HEADLINE: 2 Panther Valley police officers expected to plead guilty to federal charges ** One accused of illegal gun sale, the other of planting evidence.

DATELINE: PANTHER VALLEY

Two Panther Valley police officers have agreed to plead guilty to federal charges -- one to illegally selling a machine gun to another officer and one to planting drugs during raids.

Lansford officer Jeremy K. Sommers agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to violate civil rights, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, according to court documents.

As part of the deal, Sommers agreed to resign as a police officer within 10 days of the plea. He also agreed to neither seek nor accept public or elected office for 10 years.

According to federal indictments, Sommers, who is Lansford's canine officer, planted cocaine in the home of George H. Becker on Ridge Street in Coaldale in March 2003, and former Coaldale Patrolman Michael Weaver arrested Becker.

Sommers and Weaver also planted evidence at the Lansford home of Becker's brother Vincent during a search in July 2003, and Sommers made the arrest, the indictments said. 
Sommers' lawyer, Joshua Loch of Harrisburg, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Former Lansford Police Chief Joseph Stawiarski, who retired in May 2001, agreed to plead guilty to giving false statements to federal law enforcement, according to court documents. That charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Stawiarski's lawyer, Gregory Mousseau, had no comment.

According to the indictment, Stawiarski filled out federal papers on April 16 saying he was the owner of a machine gun that was being kept in the Coaldale police evidence locker when he had sold it to former Coaldale Police Chief Shawn P. Nihen.

Nihen on Nov. 1 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court, Scranton, to one felony charge for buying the machine gun without filling out federal paperwork. Judge William J. Nealon accepted the plea, but deferred sentencing Nihen.  No date has been set for Stawiarski and Sommers to enter a plea before a judge.  Weaver, who resigned from the Coaldale Police Department in July 2003, also is charged with planting evidence. His lawyer, Gerard E. Grealish, asked federal Judge Richard A. Caputo for a month-long extension to file pre-trial motions in the case. If granted, Grealish would have until Dec. 24 to file motions.  Efforts to reach prosecutors for comment were unsuccessful.

During Nihen's guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod had said a police officer, who he did not identify, tipped off authorities about the gun sale between Stawiarski and Nihen.

Zubrod said the officer wore a wire for the FBI during a conversation with Nihen about buying the gun from Stawiarski. He said FBI agents searched Nihen's home in Lansford on Feb. 5 and seized the gun.

Nihen, who resigned in May, then helped federal investigators by wearing a wire in conversations that led to the charges against Sommers and Weaver.

According to the indictments, Weaver on March 15 told Nihen that Sommers planted cocaine at George Becker's home in Coaldale.

They also had a conversation March 18 and discussed giving false information to FBI agents; Sommers told Nihen he would lie to FBI investigators, and would create evidence and records to back his story and destroy evidence that rebutted his lies, according to the indictments.

Since the arrests, Sommers has been suspended with pay. He and the three other defendants are free on recognizance bail.

HEADLINE: Middletown officer guilty of stealing pot resigns

DATELINE: MIDDLETOWN, RI

The 42-year-old former patrolman avoids jail time by pleading guilty to taking four small bags of marijuana from an evidence locker with a wire-coat hanger in May.

NEWPORT - Middletown Patrolman Michael Braley said in Superior Court Friday that he stole marijuana from a police evidence locker in May and he would resign immediately.

In exchange for Braley's resignation and his no-contest plea to a felony charge of committing a prohibited act by a law enforcement official, Braley was spared jail, according to Michael Healey, a spokesman for the state attorney general. Braley faced the statutory 10 to 20 years in prison, but Associate Judge Stephen T. Nugent sentenced him to 10 years of probation.

"What's most important is that Mr. Braley is no longer a police officer," Attorney General Patrick Lynch said in a statement. "When a police officer commits a crime, it erodes public trust, without which law enforcement would cease to operate effectively. With his immediate resignation from the force, his admission of guilt, and today's sentence, the cloud that he placed over the Middletown Police Department can be removed."  Lynch's office recommended the plea deal and the judge accepted it.

