

SECTION: Pg. 1 

LENGTH: 1398 words 

HEADLINE: Agencies Making Due Despite Lost Evidence; Narcotics and Contraband Destroyed at Customs House 

BYLINE: By Daniel Wise 

While the nation's attention is riveted on the efforts to recover the remains of more than 3,000 persons who perished in the attack on the World Trade Center, federal law enforcement officials are keeping a close eye on the recovery work for a different purpose: to see if criminal evidence stored in the doomed complex can be retrieved.

U.S. Customs Service agents are at ground zero continuously, and are also sifting through the debris after it is carted to the Fresh Kills landfill, said Joseph R. Webber, the head of 225 law enforcement officers assigned to the Custom Service's New York office.

So far, the recovery efforts are proceeding well, reported Mr. Webber, the special agent in charge of the Customs Service's policing operations in the metropolitan area. A "great deal" of the evidence that was missing after the destruction of the U.S. Customs House at Six World Trade Center has been recovered, Mr. Webber said. 

The fifth floor of the Customs House, where most of the agents had their offices, contained three evidence rooms. In addition, the ground floor of the building held a large evidence storage room containing narcotics and other contraband, which covered about one-third of a city block. The loss of evidence in the attack has not caused any problems for pending criminal cases in the Eastern District of New York, said Andrew Weissman, chief of criminal division of the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's Office. Immediately after the attack, Mr. Weissman said, he canvassed the office's assistants, who reported that about 10 cases had been affected.

In those cases, most of them involving narcotics, Mr. Weissman said, either lab reports were used in place of the missing narcotics evidence or agents had access to notes that could be used to refresh their recollection.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York did not respond to requests for comments.

Other sources, however, depicted the recovery effort as far more problematic. One source reported that "better than half" of the evidence kept at the Customs House had been destroyed. The source added that the loss of physical evidence "will likely imperil many investigations," and that several investigations involving the seizure of illegal goods, now lost, had been seriously compromised.

Mr. Webber said, however, that priorities have been set to assure the most serious cases are not affected. So far, he said, he was aware of no pending prosecutions in either the Southern or Eastern Districts that had been adversely affected.

The search for lost evidence is likely to continue until mid-January, Mr. Webber added. With efforts to reconstruct evidence concentrated in the most serious cases, a final assessment of the damage to pending matters will not be available until mid-February.

The Customs office in New York had "several hundred" open criminal investigation at the time of the attack, said Kenneth Kluge, the deputy special agent in charge of the office. Those cases consisted of pending investigations as well as prosecutions filed in the Southern and Eastern Districts.

About 30 law enforcement agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), whose primary mission was to interdict illegal arms trading, had offices one floor above the interagency task force on the sixth floor of the Customs House. Some of the guns seized by ATF agents, which were stored in two evidence vaults on the sixth floor, have yet to be recovered, said Joseph Green, an ATF spokesman.

Mr. Green expressed confidence that agents would be able to provide direct testimony, or use documents that had been preserved in the ATF's off-site computer system, to overcome problems caused by the loss of the guns.

The loss of documents has forced a huge reallocation of resources to preserve civil law enforcement cases, said ATF's Assistant Chief Counsel Jeffrey A. Cohen. None of the documents collected by Mr. Cohen and three other AFT lawyers working on civil enforcement matters were backed up on an off-site computer, Mr. Green said.

As a consequence, he reported spending two months recreating a file "from scratch" in a $ 1 million tax collection case involving alcohol. New document subpoenas had to be obtained and new interviews with defendants and witnesses had to be conducted. Mr. Green acknowledged, though, that it is "more difficult to obtain damaging admissions" on a second go-around after the defendants have "gotten their story straight."

The U.S. Secret Service, which also had offices at the Customs House, declined to comment on whether its law enforcement operations had been affected.

The largest component of law enforcement work at the Customs House involved the interagency task force, whose mission is to investigate international money laundering. The task force consists of 40 Customs agents and 115 agents from the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York City Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies.

