HEADLINE: Ex-CHP officer testifies against former partner in cocaine case

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES 

A former California Highway Patrol officer who already pleaded guilty to drug charges testified Tuesday against his former partner, who is accused of stealing nearly 650 pounds of cocaine from a California law enforcement agency.

Michael Wilcox testified against ex-CHP Officer George Ruelas, who is charged with conspiracy and possession of cocaine for sale and faces a possible life prison term if convicted. 
Prosecutors allege Ruelas, Wilcox and another rogue law enforcement officer stole the cocaine five years ago from an evidence locker at the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in Riverside.  The trio staged a fake burglary while the bureau's office was closed over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, prosecutors said. Wilcox, 42, of Fresno, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute narcotics and has agreed to be the government's star witness against Ruelas.

The third member of the group, Richard Wayne Parker, 47, a veteran state narcotics agent was convicted in 1999 and is serving a life prison term.

Wilcox confessed to participating in the cocaine heist after he was arrested in November 1999 and told authorities he acted as a lookout and drove the getaway car while Ruelas allegedly stole the cocaine. Wilcox agreed to wear a listening device and to record meetings with Ruelas to aid prosecutors.

During testimony Tuesday, Wilcox said he stored the 650 pounds of cocaine in his friend's apartment in Fresno, where he was renting a room, and waited for instructions from Ruelas."Mr. Ruelas would call me, let me know he would come up (to Fresno) and pick up 'X' amount of cocaine," Wilcox said.

Ruelas, who is on trial in U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder's courtroom, has been charged with conspiracy and possession of cocaine for sale. Defense lawyers claim Ruelas was in Tucson at the time of Riverside heist.

Authorities uncovered the heist in July 1998 after FBI agents on a routine stakeout followed a suspected drug dealer, who gave an envelope with $47,000 in cash to Parker. After Parker was arrested, authorities found close to $600,000 in cash along with drug transaction ledgers at his San Juan Capistrano home.

Wilcox was later arrested and he implicated Ruelas in the cocaine heist and other crimes, court documents show.

HEADLINE: EX-DEPUTY ADMITS MISCONDUCT 

TAMPA -- A former Hillsborough County deputy sheriff has pleaded guilty to more than 20 charges stemming from using drugs from an evidence room and replacing them with wax, soap and leaves.

Christopher Madiedo, 27, entered his plea Wednesday and faces up to 121 years in prison under sentencing guidelines. He is to be sentenced June 7.

Madiedo's attorney, Ron Hanes, said doctors will testify that his client is a drug addict who suffers from bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders. Madiedo had those problems as a deputy, Hanes said. 

HEADLINE: Perez Given 2-Year Term in Federal Case

BYLINE: DAVID ROSENZWEIG, TIMES STAFF WRITER 

Former Los Angeles police officer Rafael Perez was sentenced to two years in federal prison Monday for violating the civil rights of an unarmed gang member who was shot by Perez and his partner and then convicted on trumped-up charges.

U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder also placed Perez on three years' probation after his release and ordered him to pay $246,392 restitution.

But the judge rejected a defense request that she recommend his assignment to a military-style boot camp for first-time offenders. Assistant U.S. Atty. Mary Carter Andrues said such a recommendation would be "inappropriate" under the circumstances.

Perez, who sparked the Rampart police corruption investigation in 1999 after he was arrested for stealing cocaine from police evidence lockers, declined an invitation to address the judge.

His lawyer, Winston K. McKesson, said outside the courthouse that his client "is happy to be putting all this behind him."

Prosecutor Andrues said: "It is important for the people of Los Angeles and the justice system that Rafael Perez has finally been held accountable for his civil rights violations."

In a plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors last December, the former Rampart anti-gang officer admitted that he and his former partner, Nino Durden, conspired to fabricate evidence and testimony against Javier Francisco Ovando. Ovando, an 18-year-old gang member, was shot in the head, shoulder and hip on Oct. 12, 1996, when he walked into a vacant apartment west of downtown where Perez and Durden were conducting surveillance. 
After realizing that Ovando was unarmed, the two officers planted a short-barreled rifle beside him, claiming they fired in self-defense. Ovando, who was left partially paralyzed from the shooting, was subsequently tried, convicted and sentenced to more than 23 years in state prison.  The frame-up remained undetected until Perez was arrested for stealing cocaine from LAPD evidence lockers.

