HEADLINE:  Security breach at Eureka courthouse; Woodford sheriff to tighten policy

BYLINE:  KAREN McDONALD of the Journal Star

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Eureka - Woodford County Sheriff Jim Pierceall is changing security policies at the courthouse beginning today after a recent security breach in the circuit clerk's evidence room.

Woodford County Board member Caroline Schertz and a technician from Hart Technologies told a deputy circuit clerk they needed to get into the small, locked room to look at the computer system.

That room contains a computer system, but it also contains piles of evidence from past trials - some of which still are on appeal - and upcoming trials, officials said.

"When unauthorized people get involved in the evidence, it's always a concern to the courts," Judge John Huschen said. "The possible consequences of that are always of concern, but until it's officially brought to my attention in court, I don't plan to take any action, particularly in light of the sheriff's new policy."

Circuit Clerk Carol Newtson, who was at a meeting during the incident, said no one outside her office is allowed inside the evidence room without her permission and without a deputy circuit clerk escort.

Schertz said she had no idea that room also housed evidence.

"(The employee) did not say it was the evidence room. She did not even question us going in there. She did not say we had to have the circuit clerk's permission," Schertz said. "We just looked at the computer server . . . I saw no evidence, just file cabinets. I didn't know what was in them and I didn't care."

Newtson said her employee "felt intimidated because of (Schertz's) status as a County Board member" and let her inside. Newtson said that employee since has been reprimanded.

Regardless, Pierceall said the situation is no joke.

"I'm taking this seriously . . . I don't ever want to see this happen again in anybody's office," Pierceall said.

County Administrator Greg Seefeldt said he called Hart to get a price quote on the cost of using the existing computer network in the courthouse to access other county systems from the County Board room, located across the street.

That meeting was at 9 a.m., Seefeldt said. To make a 10 a.m. meeting with department heads, including Newtson, Seefeldt said he asked Schertz, who said she was proofreading a policy he was writing in his office, to continue the tour in the circuit clerk's office.

Once Newtson was informed of the potential security breach, she and the sheriff immediately left their meeting and told Schertz and the technician to leave the office.

Under the new security policy, all vendors, including salesmen, repairmen and companies doing business for the county, will be required to sign in at the security desk and provide a purpose for their visit. Security then will notify the Sheriff's Department, as well as the head of the department which the vendor intends to visit and must have permission to do so.

"We're not limiting the public, but any of the vendors must sign in so I know who they are, what company they're representing and what business they're doing here," Pierceall said.

Meanwhile, crews will be working later this week to move the evidence room to a different, more secure location, Pierceall said.

"It will have a solid door, bars on the window and no one will have a key except for me," Newtson said.

SECTION: METRO; Pg. B1

HEADLINE: 98 arrests tie police case, drugs -- Indictments follow property room
thefts

BYLINE: Chris Conley conley@commercialappeal.com

The Memphis police property room scandal - in which employees looted the place of mass quantities of drugs and cash - has spawned nearly 100 more arrests.

Charges against at least 98 more defendants - here and in Texas - were made public Thursday.

Sealed indictments from July, unveiled in Memphis Thursday, charge Willie Andra Woods, Tyrone Terry and 32 others in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine from a Texas supplier, Fred Flores III, throughout Memphis and Fayette County.

Flores is one of 55 drug defendants whose indictments were unsealed in Texas.

Prosecutors said another nine Memphis drug indictments, that weren't sealed, are connected.

Most of those charged are members of street gangs - Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Crips, Bloods - connected through a common drug supplier, FBI special agent-in-charge My Harrison said.

"This is textbook law enforcement," acting U.S. Atty. Larry Laurenzi said. "One investigation led to another ... this grew out of the property room investigation."

In that investigation, 18 people, including property room manager Kenneth Dansberry, have pleaded guilty to stealing or selling hundreds, perhaps thousands, of kilos of cocaine from the property room.