The remaining 70 Customs Service agents worked on a variety of matters including narcotics, international organized crime, terrorism, art theft, intellectual property crimes, child pornography and the counterfeiting of commercial products.

The large ground-floor storeroom held narcotics and other forms of contraband seized during investigations. In addition, materials confiscated by Customs agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport were kept in that storeroom pending the conclusion of an investigation. 
Materials seized by agents at Newark International Airport are stored at a facility located there.
The fifth floor evidence rooms held all types of physical evidence, including undercover tapes, wiretap records, currency, seized computers, and companies' books and records.

Mr. Webber reported good success at recovering narcotics that had been stored in a vault, about 50 feet by 50 feet, which was maintained within the large ground-floor storage room. The cinder-block vault was found cracked, but intact, a source reported.

As for the evidence stored on the fifth floor, the source said there was extensive damage. The heat was so intense, the source said, that portions of a gun stored inside a high-grade safe had been incinerated. Much of the paperwork generated by agents, including original notes, had been destroyed, the source added.

However, a good deal of the lost paperwork can be reconstructed, Mr. Webber said, because agents are required to file reports describing their actions on a case, and those reports are backed up on a computer in Washington, D.C.

Former federal prosecutors agreed that the reports could be useful in reconstructing records, and that new copies of business records obtained pursuant to grand jury subpoenas could be obtained. They added that laboratory reports can serve as an adequate substitute for missing physical evidence.

Nonetheless, said Paul Shechtman, a former chief of the criminal division in the Southern District and now a partner at Stillman & Friedman, "the credibility of the agent becomes much more important when the prosecution can't put the guns or drugs directly before the jury."

"The degree of difficulty in prosecuting a case goes up considerably, but a case is by no means untriable," he added.

On the flip side, Mr. Shechtman added, the loss of agents' original notes could benefit the prosecution by denying the defense access to impeachment material.

Mark F. Pomerantz, also a former chief of the criminal division in the Southern District, agreed that the problems created by the loss of evidence were more likely to be "more administrative and practical than legal."

But, he added, for cases still in the investigative phase, the loss of original records seized pursuant to a search warrant could be "dicey."

Similarly, Mr. Shechtman said the loss of undercover tapes, while a case was still being investigated, could create "a very difficult problem" for the prosecution where an informant's credibility is suspect.

Those problems do not exist once an indictment has been issued, he added, because agents routinely deliver undercover tapes at that point to the U.S. Attorney's Office to be made available to the defense in discovery, he added.

-- Tamara Loomis contributed to this story. 

SECTION: METRO; Pg. 23A 

LENGTH: 488 words 

HEADLINE: Audit: Police storage area running short on space Report suggests faster disposal of seized property, old evidence 

SOURCE: Staff Writer 

BYLINE: ROBERT THARP 

The Dallas police property room will run out of space unless authorities take aggressive measures to get rid of old evidence and seized property, a city audit released Monday found.

In the report, auditors recommend speeding up the disposal of stored items that are no longer needed by the courts. Police officials said they have already begun that process. 

The main problem, auditors say, is that new evidence flows in faster than old evidence can be destroyed. Evidence and property from approximately 12,000 drug and 50,000 property crime cases is stored in the warehouse each year.

Last year, the department disposed of items from only about 8,000 drug cases and 25,000 property crimes, auditors found.

At that rate, storage space will run out unless something is done, according to the report. Dallas police officials said they already have begun an aggressive disposal program and seized drug evidence should be at manageable levels by February.

Officials hope to have the rest of the inventory reduced by July.

To accomplish that, the department has assigned a lieutenant and three officers to focus on reducing the inventory.

Assistant Chief Thomas Ward, who oversees the property room, said the audit's recommendations are being embraced.

The audit found that property room workers used a cumbersome inventory system in which they must contact detectives to authorize the disposal of each piece of evidence.

Approximately 44,820 items have been in storage longer than six years and can be disposed of without fear of jeopardizing court cases. The statute of limitations for misdemeanors is two years and three years for felony drug possession charges.

A new inventory system attaches an electronic bar code that will simplify the process of tracking and disposing of the items.