In a bid for leniency from the district attorney's office, he disclosed his and Durden's role in the Ovando shooting. He also implicated about 70 other Rampart officers in what he said was a pattern of misconduct involving beatings, shootings and false arrests.

As a result of his allegations, more than 100 criminal convictions, including Ovando's, were overturned. Ovando received a $15-million settlement from the city. More than a dozen LAPD officers resigned or were fired over corruption-related allegations.

Perez was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing cocaine, but he was granted immunity from state prosecution for framing Ovando. He served about three years of the state prison term before being released last year.

The deal did not protect him from federal prosecution, however. Faced with a possible 15-year prison term on federal charges, Perez negotiated a plea agreement with the U.S. attorney's office last December.

He admitted conspiring to violate Ovando's civil rights "by fabricating evidence, falsely arresting and presenting false testimony against him." He also acknowledged possessing a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle with obliterated serial numbers that he planted beside the wounded Ovando. 
In exchange for a lighter sentence, Perez agreed to cooperate in an ongoing federal probe of possible civil rights violations by LAPD officers.

The deal called for him to serve another two years behind bars. However, each side retained the right to back out if the judge departed from the proposed two-year term.

Perez was to have been sentenced in March, but the proceedings were delayed when a dispute unexpectedly arose between the U.S. attorney's office and the federal probation office, which advises judges on sentencing. The probation office recommended a 30- to 37-month sentence because of Perez's prior conviction and because he lied during Ovando's criminal trial.

Snyder indicated at the time that she was inclined to side with the probation office. To resolve the matter, she asked defense and prosecution lawyers to file further written arguments under seal.

On Monday, the judge said she had decided to impose a two-year sentence. "I do so," she said, "because the government urges that accepting the agreement would be in the interest of justice." 
Snyder said the restitution payments will be used to cover the costs of having tried Ovando in Los Angeles Superior Court and housing him in county jail and state prison.

Perez, who remains free on bail, was given 30 days to surrender to authorities, but the judge said she would consider an extension because he has been caring for his ailing mother, who lives in another part of the country.

Durden, his former partner, pleaded guilty last year to violating the federal civil rights of Ovando and two other persons. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Snyder on May 20.

HEADLINE: Error forces dismissal of KC murder charge

BYLINE: CHRISTINE VENDEL

Kansas City police said Thursday that a homicide sergeant ignored department procedure and mistakenly authorized the destruction of evidence in a homicide case set for trial Monday. With irreplaceable evidence destroyed, a judge on Thursday dismissed the charges against the suspect, who walked out of jail hours later.

The suspect, Mike A. Jenkins, 28, had been in jail since November 2000, charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Marlin Greer, 17. Jenkins has pleaded not guilty.

"I feel like curling up in a knot and just dying," Greer's mother, Sheila Beunca Smith, said Thursday night. "I am very bitter right now. It's like someone tore my heart out."

Deputy Chief George Roberts, who leads the Investigations Bureau, said he wanted to publicly apologize to Greer's family. "This was a human error, not a systems error," he said.

Deputy Chief Gregory Watkins, who was acting police chief because Rick Easley was out of town, said the department would take full responsibility for the error. "We made a mistake," he said. "We have to admit we made a mistake. There's no sense trying to hide it." Because the department started an internal investigation into the sergeant's actions, officials refused to disclose the name of the sergeant, who is still on active duty. There are five homicide sergeants. 
Greer was found shot in the back on 39th Street just east of Olive Street on Nov. 1, 2000. He died in a hospital about two weeks later.

Outside the Jackson County Jail just after 8 p.m. Thursday, Jenkins called Greer his "best friend" and said he was a suspect only because he had been in the area earlier that evening. He said he left before any crime occurred.