Patrick Maxwell, who sold the cocaine stolen by Dansberry; Memphis drug dealer Eric Brown and mid-level dealer Lermedeyo Malone pleaded guilty and await sentencing.

Brown, the link between Dansberry and Maxwell, is cooperating with federal prosecutors, Asst. U.S. Atty. Tom Colthurst has said.

A look at the indictments in the property room case and Thursday's indictments shows one direct link.

Charles Price of Memphis was charged in May with having 500 grams of cocaine, drugs taken from the property room, on Sept. 6, 2003. In the 2004 property room indictments, Lermedeyo Malone was charged with having that same 500 grams of cocaine - that same day.

Federal officials said Thursday that in addition to more than 100 pounds of cocaine seized here, dozens of homes, here and in Dallas, were being seized.

Nineteen luxury vehicles were seized in Dallas; dozens here.

- Chris Conley: 529-2595

HEADLINE: $8,000 missing from Polk evidence room; An FDLE investigator says he doesn't know who took the money from Dundee police.

BYLINE: Sentinel Staff Writer

Eight thousand dollars is missing from the Dundee Police Department's evidence room, and this is one mystery detectives haven't been able to solve.

Despite the fact only three people have keys to the evidence room, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agent called in to investigate the case in this small Polk County town is unable to say why it is missing or who took the money.

State Attorney Jerry Hill recently wrote in a letter to Dundee Town Manager Jim Gallagher that it is "impossible to pinpoint when the money disappeared."

It could have vanished Nov. 2, 2004, when an officer collected it from the scene of a suicide and then counted it at the Police Department. But investigators don't know that because the cash wasn't discovered missing until earlier this year.

The money in question was found in a briefcase inside the home where Margaret Maloney shot herself. Maloney later died from her wound.

An FDLE report said Officer Ralph Marshall counted the money, which was in two bank envelopes containing $4,000 each. But when Marshall completed an evidence inventory sheet for the suicide, he didn't make any reference to the money, the report said.

He told investigators he put the money in a manila envelope and sealed it, returned the money to the briefcase and placed it with the case-file box on a table in the evidence room.

Marshall told the FDLE investigator that Sgt. Dustin Bowen helped gather the evidence, but Bowen said he never saw the money.

When Maloney's relative asked for the personal documents inside the briefcase in December 2004, Marshall and part-time evidence worker Lee Sacco sorted through the briefcase, the report said.

Sacco told the FDLE investigator he picked up a sealed envelope that Marshall said contained the money and put it back into the box. Marshall said he didn't remember the envelope.

When the Police Department received a court order in April to return the $8,000 to Maloney's relative, Bowen and Sacco couldn't find the cash.

Police couldn't find the money, so the town of Dundee issued Maloney's relative a check for the amount in question.

Sacco told the investigator that Bowen called him about the case box "a few weeks prior" to their search and inquired about a will. But the FDLE investigator noted in his report that no will was ever in the papers included in the evidence.

Bowen, Sacco, Marshall and Chief Bill Guess each denied taking the money, the FDLE report said. Guess, Bowen and Sacco have keys to the evidence room.

The officers and Sacco admitted to errors in how the evidence was handled. Each of the employees took polygraph exams. The report said Bowen and Marshall showed deception in answering several questions about the money.

Bowen repeatedly answered questions with "I don't recall" and was visibly nervous and emotional, the report said. Bowen also said "he had thought about putting $8,000 in the evidence room to make the investigation go away."

Bowen and Marshall could not be reached for comment.

In his letter to Gallagher, the town manager, Hill is critical of the nine-member police department in this small east Polk town, saying there was no policy in place for handling money in the evidence room.

"The investigation indicates that this was the largest amount of money taken in evidence in recent memory," Hill wrote. "Yet no precautions were taken by anyone at the department, including Chief William Guess, to safeguard the money. This is not the first time that the procedures for handling evidence at the Dundee Police Department have been called into question. It was my hope that under the administration of Chief Guess, the situation would improve. This investigation reveals that it hasn't."