Braley, 42, had served on the force for 11 years when, according to court records, he took four small bags of marijuana shortly after they were seized during a May 16 arrest. The day the evidence disappeared, police investigators found a straightened wire coat hanger behind the evidence locker, as well as some blank evidence labels stuck to the inside walls of the locker.

Detectives questioned all the officers who had worked shifts immediately before the drugs went missing, including Braley. Each denied knowledge of the missing evidence. The police sent the evidence labels to the state crime laboratory for fingerprinting, which revealed Braley's prints.

When detectives approached Braley again, he said he took the marijuana in the early-morning hours of May 17, during his midnight-to-8 a.m. shift. He said he stuck the labels to the end of the wire hanger and used the contraption to fish the marijuana bags from the locker.

Braley told the detectives that he destroyed the evidence bag and emptied the contents of the four bags of marijuana out of his cruiser window while driving down West Main Road. He told detectives that he took the drugs because he was upset with his superiors and wanted them to be held accountable for the theft.

Braley had also been charged with larceny under $500 and obstructing a police officer, both misdemeanors. Those charges were dismissed as part of his plea bargain.  Healey said the plea bargain does not prevent Braley from becoming a police officer again.

HEADLINE: Problems don't make local force peculiar -- Corruption infests other departments in big cities

DATELINE: Memphis, TN

The recent arrests of three Memphis Police Department officers on a combination of drug, burglary and prostitution charges is only the latest in a string of incidents that have tarnished the department's image.

Ranging from thefts of drugs and money from the police evidence room to the arrest of an officer caught transporting more than 100 pounds of marijuana, the record might suggest the Memphis Police Department is deeply troubled, perhaps irreversibly so. 
Actually, no, according to many experts.

By most standards, Memphis's police, even with their recent, alleged transgressions, fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum for misconduct at big city police departments.

While not as clean as some, it's far better than departments in cities like Los Angeles, New Orleans and Detroit, which have all required intervention by the Department of Justice.  "I think Memphis has a reputation as having a responsive police department, and from time to time they have a problem," said Ron McBride, the former police chief of Ashland, Ky., who serves as ethics chair for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "I don't think they're any better or any worse (than other departments)."

It's important, McBride and others say, to keep the incidents in perspective. With nearly 2,000 officers, Memphis has the nation's 16th-largest police force. While the vast majority of those officers serve with integrity, it's hard to find that many people in any occupation who are without blemish. Perfection may be a laudable goal, but it's a bit unrealistic.

"Police misconduct and ethical lapses on the part of public officials have been with us since the beginning of time," said former Memphis police director James Bolden, who joined the force in 1968. "You're going to have a percentage, no matter what, that's going to fall by the wayside."

That's compounded by the unique nature of law enforcement work, which gives officers opportunities to pocket drugs and cash from suspects without anyone protesting.

"Police work is full of temptation," said Maki Haberfeld, a professor of criminal justice at John Jay College in New York. "It involves a lot of discretion, a lot of discretion that is invisible (to supervisors)."

Nonetheless, experts in police misconduct distinguish between isolated incidents by individual or small cliques of rogue cops and systemic problems that indicate failures of management and leadership.

The lack of control over Memphis's Organized Crime Unit, which led to more than $200,000 misspent or disappearing in the 1990s, and more recently, the evidence and property room, which resulted in the theft of more than $2 million worth of cocaine, are red flags.

"The more serious it is, it says something about a lack of accountability and management controls," said Sam Walker, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha who studies police management. "It takes continued supervision and over-sight, specifically when you're talking about control of money and control of property. It takes a real commitment."

It could be hard to create the right climate, Walker said, if there's significant turmoil in a department's leadership, as there has been with the Memphis Police. There have been five police directors since 1999.

"Experts agree that it's leadership, leadership, leadership," he said. "If there's wholesale turnover at the top, it could be an invitation to a problem."

Walker recommends that departments conduct regular integrity tests, including sting operations, to enforce ethical behavior. He also suggests city governments create departments dedicated to police oversight, which has taken place in a number of cities, such as San Jose, Seattle and Denver.

