Former ***** Agent Gets 80-Year Term
Long Beach Press-Telegram, July 23,1991

A former drug agent convicted of heroin trafficking and laundering millions of dollars was sentenced Monday to 80 years in prison. "This is the kind of case - fortunately, it's a: rare kind of case - that cries out for the maximum penalty," the U.S. District Judge said as he sentenced the former agent. The judge also imposed a fine of $1.16 million of the 44 year old former agent. Prosecutors contended that * * * * * and two other former agents went on a five-year crime spree, stealing cash from a ***** evidence vault in Los Angeles and from drug dealers. The thefts included $100,000 in cash from the ***** cashier's office, a kilogram of heroin from the ***** evidence locker, and about 400 pounds of cocaine from a stash house.
 

$30,000 in Evidence May Be Missing
Philadelphia Daily News, May 29, 1981

Police are quietly investigating the apparent theft of a large amount of cash from the supposedly "burglar-proof'" trial evidence room at City Hall, the Daily News has learned. One unconfirmed report said that as much as $30,000 in cash could be missing from the room, on City Hall's 7th floor, the repository for stolen items to be used as evidence in upcoming trials, as well as weapons and money seized by police in drug and gambling raids. The police department is responsible for safekeeping of the items held until needed in court.

The source indicated that other items also could be missing. "We don't know what evidence is gone," the source said. "The matter is really a big mystery right now." The Daily News learned that the evidence room is manned by police officers when open during court hours, and locked up tight at night. Money normally is locked away in a safe, and the room has bars on the doors and a burglar alarm system to alert police to any tampering. They were installed to "burglar-proof' the evidence room after a celebrated theft there in 1963.
 

Dispatcher Charged in Theft of Fake Drugs
Philadelphia Inquirer, April 26, 1989

A police and fire dispatcher who was charged yesterday with burglarizing a drug evidence room while on duty at City Hall may be in a bunch of trouble for naught. Public Safety Director ***** said it looked as if the only drugs taken during the break-in were fake. "This guy thought he was stealing real drugs, but he wasn't. They look real, but they're imitation, look-alikes." The imitation drugs were from an educational display that police take to schools to illustrate different types of narcotics.

Police said that *****, one of two dispatchers on duty Monday evening, left his post and gained access to the office by climbing into the dropped ceiling above the room and smashing through the panels. The office, near the dispatch room on the third floor of fire headquarters, is used mostly to store drug case files and drugs seized by police during raids.
 

***** Agent Charged with Stealing, Selling Heroin
St. Paul Pioneer Planet, June 4, 1994

An ***** agent assigned to a squad that arrested drug dealers was charged Friday with stealing about 100 pounds of heroin from his evidence room and trying to sell it. "It's very difficult for us to arrest one of our own agents," said *****. "It's very painful for me and the ***** family."

The supplier contacted dealers through the mail and offered to front them large quantities of heroin in return for money to be mailed to postal boxes. Authorities said ***** was the supplier, and the drugs for sale were stolen from the evidence room. ***** allegedly asked dealers for $75,000 per kilogram. ***** allegedly stole the heroin, confiscated more than a year ago, between January and March, and replaced the missing evidence with sodium bicarbonate. *****'s letters to the dealers even contained one-ounce free samples of one batch seized from a Pakistani dealer, authorities said.
 

DA Will Handle ***** Vault Case
Las Vegas Sun, January, 1996

Detectives are trying to determine who pilfered thousands of dollars from the department's evidence vault, the chief of police said. The people who work at the vault are uncommissioned officers. Most evidence is stored inside the warehouse-like vault in plain brown bags and stored in boxes on metal shelving. Missing are several bags of unclaimed, forfeited money not used as evidence in court, and "will not jeopardize criminal cases," he said. "It's seized money."

"A few packages" of cash were discovered missing because of a new check-and-balance computer tracking system, he said, noting that "it helped us catch this very quickly." Also, ***** said an audit going back several months is being done to make sure nothing else is missing. But, he added, "We do not have any reason to believe that we've had a long-term theft problem.

[NOTE: A follow-up article a few days later indicated that about half of the $30,000 had been located in incorrect storage locations during the internal audit, but that the balance was still unaccounted for.]
 

Sheriff's Stolen Evidence Means Dismissals for 25 Drug Suspects
Associated Press, North Carolina, May 8, 1991

Drug cases against 25 people will have to be dismissed because evidence against them including marijuana, cocaine and cash - has been stolen, officials say. Sheriff ***** said "a fair amount" of marijuana and cocaine was taken from three storage lockers in a trailer at the County Law Enforcement Center. About $6,000 in cash and $250 in food stamps also were taken.
 

Slain Lumbee Had Feared His Life In Danger
Charlotte Observer, January 5, 1987

Relatives of a Lumbee Indian man killed by a ***** deputy said the man feared for his life weeks before he was shot because he was dealing in cocaine stolen from the ***** Sheriff's Department evidence locker. Members of the victims family, speaking on the condition that they not be identified out of fear for their own lives, quoted the victim as saying that he had made two buys - one 3 ounces and one 2 ounces and that it was all out of the courthouse. "On October 17th he showed me $11,000 in cash he had planned to use to make a third buy with that day. But ... it all fell through. It was after that that he told us he felt like his life was in danger," the family member said.

Deputy *****, the son of the Sheriff, shot the victim after stopping him for a routine traffic check. Deputy ***** testified that he had shot the victim accidentally during a confrontation, but a state agent testified that the deputy had told him that he fired because he feared for his life. A coroner's inquest ruled that the shooting of the unarmed man had been an accident, self-defense, or a combination of the two.

Last month, a former ***** deputy and two other men were indicted in connection with the theft of evidence from an evidence locker, including more than 500 grams of cocaine. Although no current deputies were indicted in that case, Deputy ***** was one of only two deputies with access to the evidence lockers.