"It's a much more efficient process," Chief Ward said.

The audit also recommends measures to ensure that money stored in the property room cannot be tampered with. Police officials are implementing more intensive supervision when counting and are using tamper-proof storage bags. Officials are also working to install cameras that can record activity in the room.

In December 1999, a large amount of money disappeared from a bundle of money turned over to authorities by a Duncanville couple who found the cash. The $ 13,000 discrepancy was discovered after the money was transferred from the property room vault to a bank for deposit.

Despite all the measures, some protections are out of the department's control. In November, an employee at a Terrell business that contracts with Dallas and other area cities to incinerate illegal drugs was arrested for stealing more than 5 pounds of marijuana destined for the incinerator.

Chief Ward said the incident was a concern, but the department had already initiated a new contract with a different incinerating firm before the incident was reported.

SECTION: METRO / SOUTH TEXAS; Pg. 2B 

LENGTH: 960 words 

HEADLINE: News Roundup 

SAN ANTONIO - The Battered Women's Shelter has received 25 cell phones from Sprint PCS and Motorola for the shelter's Call to Protect program, which puts the telephones in the hands of women living in danger and fear. Next week, the shelter will program the phones to call only the 911 emergency line and the shelter's hot line. 

"The phone will be for emergency use only," said Joyce Coleman, the executive director for Family Violence Prevention Services Inc., which operates the shelter. "We have all kinds of situations where there's someone threatening and banging on doors, stalking. And this can be a lifeline in some of these situations." 

A committee of City Public Service trustees approved a pay raise Monday for interim General Manager Milton Lee and issued a timetable to permanently fill the position within six months. 

Lee, who was appointed to the interim position Nov. 1 after the retirement of former General Manager Jamie Rochelle, would receive a $230,000 annual salary beginning Jan. 1. 

The personnel committee of the CPS board also voted to give Lee back pay from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 based on a $210,000 annual salary. Lee had been making $192,920 per year as senior vice president for electric transmission and distribution systems. 

As part of the moves, committee members also tapped Fidel Marquez Jr. to fill Lee's senior vice president position. Marquez is now vice president of transmission, substation and engineering. 

Unless there is opposition, the changes officially take effect at Friday's CPS board meeting. 

CPS Chairman Alvaro Sanchez Jr. said the search will include all of the utility's senior vice presidents, including Lee, and four or five outside candidates. 

Celebrate the holidays at The Westin La Cantera Resort's "Legendary Holidays" offered every day through Dec. 24 from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. at 16641 La Cantera Parkway. 

Starting at sundown at El Fortin Lawn, the free event takes participants on a walking tour through Texas legend and lore, offering stories and song. 

There also are activities for the children, including ornament making and cookie decorating. 

For more information, call (210) 558-6500. 

TEXAS 

The Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District has granted a rehearing to the Houston-area man who was denied permits for wells intended, in part, to fill a large pond on his ranch in Kerr County. 

The rehearing was approved by a split vote of district directors last week. No date has been set for the rehearing. 

The board unanimously denied William Wilson two well permits on Nov. 14, citing the potential waste of water due to evaporation and seepage from the 50-million-gallon pond. 

In requesting the rehearing, Wilson's attorney, Will Jones IV, wrote in a Nov. 27 letter that "several incorrect statements were made regarding the law and the facts, and we believe that it will be in the best interests of all parties if those are corrected." 

FLOWER MOUND - State Sen. Jane Nelson has decided to run for re-election and not for the U.S. House seat Majority Leader Dick Armey has said he will vacate at the end of next year. 

In a news release, Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said she decided to remain in the Legislature to use her experience and Senate seniority to help Texas and her suburban Dallas district. 

Her decision removes the only solid Republican primary challenge so far to Denton County Judge Scott Armey, son of the incumbent. Armey, 32, formed a committee last week to explore his prospective congressional bid. 

DALLAS - New evidence is flowing into the police property room faster than old evidence can be destroyed, and Dallas police run the risk of running out of room, a city audit shows. 

Police say they're working on the problem, and seized drug evidence should be at manageable levels by February 2002. 