"I just want to praise God," Jenkins said. "Justice was served, because I got framed." According to court papers, Jenkins shot Greer twice after losing about $280 to him in a dice game. The shooting was originally classified as an assault, because Greer initially survived. After he died, the case was reclassified in the computer system as a homicide. The initial paper report still listed the offense as an assault, which is standard procedure.

Employees in the property room routinely clean out old evidence to make room for new cases. The procedure for destroying evidence begins with a letter to the supervisor of the detective working a case, asking for the disposition of the case.

In the Greer homicide, the letter went to a homicide sergeant in March of this year; the sergeant saw that it referred to an assault from November 2000. The sergeant correctly noted that the one-year statute of limitations for assault had expired. The sergeant then checked the box on the form that asked property room officers to destroy the evidence. Department procedures require supervisors to check the computer database before sending such letters back to the property room. The sergeant did not do so, police said. Homicide Capt. Randy Hopkins said he had tightened the procedures in light of the mistake. He said supervisors would be required to print a copy of the database, showing that they had checked the disposition of cases. He said property room officers had been instructed not to destroy evidence without a printed database page. The evidence destroyed in the Greer case included the clothes he was wearing when he was shot, samples of his hair, a ski mask Jenkins allegedly wore and the 911 and police radio tapes.

The mistake was noticed Tuesday when prosecutors asked that the police property room collect evidence in the case to prepare for Monday's trial. Jackson County Prosecutor Bob Beaird said staff members told a defense lawyer about the problem as soon as they learned about it this week. Defense lawyer Tom Shanahan filed a motion to dismiss the case, and prosecutors did not oppose it. Late Thursday, Judge Peggy Stevens McGraw signed the order. Shanahan immediately walked it to jail to free his client, who learned of the decision about 4:30 p.m.  Shanahan declined to comment. Beaird said that Jenkins had a clear right to review the evidence and that the case had to be dismissed. "Besides the duty to move forward and try to convict people," Beaird said, "we have a duty to do it in an ethical manner." Beaird said he knew of no other cases involving lost or destroyed evidence. "I don't think it's a systematic problem," Beaird said. "Some human being made a human error."

HEADLINE: 2 plead guilty in Chatham drug theft

BYLINE: Angela Heywood Bible, Staff Writer 

GREENSBORO -- Two men facing federal drug charges involving marijuana stolen from the old Chatham County landfill in September 2000 pleaded guilty Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court. 

Jody Mitchell Brafford, 31, of 436 Wall Road, Goldston, and Gary Leslie Causey, 39, of 225 Sheep Rock Road, Snow Camp, will be sentenced Aug. 12 in Greensboro. James Benjamin Harris, 35, of 8347 Holman Mill Road, Snow Camp, also was indicted and is expected to plead guilty this afternoon. Causey and Harris, who were charged with conspiring to sell more than 110 pounds of marijuana, face as much as 20 years in prison, three years of supervised probation and a $ 1 million fine. Brafford, who was charged with distributing about 80 pounds of the drug, could be sentenced to five years in prison, two years of supervised release and a $ 250,000 fine.

Causey, who has a wife and two children, broke down in tears after Judge William L. Osteen stressed that the men would have to serve the entirety of their sentences because there is no parole in the federal system. Osteen gave Causey a moment to sit, drink water and wipe his eyes before continuing.

"The enormity of what he was facing just hit him all at once," said his attorney, Michael Grace. "How would you know a scheme hatched over two or three beers would get you into federal court?" 

The FBI has been investigating the theft of 5,000 pounds of marijuana that the Sheriff's Office helped seize during an undercover sting in February 2000. More than three-fifths was taken from a surplus Army truck parked behind the department, and the rest from a shallow pit at the county landfill. 

The factual basis for the cases against Brafford, Causey and Harris -- who turned themselves in to U.S. marshals March 12 -- will be withheld until the men are sentenced in August. 

Brafford, a former Chatham County backhoe driver, helped deputies bury almost a ton of the marijuana at the landfill. At a news conference in June, federal agents announced they were concluding their investigation into the theft from the landfill and expected to arrest as many as 10 suspects within two weeks. Almost a year later, Brafford, Causey and Harris are the only suspects indicted, and their cases involve less than 200 pounds of the missing drugs. 