Guess was not available for comment, but Gallagher said the police chief implemented procedure changes "almost immediately."

Gallagher also said any possible disciplinary action against employees is pending.

"We're still looking into this and trying to touch every base," he said. "We haven't finished determining if the money isn't there yet."

Amy L. Edwards can be reached at aledwards@orlandosentinel.com or 863-422-3395.

HEADLINE: Evidence room critical to justice 

BYLINE: By Janice Gregorson gregor@postbulletin.com

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To an outsider, the locked room in the basement of the government center looks like a mess, with boxes and bags filling every shelf and corner. 

But not to Michelle Ness. 

It's her domain. 

The room holds thousands of items of evidence collected by law enforcement at crime scenes in Rochester and Olmsted County. 

There are boxes of beer and liquor bottles, shelves full of computers and electronic parts, a wall lined with rifles. Some types of evidence such as drugs are put in heat-sealed plastic bags. 

Ness, who has been coordinator of the evidence room for the past five years, can locate a given piece of evidence in seconds, thanks to a computer record-keeping system that tracks the location of each item. 

The procedures for maintaining the integrity of evidence have come under scrutiny in recent weeks after it was discovered that an evidence package containing 2.14 grams of crack cocaine was missing. 

An inventory of 1,500 pieces of narcotics evidence revealed that 46 items -- almost all cocaine -- had been taken, affecting 32 criminal cases. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was called in. 

On Wednesday, Police Chief Roger Peterson announced an employee who assists Ness in processing and storing evidence had been arrested. The BCA investigation indicated she acted alone, Peterson said. 

But Peterson said the theft allegations don't mean the evidence room procedures are flawed. 

"It's necessary to put trust in people, and when that trust is violated, this can happen," he said. "This is a job done by people and people, unfortunately, are not perfect."

Police Capt. Rick Krueger, who oversees staff assigned to the evidence room, says only three people have access to keys to the room. 

After patrol officers and investigators collect evidence at a crime scene, they bring the items into a processing room adjoining the locked evidence room. Here they fill out a detailed form for each piece of evidence, which might be labeled and put in a clear plastic bag. 

The wall between the processing room and the evidence room has a bank of lockers with doors on each side. The officer puts the evidence in a locker and puts the locker's key in a locked box. The next day Ness removes the evidence by opening the locker from her side of the wall, and she packages it for storage. 

A form is kept with the piece of evidence to document its every move so Ness knows who handled it, whether it was sent to the Bureau of Criminal apprehension for analysis or whether it was checked out to an investigator or attorney for a court hearing. That, Krueger and Ness say, is critical in establishing the chain of custody. 

Ness receives an average of 18 new pieces of evidence daily, she said. The annual average is about 7,000, she says. 

Krueger says the evidence is kept until a case is closed and the appeal period has expired. Even then, he said, the evidence is held until police receive a written release from the court or county attorney. 

HEADLINE: Charges expected in evidence thefts 

BYLINE: By Janice Gregorson gregor@postbulletin.com

Criminal charges are pending against a Rochester police department employee suspected of stealing drugs from the evidence room where she worked. 

The Olmsted County Attorney's office is waiting for investigative reports about the 29-year-old suspect.

Rochester Police Chief Roger Peterson said the woman, who was arrested at her home Tuesday, has been put on administrative leave. He said he will forward a copy of the criminal complaint to the city's human resources department and city attorney's office with the request that she be terminated by the civil service commission. 

On Wednesday, Peterson said she was suspected of taking 500 grams of cocaine that was evidence in 32 criminal cases. He said the thefts are believed to have occurred between March and July. They were discovered in early August, when an evidence package containing 2.14 grams of crack cocaine was missing when an attorney wanted it for a court hearing. 

Peterson said that led to an inventory of 1,500 packages of narcotics evidence and the discovery that 46 items of evidence were missing. The case was turned over to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for investigation, which resulted in the employee's arrest. 