About 44,820 items have been in storage longer than six years and can be disposed of without fear of jeopardizing court cases whose statute of limitations have long since run out, according to the Dallas Morning News. 

AUSTIN - Gary Johnson, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, has appointed Bryan Collier to director of the agency's parole division, overseeing 78,000 parolees. 

Collier, 36, rose through the ranks from field parole officer to head the executive administration section of the parole division. He replaces Victor Rodriguez, who resigned to become McAllen police chief. 

The parole division director administers an annual budget of about $170 million and oversees nearly 2,700 employees. 

Collier's appointment to the $84,452 a year job is effective Jan. 1. 

DALLAS - The Dallas School District must start over in its process to form a new district voting map because some previous discussions were held behind closed doors, a state district judge ruled Tuesday. 

Civil District Judge Catharina Haynes' ruling is a boost to plaintiffs, who want the district to create at least one more Latino-majority voting district. 

Haynes previously ruled that school trustees illegally discussed the redistricting process behind closed doors on several occasions, and that the board did not properly alert the public to an Oct. 1 meeting where the trustees adopted their plan. 

 - From staff and wire reports 

SECTION: News; Pg. 7-B;S 

LENGTH: 299 words 

HEADLINE: Judge to fight misconduct charges 

JACKSON, Miss. - A Hinds County judge said he will fight a reprimand sought by the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance over allegations he failed to return the property of a juvenile acquitted in his court. 

Justice Court Judge Joseph Lewis said he will fight the commission's charges of judicial misconduct. 

The commission filed the request with the Mississippi Supreme Court Nov. 15, about a month before the high court announced Dec. 13 its decision that Lewis be publicly reprimanded for discussing a pending liquor violation case with state officials outside the courtroom. "I accept that (decision)," Lewis said. 

The second allegation centers on Lewis' failing to return a .38-caliber pistol to a 16-year-old who appeared in his courtroom last April. 

The youth had the handgun at the time he was ticketed on charges of spotlighting deer, improper shot size and failure to dim headlights. The loaded pistol was in his pocket. 

Lewis said that, although the teen was acquitted and not charged with carrying a concealed weapon, he had a problem turning the gun over to a juvenile. 

Because the gun was registered in the name of the teen's mother, Lewis said he didn't feel it was legal to turn it over to the teen's father, either. 

"The loaded .38 concerned me, and I ordered it forfeited to the court," Lewis said. He said the pistol is still locked in the court's evidence room. Lewis said that unless he has been charged with "corruption, fraud or bad faith," the commission has no authority in the matter. 

Brant Brantley, executive director of the commission, disagrees. "The statute is crystal clear. (The gun) should have been returned to the defendant" regardless of his age, Brantley said. 
The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case next year. 

SECTION: MAIN NEWS; Pg. A1; INFOBOX 

LENGTH: 3284 words 

HEADLINE: Police room saga wrapped in enigma Some not interviewed in the Fresno case raise questions. 

BYLINE: Doug Hoagland THE FRESNO BEE 

State investigators cannot figure out what happened to the $240,000 and 11 pounds of cocaine missing since early 2000 from the Fresno Police Department's property room.

Investigators, however, did not interview the police sergeant who supervised the property room from 1996 to 2000 and had key information about the operation. They also did not talk to some former staffers who said they expected and wanted to be interviewed.

The sergeant and former staffers have revealed numerous troubling details to The Bee about the operation of the property room, including:

How hundreds of thousands of dollars were placed in easily accessible evidence envelopes. The envelopes were in a vault at police headquarters that remained open during business hours. 
Other envelopes with money were kept on shelves outside the vault. On one occasion, a set of envelopes contained $350,000. 

How $300,000, not $240,000, was initially thought to be missing. When police started looking for the missing money, cash was found in a police storage unit in southwest Fresno that a former property room supervisor said was not secure.

How a police cadet was found one night under suspicious circumstances in the property room at police headquarters. The sergeant found the cadet and says he turned the cadet over to Fresno police detectives, but he is not sure whether the detectives interviewed the cadet.