Grace said he was offended by a system that would allow law enforcement officers to mishandle thousands of pounds of marijuana "while three civilians take the brunt of it." "The men who brought it here aren't being punished," Grace said. "The police who held it for [almost a year] and who were responsible for it and who have yet to explain satisfactorily what happened to it aren't being held accountable. ... Yet these schmucks who dug it up and didn't make any money off of it are facing active time." 

Brafford, Causey and Harris will be evaluated to determine guidelines for sentencing them. The court will take into account their histories, criminal records, level of cooperation and acceptance of responsibility. But no one, Osteen said, can predict their sentences.

Grace said he probably would ask for a hearing during the sentencing to determine the exact amount of marijuana Causey conspired to sell. The indictment says "in excess of 50 kilograms." 

HEADLINE: DPS oversees anti-drug units; Perry-backed change ends independent supervision

BYLINE: Zeke MacCormack 

The Department of Public Safety has assumed oversight of 48 narcotics task forces around the state, largely ending the era of independent operators in the undercover war on drugs.

 Gov. Rick Perry initiated the change to improve accountability and coordination among the drug units, and to reduce the chance of misconduct among the 550 task force officers in 216 counties.

 "These task forces have been in existence since 1987, and until now there had been no significant look or review as to how they operated," said Jay Kimbrough, executive director of the state Criminal Justice Division in the governor's office.

 Any task force wishing to receive federal block grant funds - which totaled $30 million this year - must cooperate with the DPS administration and adhere to new standardized procedures.

 Under the hierarchy that took effect Jan. 9, Kimbrough said, "the DPS has oversight of policies, procedures and tactical operations, but the criminal justice division maintains fiscal authority." Nearly all of the grant-funded units endorsed the changes, he said. Units funded solely by cities and counties were unaffected.

 The DPS has reorganized its narcotics division to handle the additional administrative duties. It also distributed a new 31-page manual that covers job evaluations, evidence storage, undercover operations, confidential informants, reports and much more.

 Some task forces expressed concern about losing autonomy, said DPS Narcotics Commander Walter Eeds. But, he added, "The intent never was to take away local control." The DPS has a wealth of resources to benefit task forces, he said, from equipment and intelligence to personnel.

 About a dozen task forces already had DPS oversight and required few, if any, changes. However, problems were found at a handful of units during preliminary inspections this spring.

 In Wilson County, south of San Antonio, for example, cocaine was reported missing from the evidence locker of the 81st Judicial District Narcotics Task Force. Texas Ranger Andy Lopez declined comment on his ongoing investigation into the matter.

 Asked about televised reports that 70 pounds of cocaine was missing, Kimbrough said, "I do not know that number to be incorrect."

 Drug dealers who move from county to county aren't the only targets of the initiative to collect and share intelligence among the widely spread task forces. New centralized personnel records should also help curtail so-called "gypsy cops," who create problems at one task force and then relocate to another. "Before, we didn't have a central clearinghouse to see where officers move," said Kimbrough. "We want every task force to know what kind of officers they're getting and where they came from."

"These task forces have been in existence since 1987, and until now there had been no significant look or review as to how they operated."

HEADLINE: Officer facing federal weapons charges

DATELINE: STEGER 

A Steger police officer is facing federal charges after being indicted for allegedly stealing two handguns and a rifle from the department's evidence room.

Police Chief Richard Stultz said Monday that Michael Sauter, 48, a 15-year veteran, was indicted May 1 and has been placed on administrative duty and prohibited from carrying a firearm until the case is resolved.

The indictment alleges Sauter was in possession of a .38-caliber revolver, .30-caliber rifle and .380-caliber pistol, all seized from his home in January 2000 by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Stultz said. Sauter is also alleged to have been in possession of a .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol that "had the manufacturer's serial number removed, obliterated, and altered," in violation of federal law, the indictment charges.

Stultz said Sauter also could face charges from the police and fire board.

No hearing date has been set on Sauter's case. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison for the two charges if convicted.