But his is not a uniform view. Haberfeld, a former Israeli police woman, says police are scrutinized enough. "I don't think there is any profession that is haunted by accountability as much as the police," she said.

Instead, Haberfeld thinks the focus needs to be on screening recruits to eliminate the bad apples and effectively training the ones who are admitted.

Most officers are ill prepared for the realities of police work, which involves much more nuance and interpersonal relations than is reflected in the training academy, where the focus is on technical skills, she said.

Police training needs to incorporate ethics and integrity into every unit, rather than devote just an hour or two to the subject, and should prepare officers for frustration and stress.

"They need to talk about stress management," she said. "Police work is about stress, and frequently misconduct is a result of stress. We do stupid things when we're under stress."

Like Haberfeld, Ted Hansom, an attorney for the Memphis Police Association since 1977, said the department needs to pay closer attention to hiring.

"Police officers tend to see the worst side of the community," he said. "If you start with someone who doesn't have the proper moral approach, it might be easy for them to be enmeshed in what they see."

The problem with recruiting in Memphis was acute in the late 1990s, when, in an effort to hire 800 officers over four years, the department secured waivers from the state for candidates with prior legal problems.  Of 113 graduates in the August 1998 Police Academy class, 24 had arrest records for offenses ranging from DUIs to drug possession to shoplifting.  "We hired people with theft convictions," said Hansom. "If you start out with that, where are you going?"

Still, there's no direct connection to the waivers and the recent incidents of misconduct. Of the last six officers arrested, none were hired through waivers.

Former chief Bolden said waivers need to be sought on a case-by-case basis and that the large numbers in the late '90s reflected the number of hires. 

Recruiting and retaining ethical officers is not going to get any easier, said McBride, the former Ashland chief.  Police departments once recruited mainly white men with a military background who were used to discipline and the consequences of transgressing, he said. Now, departments are recruiting from a diverse population of men and women with a more skeptical view of the police and a wider range of career options.  "It is an environment that not a lot of men and women want to be a part of," McBride said. "Recruitment is going to be the No. 1 problem facing law enforcement executives from this point forward."

HEADLINE: APD Evidence Room Audit Stays Secret

DATELINE: ALBUQUERQUE, NM

AG Gets Findings On Possible Thefts

Albuquerque police officials say they will not release an audit by a private company examining possible thefts of money, jewelry, guns and drugs from the department's evidence room.

APD Chief Gil Gallegos said the company's findings have been turned over to the state Attorney General's Office as part of its criminal investigation into the matter. He also said the company's work wasn't actually an audit, but an "examination."

But when APD hired the company more than eight months ago, Gallegos said the company would conduct an audit.

Gallegos on Wednesday declined to discuss what was missing from the evidence room or what the private company had found.

Bob Johnson, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said Wednesday that if an audit was compiled it should be released.
 "Obviously, there is something embarrassing to them in this audit," said Johnson. "Obviously, they have a lot of evidence missing."

Since March, the AG's office has been investigating the possible theft of money and other evidence from APD's evidence room. It also is examining the department's handling of its own investigation, which started in August 2003.

The state office was asked to step in after APD received an anonymous letter claiming police employees had stolen "thousands of dollars in cash, drugs, guns, jewelry and other high dollar items" and questioning the department's internal investigation.  Gallegos said he expects a grand jury to convene any day.

APD has been waiting to take administrative action against some employees while the criminal investigation is continuing.

When the AG's office agreed to take on the investigation, APD officials said they would hire Maximum Security, a firm of former FBI agents, to conduct an independent audit of the evidence unit.

"We're bringing in the AG and the auditors, and we'll see what needs to be done," Nick Bakas, the city's chief law enforcement officer, told the Journal in March.
 On Wednesday he referred all questions to Gallegos.

Gallegos said he would not release the company's findings because of a pending criminal investigation by the Attorney General's Office.  "We will release whatever is not going to interfere with the investigation," Gallegos said. "I don't want to jeopardize any prosecution that should occur."  Paul Nixon, a spokesman for the attorney general, said the AG's office has received a "20-foot stack of raw materials," such as reports, records and logs, from APD.