The cadet told The Bee on Friday that he did not take anything from the property room, but refused to say what he was doing there.

How the sergeant responded in such a lackadaisical fashion to the missing cocaine that he says he was suspended, but only for three days.

In mid-October, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer received a two-page letter from the California Department of Justice stating it was "improbable" that those responsible for the missing cash and cocaine would be found. The reasons included lack of records and uncontrolled access to items in the property room.

Michael Stanford of the California Bureau of Investigation, which did the investigation for the state Department of Justice, would not comment except to say the case remains open.

Dyer called the state's findings "unfortunate" and said he was hoping for "concrete information."
He did not question the thoroughness of the state investigation, calling it "extensive" and "thorough," but he also believed that "every person that ever worked in that property room in the last several years ... was brought in and interviewed."

When told that was not true, Dyer voiced confidence in the Justice Department: "I really try not to second-guess investigators because that's their expertise." But he added it is "interesting" that the sergeant who supervised the unit in the late 1990s -- who also found the cadet hiding in the property room and brought forward information that the $240,000 was missing -- had not been interviewed by state investigators.

Michael Van Winkle, spokesman for the California Department of Justice, could not pinpoint the number of people contacted by investigators. He said investigators do not always interview "every single person known to be part of a ... situation." Yet he conceded that not interviewing the key sergeant might appear nonsensical.

News reports of the missing cash and cocaine rocked the Police Department beginning in January 2000.

The reports focused attention on the property and evidence unit, which stored cash, drugs and other evidence in criminal cases at three sites: the property room in the basement of police headquarters, a warehouse in central Fresno and the storage unit in southwest Fresno.

The story of the missing drugs and money broke only days after five teen-age boys burglarized a police bunker in the foothills that was loaded with explosives. The boys were soon caught, and the explosives recovered.

The convergence of events created the impression of a disorganized and troubled Police Department.

Then-Police Chief Ed Winchester blamed "sniveling malcontents" in the department for leaking to the media information about the missing property room items. In April 2000, he asked the California Department of Justice to investigate.

That is a common practice when law enforcement agencies do not believe they can conduct a fair and objective investigation, according to Van Winkle.

Winchester retired last summer, leaving Dyer -- who had been No. 2 in the department -- to finish cleaning up problems in the property room.

Dyer says the department has made progress, and he credits Winchester for starting the process. Steps include expanding the property room staff and putting new people in the positions.

Dyer considers a new staff essential. He says former staffers -- though he doesn't know which ones -- were responsible for one of three things: stealing, allowing outsiders to steal or failing to properly record the return of money or the destruction of drugs.

The Justice Department letter to Dyer said "traditional means of investigation had been exhausted" by Fresno police who initially tried to find out what happened.

So state investigators designed a special questionnaire "to elicit suspicious responses" from people who might be "less than truthful in their answers," according to the letter.

Written questions included:

"Do you know who stole any of the money?"

"Did you do it?"

"Did you take part in the theft?"

"Should we believe your answers to the questions?"

A cover letter included this statement about answers to the questions: "Every word is important and each one might be checked later on."

The Justice Department letter said the questionnaire was completed by people assigned to the property room in the past 10 years. The questionnaire established a 10-year time frame for a possible crime in the property room: January 1990 to January 2000.

Answers to the questionnaire were analyzed by specially trained agents in a profiling unit who tried to identify which employees needed additional interviews or lie-detector tests. "None of the questionnaires suggested any deception," the Justice Department letter said.

State investigators also took the names of more than 75 former and current employees in the property room and conducted a search of the Treasury Department's Currency and Banking Retrieval System. The system tracks suspicious currency deposits and transactions.

Investigators found no suspicious transactions. Running financial checks on 75 names convinced Dyer that the investigation "seemed pretty extensive." He also says a "substantial" number of people filled out the questionnaire, though he did not know details.

Several former property room staffers say they did not answer the questionnaire.

One of them, Sgt. Dennis Ball, was supervisor of the property room from August 1996 to March 2000. He is the sergeant who discovered the cadet and alerted top police officials that the money was missing.