She was first hired on a part-time basis in February 2002 and assigned to the records department. She became a full-time employee in November 2003 and was assigned as an assistant in the evidence room. She was a civilian employee whose duties included the acceptance and storage of evidence, which provided her access to the drugs she now is suspected of taking, Peterson said. 

Like all employees, Peterson said, an extensive background investigation was done on the woman before she was hired. 

"She was a solid, reliable employee," he said, "until recently."

"It was not a question of hiring a problem employee. It was an employee that developed a problem," Peterson said. 

She does have a prior conviction for misdemeanor driving while impaired. 

Peterson said that conviction alone would not disqualify her from public employment, and one conviction for drunken driving would not indicate a pattern of behavior that would be problematic, he said.

HEADLINE: SDPD Employee Arrested For Selling Police Evidence Online

A 15-year employee of the San Diego Police Department has been arrested for allegedly selling police evidence online, it was reported Wednesday.

Gabriel Gutierrez, a property room supervisor, faces three counts each of embezzlement and using a computer to wrongfully obtain money, according to Assistant City Attorney Chris Morris.

Gutierrez, 42, is accused of taking knives from the property room and selling them on the internet, Morris said.

The charges against Gutierrez were filed after a three-month investigation. 

HEADLINE: Missing evidence leads to ABI investigation

BYLINE: By Phyllis Anne Guilmette Sun Staff Writer

District Attorney Gary McAliley and Coffee County Sheriff Ben Moates hope that an investigation by the Alabama Bureau of Investigation will determine how and why evidence is missing in up to 100 criminal cases.

The ABI investigation began this week into the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department at the request of Moates, who was called to the witness stand in circuit court last week and admitted that evidence was missing in a case being prosecuted by McAliley.

McAliley said he believes evidence involving nearly 30 defendants is missing, meaning that the missing evidence could affect up to 100 separate cases.

“I do not think it will be that many cases,” Moates said this week. “I do accept full responsibility for this. I am not trying to cover up anything.”

Moates called for the investigation in a letter last week to Major Ken Hallford of ABI.

“I feel it imperative that if possible, it be determined how and when the evidence went missing,” said Moates. “As long as I continue to be the responsible person elected by the citizens of Coffee county and entrusted to the office of sheriff, I want to ensure that this occurrence is prevented in the future.”

“I accept full responsibility for any and all actions of mistrust that the Coffee county Sheriff’s Office may have exhibited recently.”

McAliley said problems began nearly four months ago, when seven drug cases could not move forward because evidence was missing from the Sheriff’s Department. The situation intensified, McAliley said, when 25 more cases were stumped because of missing evidence.

“It is hard enough to prosecute these cases with evidence,” said McAliley, “never mind without it.”

McAliley said Moates told him the evidence was lost.

Last Monday in court, Moates was called to the stand to discuss the missing evidence. Also called to the stand was former Sheriff’s Department investigator Mark Anderson.

Moates said that in the process of Anderson’s departure from the Sheriff’s Department, he may have left some evidence on his desk and a trusty cleaning up in the office may have assumed it was no good and may have thrown it away.

“My feeling is it was set down somewhere,” he said.

Moates said the sheriff’s department has an evidence room that is locked and secure.

Many times, evidence in cases is never requested, particularly when a defendant is entering a guilty plea, Moates said. He said he discovered the evidence missing after a defense attorney in a specific case asked to see it.

“Until that time, (Sept. 16) we had no reason to know it was missing,” he said.

The sheriff said he has never before been called to testify concerning missing evidence.

“There is a chain of custody [for evidence]” said McAliley.

The cases are generally all drug-related, including methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

McAliley said he got a call from someone the Saturday before one of the cases was set to start. The source told McAliley that the Sheriff’s Department lost the evidence in the drug case. McAliley said he called Moates to ask about it and Moates said it was probably true.

McAliley said these allegations are not politically charged and that he just wants to find what the problem is and fix it.

“He is my ally,” said McAliley of Moates.