HEADLINE: Police look for missing money

BYLINE: By NANCY SULOK - Tribune Staff Writer 

He confirmed that a problem was discovered in the evidence room about two or three months ago. Some envelopes that had contained money were found open, with the money gone. The probe is seeking to find out whether wrongdoing occurred or whether it was "just bad record-keeping,'' Hazen said.

An inventory was done first to see what was supposed to be in the room and where things might have been placed. In at least one case, Hazen said, the money from a torn-open envelope was found to have been deposited in the controller's office but not recorded properly by the police.
It is too early to determine whether the money was stolen, he said, but he expressed concern that "most people will assume the worst'' once word about the missing money becomes public.
Capt. Mike Samp started a formal investigation into the missing money about three weeks ago, Hazen said. Samp is not working this week and could not be reached for comment. However, Hazen said Samp told him that he hopes to wrap up his investigation within two or three weeks.
Money in the evidence room comes from various sources, Hazen said. Some of it is evidence from crimes like robberies or burglaries. Some of it is money ordered by the courts to be forfeited, for example from a drug dealer. The room also contained some money that had been paid by citizens as fees for various services, the chief said. The chief estimated that the missing or unaccounted-for money totals $900 to $1,000.

If Samp concludes that the money was stolen, Hazen said, he may contact the Indiana State Police to do a criminal investigation. Hazen said only two people have access to the evidence room: a civilian clerk and the Services Division chief. Both of those jobs have undergone personnel changes over the past several months.

As federal law enforcement careers went, Joseph Saitta and Carter Kim ranked among the best in their business. Saitta was the special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office of the Secret Service. Kim was his assistant.

So, when rumors started swirling several weeks ago that Saitta and Kim had been relieved of their duties and quietly removed by federal investigators out of Washington, many who have known them found the reports difficult to believe.

Quite simply, Saitta was considered a consummate professional who combined a knowledge of his job with the people skills it took to survive in the federal law enforcement community.
Although less experienced and well known, Kim sported an impressive resume.

Until recently, both men served their government with distinction, Saitta for 32 years and Kim for 18. They were veteran supervisors.

Then came the issue that threatens to tar their careers and besmirch the reputation of the Secret Service at a volatile time.

According to an article in this week's edition of U.S. News & World Report, problems at the local Secret Service office began to surface last year in connection with the supervision of the evidence vault. Kim, 43, alleges he discovered the irregularities, which ranged from missing counterfeit money and laptop computers to missing handling telephone encryption equipment, and reported them to Saitta. Their dilemma grew worse after a federal audit of the office was called, and Kim alleges in an Equal Employment Opportunity lawsuit that Saitta attempted to doctor evidence records, obfuscate issues, and find substitutes for the missing equipment. The Korean-American, who also alleges racial discrimination, finds himself under investigation for what role he might have played in the evidence vault debacle.

Not only did counterfeit cash turn up missing, along with visual aids used by agents whenever they conducted seminars on counterfeiting, but Kim has sworn Saitta instructed a government employee to report the missing material destroyed, according to the article.

Those who know Saitta find themselves at a loss. It's simply difficult to believe that a man they considered so professional would be involved in obstructing an investigation.

But throughout law enforcement, evidence lockers are notorious quagmires. No single accounting or security practice ever is entirely foolproof. From our local Metro to the FBI, scandals of myriad shapes and sizes have resulted from a lack of consistent supervision, inconsistent audits, and outright thievery.

Sloppy record keeping? Missing evidence? Racial discrimination?

It's not the sort of behavior condoned by the federal agency charged with, among other duties, protecting the president of the United States and supervising the security at the Olympics and the Super Bowl. It's also why Saitta, 55, who retired with full benefits earlier this year, is forced to fight these charges with all he's got.

Now that Kim has made his devastating accusations, he, too, must do all he can to prevail.

Unlike Saitta, Kim wasn't near the end of his career.

Beyond their good names, the credibility of the local office is at stake.

Contacted by me last month, Saitta downplayed those rumors and said his predicament was based on administrative issues and personality conflicts. He said he had planned to retire anyway. After more than three decades on the job, Saitta said he had earned it.

On Monday afternoon, Saitta said he was unaware of the EEO allegations until just prior to the story's publication. 'I don't even know the official allegations yet,' he said.