Ball says he did not answer the questionnaire on the advice of his union, the Fresno Police Officers Association, and he never heard again from state investigators: "I think their investigation was a waste of time. The [cadet] who could have given us any information is long gone unless they track him down."

Ball says he found the cadet hiding, with the lights off, in the property room storage area at police headquarters. In that room, trays of evidence envelopes containing money were stacked on shelves. Ball found one of the trays off the shelf the day after he discovered the cadet. (Dyer says all cash is now kept in the vault.)

The cadet was turned over to police detectives, but Ball says "it didn't seem like they interviewed" the cadet. Which detectives? "Good grief, I don't remember," Ball says. He also does not remember whether he was interviewed by detectives.

Within days, the cadet was fired by then-Deputy Chief L.H. McDaniel, according to Ball.
McDaniel, who retired, has a murkier recollection of events. He says he doesn't know whether the cadet was fired or quit, but adds that only the chief of police -- Winchester, at the time -- could fire an employee.

Winchester did not return a telephone call seeking a comment about the cadet.

Friday, the cadet said he was not fired: "It was more of a release. ... It was a mutual type of thing because I didn't meet public standards."

He then added: "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," and confirmed the wrong place was the property room.

The cadet, who asked that his name not be used, would not comment on Ball's recollection of how he was discovered in the property room. However, the cadet says Ball searched him and found nothing.

But what was he doing in the property room? "I'm not going to respond," he says. "I don't feel I need to be interrogated again."

The cadet vacillates on whether Fresno police detectives interviewed him after Ball found him, first saying "no," and then "I don't know."

The cadet says he was living in another city when the news broke in January 2000 about the missing items in the property room. He now works in the Fresno area.

Other people with knowledge of the property room stopped working there for differing reasons and gave varying information to state investigators. They include:
Rhys Twitty, a civilian employee of the property room from 1987 to earlier this year. He quit and says he felt pressure to do so. Twitty says he was "naive" about what happens when police problems become public: "Everyone protects their backside."

He says he filled out the questionnaire and was interviewed by state investigators.
Twitty says he told them the "foremost" explanation for the missing money is poor record-keeping, although he could not provide specifics.

He also does not rule out the possibility of theft.

Some people who filled out the questionnaire listed sloppy paperwork when asked to explain what led to problems in the property room. Other explanations included poor security, unauthorized personnel or members of the public in the property storage area and a vault left open on a regular basis.

Gilbert Murrietta, another civilian employee. After working for 10 years in the property room, Murrietta was fired in 2000 for reasons unrelated to the missing items. He was involved in a minor traffic mishap while driving a city vehicle. Dyer says he cannot discuss Murrietta's case.
Murrietta did not fill out the questionnaire from state investigators because he considered some of the questions a form of "entrapment." He says he refused to answer questions in a face-to-face interview because the state investigator was "rude."

Of staff turnover in the property room, Murrietta says, "We believe they came up with a plan to get rid of each and every one of us."

Lowell Bleigh, a volunteer from 1993 to 2000. He worked in the property room at police headquarters and also at the warehouse in central Fresno. Bleigh started volunteering after he retired as an executive in tractor sales.

Volunteers were used in the property room because of a heavy workload and short staff, according to Dyer. The practice stopped, however, after the cash and cocaine were discovered missing. Dyer says it's better to have "well-trained" employees handling the evidence.

Bleigh says he stopped volunteering because he was "disgusted" by policy changes and politics in the unit after the news stories about the property room.

He doesn't remember getting a questionnaire from state investigators, and they never interviewed him, which surprises him. "I think ... if they were going to check things out, they would go all the way, and I was definitely around there."

Bleigh takes a cynical view of the missing money: "I think someone pocketed it and walked out with it."

Money in evidence envelopes was readily accessible to people working in the room, including cadets, volunteers and officers temporarily assigned there because of stress or physical injuries, Bleigh says.

"It made for a lot of possibilities."

Duane Hufford, a retired construction manager, who volunteered for three or four years. He quit in 1999 because of a dispute with a new sergeant in the property room.