"It is possible that we asked them not to release any information," Nixon said. "It is normal procedure so you don't compromise an investigation. As for a formal audit or evaluation, we are not aware of that."  Nixon said he doesn't know when the AG's investigation will be complete.

Johnson said the information should be made available to the public because it was paid for with tax dollars and was conducted on a public agency.

State Auditor Domingo Martinez said APD could withhold such an audit if it uncovered a criminal matter and needed further investigation.  "Otherwise, anything paid for by public money should be public record," he said.

Gallegos would not comment on whether the audit revealed any criminal activity.

"This has been ongoing for some time," Gallegos said. "It is my understanding they are near to wrapping this up."

HEADLINE: CRIME & JUSTICE

THE REGION

Police theft: A Metro Transit Police officer pleaded guilty in D.C. Superior Court yesterday to one felony count of theft in connection with stealing $11,824.60 from the Transit Police evidence room, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

David Utara, a 43-year-old Crofton resident, entered a guilty plea and agreed to pay restitution of $11,824.60.

Utara held the rank of lieutenant and was in charge of the evidence room at Metro Transit Police headquarters. Prosecutors said he stole money between January and April that was being held as evidence in 45 criminal cases. On several occasions, he entered the evidence room and took money after other officers had left for the day, prosecutors said.

Utara will be sentenced Feb. 11 and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. He had worked for the Transit Police for 21 years, Chief Polly Hanson said.

Stimulant charges: Federal prosecutors in Washington yesterday reported indictments of five men in connection with alleged trafficking in an exotic stimulant plant.

The men, who were indicted Nov. 23, appeared Thursday in U.S. District Court on charges that they supplied the Washington area with large quantities of a substance derived from khat, a flowering shrub native to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The charges were filed against Samual Tesfaye, 33, of Greenbelt; Wondesen Mamo, 46, of Washington; Bedilu Gioireta, 22, of Ethiopia; and Mohammed Ali Al-Masry, 37, and Abdul-Malik Al-Masry, 46, both of Yemen.

Customs agents said they seized 41 boxes containing 2,500 pounds of khat leaves in October. The leaves were in a ship container that had come to Baltimore from Ethiopia and was addressed to Tesfaye.

HEADLINE: Council likely to OK use of retired officers

DATELINE: Tulsa, Ok

City councilors are expected to approve $85,000 Thursday to temporarily hire retired police officers to help alleviate a staff shortage on the force.  "We need to do everything we can to make public safety a priority," said Councilor Bill Christiansen, who brought the idea to the council in August.

The money was originally set aside to match federal law enforcement grants, which have been scaled back, city Budget Director Pat Connelly told councilors at a Tuesday committee meeting.

It will pay for six part-time positions from January until July 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year.  Police Chief Dave Been said the retirees would each clock about 30 hours a week at $15 to $20 an hour working in the property room or on misdemeanor cases.  "We won't start hiring anyone until we have the money in hand, but we've had a lot of interest," he said.

Tulsa's police force has been operating with about 100 fewer officers than its authorized strength of 796 because of officers being called to active military duty, retiring or leaving for other jobs.  A rookie class of 36 officers is to graduate Friday and will be in field training until April, when they will start to fill those vacancies.

A second class of 47 will start the academy in January and will be ready to go in October.  "It will take quite a while before our numbers are strong again," Been said. "We'll be glad to have some experienced help."  Christiansen said that if the retiree program is successful, it could possibly be used again.  "It's a much cheaper alternative to paying officers overtime to do the work," he said.

HEADLINE: Felon may have right to `just compensation' for guns police seized;Court rules Balto. County cannot keep the firearms

DATELINE: Baltimore County

A man who has been fighting for the return of guns seized by Baltimore County police after his 1999 conviction and sentencing for auto manslaughter may beentitled to compensation for them, the state's highest court ruled yesterday.

As a convicted felon, Robert L. Serio is not allowed to own firearms, but thecounty cannot keep his gun collection because he has not been convicted ofillegally possessing the weapons, the Court of Appeals ruled.As a result, Serio may be eligible for "just compensation," the unanimouscourt said.