'All I know is what's in this article.' But did he conduct a cover-up?

'A cover-up? No,' Saitta said.

In the brief interview, he spoke with pride about his 32-year Secret Service career, which included time on the Ronald Reagan presidential detail and more than 11 years in the Las Vegas office.

After 18 years, Kim has his own list of career credentials. He told the U.S. News, 'I never ever thought my career would end like this.'

I'll bet that's something Carter Kim still has in common with Joseph Saitta.

John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.

HEADLINE: Police investigate disappearance of money from evidence room

DATELINE: MISHAWAKA, Ind. 

The Mishawaka Police Department is conducting an internal investigation into money missing from its evidence room.

Police Chief Anthony Hazen said some envelopes that had contained money were found open, with the money gone. The investigation is trying to find out whether the money was stolen or whether it was unaccounted for through bad record-keeping, Hazen said.

He estimated the total at $900 to $1,000.

In at least one case, he said, the money from a torn-open envelope was found to have been deposited in the controller's office but not recorded properly by the police. "It is too early to determine whether the money was stolen," he said.

Capt. Mike Samp started the investigation about three weeks ago and plans to finish it in another two or three weeks, Hazen said. If Samp concludes that the money was stolen, Hazen said, he may contact the Indiana State Police to do a criminal investigation.

HEADLINE: THEFT OF GUNS IN STORAGE ROOM DRAWS 7-YEAR TERM

BYLINE: Jennifer A. Bowen, jbowen@bnd.com 

An East St. Louis man who broke into a gun storage room in the St. Clair County circuit clerk's office and stole guns was sentenced Wednesday to spend seven years in prison.

Joseph Williams, formerly a janitor at the county building, pleaded guilty to burglary, possession of stolen firearms and possession of a weapon by a felon. Circuit Clerk Barney Metz was happy with the sentence.” I thought it was a fairly decent sentence," Metz said. "Compared to some of the other sentences I've seen, this was a fair sentence, especially because of his criminal background."

In 1995, Williams was convicted of aggravated battery.

In January, investigators found that 151 guns had been stolen from the evidence locker while they investigated the five guns Williams admitted to stealing. Williams was caught after police set up surveillance of the evidence locker after clerks became suspicious. Metz believed that Williams had an accomplice who worked in the county building, but no one has been charged and Metz said police don't have any suspects.

Williams worked on the fifth floor of the courthouse, not the third floor where the circuit clerk's office is located. He knew where to find the key to the gunroom.

The door to the gunroom has been replaced with a heavy solid wood door protected by two separate locks: a combination lock and a key lock. Only one clerk has access to the key and another knows the combination code.

Cleaning crews now clean the circuit clerk's office before employees leave in the afternoon, instead of waiting until after the office is closed. Visitors to the office are now required to sign in and sign out and display a visitors tag while in the office as part of increased security.

Two of the stolen guns have been found on the streets. One was confiscated in Illinois by police; another was found to have been used in a shooting in Bridgeton, Mo. The shooting left a Missouri man in the hospital for a week. None of the other missing guns have been recovered.

HEADLINE: U.S. Customs agent suspended over missing money

DATELINE: BUFFALO, N.Y. 

"The money has been recovered. We are investigating what happened," said Marc Gromis, chief prosecutor for white-collar and general crimes for the U.S. Attorney's office.

Robert Tevens, special agent in charge of the Customs' internal affairs office in Buffalo, said the money was discovered missing on May 6.

"We found the money and are cleaning up our own dirty laundry," he told The Buffalo News.

The newspaper reported the money was part of a cache of $207,270 that was recovered by the Customs Service after an arrest on the Peace Bridge around May 1. In that incident, a trucker from Scarborough, Ontario, allegedly tried to speed past a Customs checkpoint without having his vehicle inspected.

The driver, Gawain Cole, was charged with assault on a federal officer and failing to declare more than $10,000 cash.

As federal law enforcement careers went, Joseph Saitta and Carter Kim ranked among the best in their business.

Saitta was the special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office of the Secret Service. Kim was his assistant. So, when rumors started swirling several weeks ago that Saitta and Kim had been relieved of their duties and quietly removed by federal investigators out of Washington, many who have known them found the reports difficult to believe.