He says he "faintly" recalls getting a questionnaire from state investigators and adds, "If I remember, I made reference to the fact that I'd be interested in talking to them."

Hufford, however, says he was never contacted.

He told The Bee that evidence envelopes containing money were placed in a medium-size box in one of two vaults in the property room at police headquarters. Hufford says the vault was kept open during the day.

Once, when the box filled up, he was told to count the money in the box. The grand total: $350,000.

Alan Doctor, a civilian supervisor in the property room for 14 years. He retired in the mid-1990s. Doctor says he filled out a questionnaire for state investigators, but they never contacted him for an interview. That surprised him.

"Hell," he says, "I was a supervisor, and what happened happened on my watch."

Doctor pushed for improvements in the operation, including a separate building where property and evidence could be consolidated from police headquarters and other facilities.

"It fell on deaf ears," he says. "I wasn't high enough on the hierarchy [for anyone] to hear my voice." (Dyer says he supports a stand-alone property building.)

Doctor's theory on the missing money is a qualified guess: It was returned to people who could rightfully claim the cash, but that fact was not properly recorded. But, he adds, "Who knows?"

While it remains a mystery how the drugs and money disappeared, people who talked to The Bee provided details on how the items were discovered missing. 

In 2000, when the news first broke, police officials talked generally about how the discoveries were made. Recent interviews with former staffers provide more details.

They underscore the unit's problems, including "lax" work by its staff and at least one storage building where money was kept that had security problems.

Ball, who supervised the property room in the late 1990s, says an internal audit in early 1999 uncovered the missing money.

The audit was prompted, in part, by a citizen coming in to reclaim money, and the money not being found.

Dyer says Ball then brought that information forward to police superiors.

Police officials previously said the audit was done because of plans to transfer the money from the police vault to a city bank account.

The audit showed $300,000 was unaccounted for, according to Ball. But after "a detailed search," some cash was discovered in property boxes at the storage unit in southwest Fresno.
Doctor, the retired property room supervisor, says that the west Fresno unit was not secure and needed a better alarm system. Cash and other critical evidence are no longer stored there, though the locks have been changed, according to Dyer.

And the 11 pounds of cocaine? How did police find out it was missing?

Ball says officer Dave Garza checked the cocaine out from the property room in 1997 to use in a reverse sting operation.

Garza confirms that and says he is not sure how long he kept it. The cocaine was confiscated in a 1989 drug case, according to earlier published reports.

Ball says Garza returned the cocaine after hours and put it in a locker in the basement of police headquarters. Garza confirms that.

When property room clerks and cadets clean out the locker, they are supposed to do paperwork showing items have been returned, Ball says, but no one remembers checking it in.
He terms the lapse of memory "convenient" but says the "only logical theory" -- besides the cocaine being stolen -- is this: It was destroyed, as confiscated drugs often are.

The 11 pounds of cocaine might not have come to the attention of top police officials without another Fresno police officer wanting to check out the drugs from the property room.

Ball explains: In 1998, officer Dennis Vasquez, who worked with a drug-sniffing dog, came to check out the cocaine. Property room staffers could not find it.

After a period of time, Vasquez asked again. Then Vasquez reported the drugs missing to his supervisor, Ball says.

Vasquez told The Bee he was questioned about this during a Fresno Police Department investigation of the property room. He declined, however, to make further comments to The Bee.

The upshot of that internal investigation: Ball says that he was suspended for three days, in part because he did not report the cocaine missing when Vasquez first tried to check it out and no one could find it.

"Once we determined that we couldn't locate the drugs, we kind of said, 'We'll find [them]' and we just lost track of [them]," Ball says.

He believes the property room is now a better-run operation. "A lot of good things have happened, as much as I hate that it happened to me. ... It got them off the dime and got things changed."

In a statement filled with irony, Ball says the property room staff had become comfortable and "a little lax" in some of its work. It was a busy time in the Police Department. The force was growing like a lanky teen-age boy. The property unit had the extra responsibility of outfitting new officers with uniforms and supplies, a duty since removed. The unit functioned away from the view of the public. With police higher-ups, it also was "out of sight, out of mind," according to Ball.