The court's opinion effectively sends the case, which has traveled throughthe legal system for nearly five years, back to Baltimore County Circuit Court for new hearings "to determine what to do with the guns," which have been stored in a police property room, said Baltimore County Attorney Jay L. Liner.

Serio's lawyer, William N. Butler, said at the time the lawsuit was filed that Serio intended to sell the collection of more than a dozen weapons and had lined up a buyer. Yesterday, Butler estimated that one of the guns is worth at least $30,000.

The guns were seized from Serio's Hunt Valley home June 2, 1999 - the day he was sentenced to six months in jail and a year of home detention in the death of 27-year-old Stacy L. Corbin. Serio had pleaded guilty to auto manslaughter, a felony, and to drunken driving.

Corbin was thrown from Serio's Porsche convertible when it crashed on York Road near Sparks on Oct. 8, 1998. Serio, who was then executive vice president of a baking goods company, lives in Reno, Nev., Butler said.

HEADLINE: Auctions little aid to schools; In Durham, police sales pay overtime

In most Triangle law enforcement shops, police auctions are good for children. The public buys things that were confiscated during arrests and searches, and the profits go to local schools.

But at the Durham Police Department, the sales are good for a few employees.

Most of the money goes to pay overtime to workers who set up the auction.

In the past three years, 79 percent of the Durham auction proceeds have gone
to expenses, mostly overtime. "The percentages that other cities are able to afford to the school system are certainly a lot more than we do, and it does give you reason to be concerned about it," Durham Police Chief Steve Chalmers said in an interview.

Wake County schools get about 70 percent of auction money from the Wake sheriff and Raleigh police. The Durham Sheriff's Office reports that nearly all of its proceeds go to the schools, though it hasn't had an auction in years.  Chapel Hill police spend a lot on advertising, so they send only 37 percent of the take to the schools.

In the Durham Police Department, the lion's share of the overtime pay has gone to one property room technician, Ruth A. Brown, who got $26,169.62 in salary and benefits from the past five auctions. That's 51 percent of the $51,237 that the auctions grossed.

Brown declined to answer questions about the auctions. But several years ago, she testified about overtime pay at the trial of Erick Daniels, a teenager charged with breaking into her home and robbing her at gunpoint of $6,000.  Brown said she earned that money from working police auctions. She could work unlimited hours, she said, because she was paid out of the auction proceeds, not the department's budget.

"We have a police auction, and this is actually the first job that I've ever had that actually allowed me to work as much overtime as I possibly would want to work, because that money comes out of a special fund," Brown testified.  Brown was asked whether the overtime was offered to all Police Department employees.  "Anybody that's willing to work for our police station," Brown said. "But you have to put in the hours to do it."

At one Durham police auction, on Oct. 27, 2001, Brown and her colleagues put in so many hours that the Durham police actually lost money, city records show.

The auction pulled in $9,961.50, and the department spent $9,618.56 on overtime, with $8,217.01 going to Brown. After the cost of an auctioneer and legal notices to advertise the auction, the department lost $957.51.

Brown was in the news after she filed a criminal complaint in October against News & Observer reporter Demorris Lee, charging him with harassment. Lee had been trying to contact Brown while reporting on Daniels' contention that he did not rob Brown.
 Before he was arrested, Lee tried to interview Brown and requested records of her overtime pay from the Durham police. District Attorney Jim Hardin has dismissed the charges against Lee.

Chalmers said the overtime was necessary to conduct the auctions. The workload in the Durham property room leaves the staff with no time to prepare for auctions during regular work hours, he said.  "People down there are doing overtime just to do their 8 to 4:30 work, because they are overwhelmed," Chalmers said.

Chalmers suggested that his department probably was understaffed in the property room compared with other big departments in the Triangle, but the numbers don't bear out his hunch.

Durham has one property room employee for every 160 officers on the streets making arrests and confiscating property. Raleigh police have one property room employee for every 179 officers, and the Wake County sheriff has one property  room clerk for its 345 officers, although at times a uniformed officer helps out.

Some police departments are moving away from traditional auctions. Raleigh police are moving to an online auction company, PropertyRoom.com, that operates a Web site called Stealitback.com The online auction eliminates overtime and the need to build an inventory big enough to hold an auction, spokesman Jim Sughrue said.