Quite simply, Saitta was considered a consummate professional who combined a knowledge of his job with the people skills it took to survive in the federal law enforcement community. Although less experienced and well known, Kim sported an impressive resume.

Until recently, both men served their government with distinction, Saitta for 32 years and Kim for 18. They were veteran supervisors. Then came the issue that threatens to tar their careers and besmirch the reputation of the Secret Service at a volatile time.

According to an article in this week's edition of U.S. News & World Report, problems at the local Secret Service office began to surface last year in connection with the supervision of the evidence vault. Kim, 43, alleges he discovered the irregularities, which ranged from missing counterfeit money and laptop computers to missing handling telephone encryption equipment, and reported them to Saitta. Their dilemma grew worse after a federal audit of the office was called, and Kim alleges in an Equal Employment Opportunity lawsuit that Saitta attempted to doctor evidence records, obfuscate issues, and find substitutes for the missing equipment. The Korean-American, who also alleges racial discrimination, finds himself under investigation for what role he might have played in the evidence vault debacle.

Not only did counterfeit cash turn up missing, along with visual aids used by agents whenever they conducted seminars on counterfeiting, but Kim has sworn Saitta instructed a government employee to report the missing material destroyed, according to the article.

Those who know Saitta find themselves at a loss. It's simply difficult to believe that a man they considered so professional would be involved in obstructing an investigation.

But throughout law enforcement, evidence lockers are notorious quagmires. No single accounting or security practice ever is entirely foolproof. From our local Metro to the FBI, scandals of myriad shapes and sizes have resulted from a lack of consistent supervision, inconsistent audits, and outright thievery.

Sloppy record keeping? Missing evidence? Racial discrimination?

It's not the sort of behavior condoned by the federal agency charged with, among other duties, protecting the president of the United States and supervising the security at the Olympics and the Super Bowl. It's also why Saitta, 55, who retired with full benefits earlier this year, is forced to fight these charges with all he's got.

Now that Kim has made his devastating accusations, he, too, must do all he can to prevail. Unlike Saitta, Kim wasn't near the end of his career. Beyond their good names, the credibility of the local office is at stake.

Contacted by me last month, Saitta downplayed those rumors and said his predicament was based on administrative issues and personality conflicts. He said he had planned to retire anyway. After more than three decades on the job, Saitta said he had earned it.

On Monday afternoon, Saitta said he was unaware of the EEO allegations until just prior to the story's publication.’ I don't even know the official allegations yet,' he said. 'All I know is what's in this article.’ But did he conduct a cover-up? 'A cover-up? No,' Saitta said.

In the brief interview, he spoke with pride about his 32-year Secret Service career, which included time on the Ronald Reagan presidential detail and more than 11 years in the Las Vegas office. After 18 years, Kim has his own list of career credentials. He told the U.S. News, 'I never ever thought my career would end like this.' I'll bet that's something Carter Kim still has in common with Joseph Saitta.

HEADLINE: Gun that killed Selena is missing Valdez, Harris County officials are searching for it

BYLINE: J.R. Gonzales, Caller-Times 

The Harris County Sheriff's Department doesn't have the .38-caliber Taurus revolver used to kill Selena and it doesn't know where it is. The firearm was never even in the possession of the department, said Lt. Robert Van Pelt, a spokesman with the department.

Yolanda Saldivar, the singer's former fan club president, was convicted of murder less than a year after the 1995 shooting of the popular Tejano singer. Saldivar is serving a life sentence. 
Van Pelt said a check of records using the specific Harris County case number assigned to the case and the serial number on the weapon turned up no sign of the gun in the department's property room.

For District Attorney Carlos Valdez, the search will go on, but it's not a priority. "I wouldn't spend any more money trying to get it," he said. Valdez said an investigator with Harris County District Attorney's office is helping his office locate the weapon.

Van Pelt said the whereabouts of the gun likely would depend on what the court clerk did with it after the trial. Valdez said his office hasn't had the chance to contact her because she no longer works with courts system.