He says the property room staff fell into a line of thinking that ultimately proved incorrect: "It's just us," the thinking went. "It will be OK because no one from the outside will come in and have an opportunity to mess with things."

The reporter can be reached at dhoagland@fresnobee.com or 441-6354.

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer says his department has improved security and procedures in its property and evidence unit by taking several steps:

Installing surveillance cameras and changing locks at the property room at police headquarters and a warehouse in central Fresno. The warehouse will get door access codes soon.

Purging 115,541 items from the property unit since January 2000. The items were no longer needed in court cases. Dyer says the reduction has made storage more orderly and that a storage unit in southwest Fresno might not be needed in the future. That would save $25,000 in annual rental fees.

Transferring cash to city bank accounts and restricting who handles it before the transfer is made. Since January 2000, more than $750,000 has been put in the bank. Cash used to be kept for prolonged periods in the property room, according to Dyer.

Destroying narcotics and guns more quickly. Since January 2000, 8,134 guns have been cut up and melted while 12,385 narcotic items have been burned.

Purchasing a bar code tracking system to improve record-keeping. Dyer hopes it will be bought and installed by April.

Writing a procedural manual that outlines what is expected of all property room employees.
Assigning the department's new Professional Standards Unit to conduct spot checks to see whether evidence and property are where they are supposed to be.

Consulting with an outside specialist in property rooms. Dyer says the consultant made 100 recommendations, 50 of which the department had implemented before receiving the consultant's report; other changes will follow.

Adding five positions, which brings the property room staff to 10. The new staff has done "a tremendous job to turn around the dysfunctional system" in the property room, according to the consultant's report.

-- Doug Hoagland 

SECTION: METRO; Pg. B1 

LENGTH: 378 words 

HEADLINE: HISTORIC TROVE IS TRASHED, RESCUED; 'I WISH IT COULD TALK,' SAYS OWNER OF SCRAPBOOK 

BYLINE: The Associated Press 

DATELINE: CHATTANOOGA 

A scrapbook that includes correspondence with Franklin D. Roosevelt and a postcard of Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation was found in a garbage can at a car wash and has been returned to the Georgia family that owned it.

"It was like it was meant that the scrapbook come back to me," said Mary Charles Seward McDonald of Marietta, Ga., the daughter of Charles M. Seward, who compiled the book over about a 40-year period.

Inside the black, leather-bound book's deteriorating panels are correspondence with Roosevelt, then the governor of New York, and a postcard of Lincoln signing the proclamation abolishing slavery, with William Seward at his side. William Seward, Charles Seward's grandfather, was Lincoln's secretary of State during the Civil War. 

Other mementos in the scrapbook include Confederate bonds and pictures of Charles Seward in his World War I uniform.

On Feb. 17, Heather Nelson fished Seward's sodden scrapbook out of a garbage can at the Chattanooga car wash she manages, and turned it over to police.

Before McDonald could drive 90 miles northwest to Chattanooga to get the book, Nelson filed a claim for ownership. The scrapbook sat on a shelf in the Chattanooga Police Department's property room as lawyers made dates to appear in Chancery Court. 

But Nelson recently dropped her claim.

Jerry Tidwell, Nelson's attorney, said his client was just trying to do the right thing.

"Heather was honest enough to turn the scrapbook over to police," he said when the claim was filed. "She could easily have kept the letters of historic significance and said nothing."

The mystery of how the scrapbook came to be in the garbage may never be solved. McDonald said her mother, Mary, moved five times in the later years of her life, and the book may have been lost in the shuffle. Or, she said, it may have been stolen from her home when she lived in Dalton, Ga., in the early 1980s.

"All my mother's treasures were in a trunk," McDonald said. "I have that trunk, and I can't imagine her giving away anything like this."
She marvels that she got it back.

"What are the chances of this thing getting retrieved from a garbage can at a Chattanooga car wash and returned to us in Marietta, Ga.? I wish it could talk."