Stealitback gets a 50 percent commission for items $1,000 or less and a 25 percent commission on items sold for more than $1,000.  "Oftentimes, goods bring more on these online auctions," Sughrue said.

The Wake County Sheriff's Office has used Wester Auction Co., and the company gets 25 percent of the proceeds, according to county Finance Director Raymond Boutwell.  Although Wake officials have been pleased with the auction company, Boutwell said they have hit on a better option: the state surplus warehouse on Chapel Hill Road in West Raleigh.  "They take 5 percent in commission," Boutwell said.

HEADLINE: Auctions little aid to schools; In Durham, police sales pay overtime

DATELINE: SCOTTSDALE, AZ

The city police department has failed to adequately maintain and document evidence stored in rental facilities for years, an audit has found.

The 99-page report completed by city auditor Cheryl Barcala detailed how police department officials often do not properly record what evidence and other pieces of property are temporarily released for court proceedings and whether they are returned.

The results show several instances where cash, narcotics, guns and biohazard materials are unaccounted for or have been held too long.  The audit showed that police have not destroyed narcotics and other drugs accumulated since April 2001.

But Barcala said no evidence was found to suggest any criminal case has been compromised.  The audit was started in January and took just over six months to complete, Barcala said Wednesday.

Police officials have already accepted recommendations made by Barcala to correct the deficiencies.

HEADLINE: Unfortunate events befall police room 

Commentary

I’m sorry to say that the column you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale of a series of unfortunate events at the Scottsdale Police Department property room.

In this short column alone, 2,300 charming orphaned firearms will be abandoned in the property room, and 20 cheerful guns simply will disappear. 

It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant highlights of a city report called "Police Department Property Room Audit Report No. 0401," but there is nothing stopping you from putting down this column at once. 

And in fact, Scottsdale police officials probably would be happier if you chose some other column, perhaps something cheerful by Scott Bordow about sports, if you prefer that sort of thing. 

If you know anything at all about the unlucky Scottsdale Police Department, you already know that even pleasant events lead down the same road to misery. 

Such was the case with an honorable city auditor named Cheryl Barcala, who recently looked into the unlucky property room and a dreary off-site storage locker. 

Those are the crowded places where police keep — and sometimes lose — property and evidence such as jewelry, narcotics and even urine, which is a most awful thing to keep anyway, especially when it’s someone else’s and years and years old, which is exactly what Barcala discovered. 

She also found that police employees must write down the burdensome details of guns and dope and pee because they don’t have a decent computer. 

"Resources are spent performing menial tasks that could be eliminated with the development and implementation of an accurate, reliable computerized record of impounded property and evidence," she wrote down in her report, which had that unfortunate name with the long series of numbers at the end. 

Now this is the part of this dreadful column about guns. 

It also is my solemn duty to report that Barcala discovered that gun records are not current and periodic inventories have not happened, which means the awful truth is that the guns apparently have been abandoned in the property rooms. 

"In all, we found 2,300 firearms awaiting final disposition, many of which could have been disposed of if there had been a systematic process set up," Barcala wrote down. 

Truth be told, some of those guns could have and should have been destroyed. 

Another miserable episode is that 20 guns that were checked out of storage for use in court have not been returned. The police don’t know who has them, really, which is the most unfortunate part of this column. 

So there was nothing to be found in this column but misery, despair and discomfort, but you still are free to turn the page and seek something lighter. 

With all due respect, 
Paul Giblin

HEADLINE: Sheriff's official held in thefts; Lieutenant accused of stealing money, drugs

DATELINE: EAST BATON  ROGUE, La.

The head of the Evidence Department for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office was arrested Tuesday, accused of stealing money, drugs and weapons from the evidence room and possibly jeopardizing an unknown number of criminal cases.  Lt. Gwendolyn L. Carroll, 66, was arrested after a search of her house, at 2016 Government St., turned up scores of evidence envelopes stashed in 18-gallon plastic tubs, according to an arrest warrant.