Although the district attorney said there doesn't appear to be any wrongdoing in the revolver's disappearance, he didn't doubt its monetary and historical value. He said the weapon could be hanging on a wall somewhere.

The gun was to have been returned with items that were used as evidence to convict Saldivar.

Many of the items, including a purse, clothing and a ring Saldivar purchased for Selena using the singer's credit card were turned over to the district attorney's office earlier this week. 
Items belonging to the singer could be returned to her father, Abraham Quintanilla.

HEADLINE: In Brief 

Trial scheduled for former Bonduel police chief 

Former Bonduel police chief Paul Schnasa is scheduled for trial Oct. 29 in Shawano County on felony misconduct charges stemming from an investigation into drugs missing from the police evidence locker. 

At a pretrial hearing Thursday, Shawano County Circuit Judge Thomas Grover set the two-day trial date after lawyers said the case is not resolved. Schnasa, 33, told investigators the issue is a matter of missing paperwork, a criminal complaint said. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

HEADLINE: DNA is the best witness 

HERE is a story that tells you why DNA evidence is the greatest advance in crime and punishment since the invention of the jury:

A teen-age girl is raped in Harlem, and the police know they've got their guy. He'd just been released from jail for a sex crime in - get this - the same area in which the girl was raped. He'd been seen in the neighborhood just before the rape; just after, too, in different clothes. And he'd been picked out of a lineup.

"I think any number of people in my office could have gotten a conviction," says Linda Fairstein, who until recently ran the sex-crimes unit in the Manhattan district attorney's office. "A conviction for a crime he didn't commit."

That's right; the right guy was the wrong guy. A comparison of his DNA with that taken from semen the rapist left behind showed that he hadn't done the crime. But the DNA did link that rape to another, and then to the unsolved rape-murders of three teen-age girls in East Harlem.

And when the cops became suspicious of a clean-cut young man named Arohn Kee, they came away from interrogating him with a whole batch of denials, and a coffee cup from which Kee had sipped. The DNA on the lip of the cup matched DNA evidence from all the crimes, and led to the incarceration of a serial killer and sex criminal.

The release of an innocent man, the linking of several crimes, the conviction of the undeniably guilty: The extraordinary uses of DNA testing are all there, in that one case. More reliable than fingerprints or ballistics or the evidence of your lying eyes, the genetic fingerprint we humans leave everywhere in our wake is the best witness the criminal-justice system has ever had. And not just for prosecutors. Roughly one in four of the samples run through a federal databank exonerates a suspect, even when all other evidence suggests he is guilty.

DNA testing went from a technique that was not even admissible in American courts in the '80s to one that is the cutting edge of investigatory technique and is accepted everywhere today.  While once samples were not even analyzed unless there was a clear suspect, because there was nothing with which to compare them, now there are state offender databanks with thousands of genetic profiles. But the swiftness with which this all happened means that there are hundreds of thousands of untested samples in evidence rooms and labs around the country.

The Virginia Division of Forensic Science is as far ahead as any state facility in the nation. It was the first to offer DNA testing, in 1989, and the first to create an offender databank when lawmakers passed a bill mandating samples from convicted felons, a databank that now has 180,000 DNA profiles in it. The Virginia lab has instituted training for law-enforcement personnel, since the first step in the use of DNA evidence is gathering it properly. While some states have many thousands of rape kits and other DNA samples waiting to be analyzed, Virginia's backlog is 1,400 cases, and most are less than six months old.

"I hate backlogs," says Paul Ferrara, the director. "Our goal is to reach a 30-day turnaround, but I even worry about that. What's this guy going to do in 30 days? That's the kind of thing that makes you sick."

Making this technology as available as possible is as much a personal policy issue as water and sewers or public schools. Just imagine that there is a serial rapist out there. His DNA profile is hidden away in a series of unprocessed rape kits in jurisdictions that are way behind on their backlogs. The profile is also in an offender databank because he has been previously jailed and tested.

Someday the crime-scene material will be processed, and uploaded, and there will be a hit, and the man will be arrested. But not yet, and while the kits wait and the man walks, he rapes you or your daughter. That's a pretty personal issue, isn't it? And it would have been so easy to stop him.