Deputies found evidence from about 130 cases at Carroll's house, though that number may change as the investigation continues, Sheriff's Lt. Col. Greg Phares said Wednesday morning at a news conference.

Carroll is accused of stealing more than $200,000, as well as cocaine, marijuana and guns from the evidence room. Sheriff's Col. Mike Barnett called the case the worst breach of evidence security he has seen in nearly 40 years.

An earlier internal investigation by the Sheriff's Office found items missing from the evidence room, on the Parish Prison grounds, and led deputies to Carroll, the warrant says.  Carroll, who has been with the Sheriff's Office since 1988 and the Evidence Department for eight years, allegedly stole the money, drugs and guns over a six-year period, the arrest warrant says.

Phares said Carroll appears to have been dealing with "serious family problems," though he would not go into specifics.  She was fired from the Sheriff's Office concurrent with her arrest, Phares said.

Barnett said it appears Carroll went undetected for a while by replacing evidence when it was subpoenaed and only raised suspicions with her co-workers when she recently reacted nonchalantly to missing evidence, telling them it would turn up eventually.

"She's everybody's grandmother around here," Barnett said. "She is probably the last person you would suspect of taking something that didn't belong to her. Obviously, things have changed for her."

Carroll was likely only interested in taking money but took guns and drugs as well so that evidence with individual cases stayed together and did not raise suspicions, he said.  Barnett vowed that there will be an audit of every piece of evidence in the room. Three people, including Carroll, worked there.

Sheriff's Sgt. Donelle Kwan, another employee in the Evidence Department, will oversee the evidence, representing thousands of cases, until the Sheriff's Office finds a full-time replacement for Carroll.

The effect the theft has on criminal cases depends very much on the type of evidence involved, said David Price, president of the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "If it is some item that has some other evidence on it, whether it is DNA, fingerprints or a gun they want to do ballistic testing on, that can certainly cause some problems," he said.

"If, through the Sheriff's Office own fault, they don't have that item anymore, I'm not sure what it does in court, but it certainly creates a problem, " Price said.  Phares, however, would not comment on specific problems the theft might have on any cases but did say, "It is clearly a matter of concern for us and the district attorney."

District Attorney Doug Moreau did not return calls to his office and home Wednesday night.  E. Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, declined comment.

Carroll remained in Parish Prison Wednesday night on counts of tampering with evidence, theft, theft of a firearm, possession of marijuana and possession of cocaine. Bond was set at $25,000.
 
 

HEADLINE: APD Evidence Probe Eliciting Suspicion

The Albuquerque Police Department does a dismal job of tracking evidence seized in criminal cases. The city's own audits in 1999, 2001 and 2003 say so. And now there are strong suspicions that APD has done a poor job of securing evidence.

Despite repeated audits, investigations, personnel transfers and promises by Police Chief Gilbert Gallegos and Chief Public Safety Officer Nick Bakas and Mayor Martin Chavez, the department has not gotten to the bottom of the suspicions.

A routine APD inspection of the unit in the summer of 2003 indicated that evidence was being mishandled. That should have triggered an immediate and thorough response, but it didn't.

In March, an anonymous memo was sent to Gallegos claiming that thousands of dollars in cash, jewelry and property had been stolen from the evidence room. The reaction to that, too, was underwhelming. 

Days after the memo surfaced, Gallegos and Bakas held a news conference to defend the investigation of the police department by police. They also said they would hire an outside firm to conduct a forensic audit of the evidence unit and that state Attorney General Patricia Madrid's office had been asked to conduct a criminal investigation. 

In April, Chavez stated in a letter to the editor that the independent investigation would reveal "whether the problem involves criminality or simply accounting deficiencies. ..."  Nine months after the memo, there has been no forensic audit and no hard conclusion on the question of criminality.

An owner of contract investigator Maximum Security said he was told to look at procedures and policies, not conduct a forensic audit.

The AG's office has yet to complete its report. And a police lieutenant points out the obvious, that evidence unit employees had months to cover up any wrongdoing.  If investigations of suspicious circumstances outside the department were this slow, detectives, the chief and an election-year mayor might all be worrying about job security.

The same should be true in spades for investigations inside the department.