• HOPEWELL, VIRGINIA - Hopewell Commonwealth's Attorney A.S. announced Wednesday (March 22nd) that he learned drug evidence from some seventy cases was missing along with over $10,000. Hopewell's police chief says he can't yet explain how the evidence went missing. But, says problems with his department's storage of evidence were only discovered recently and are now being looked into by the FBI. At this point no criminal charges have come out of any of the ongoing investigations into the Hopewell Bureau of Police. 
NBC12 News - Friday, March 24,2006

• PLAQUEMINE, LOUISIANA - A state judge sentenced Joseph Jenkins of Baton Rouge on Thursday to 13 years in prison after Jenkins entered a guilty plea in a July case involving thefts from the headquarters of Law Enforcement Against Drugs, a narcotics task force. Investigators arrested the Jenkins cousins in connection with entry into the evidence room at the task force headquarters, where drugs, cash and a gun were taken. He pleaded guilty to possessing more than 400 grams of cocaine, attempted arson and obstruction of justice. Charges of theft of cash and drugs were dropped in exchange for the plea, and other charges were dropped before the trial began.
2theadvocate.com, WBRZ, Louisiana Broadcasting LLC

• BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA - A veteran Berkeley narcotics officer suspected of stealing heroin from an evidence locker for his personal use is likely to be charged criminally in the next week, according to a source close to the case. A source claims the subject is negotiating a plea arrangement wherein he will plead guilty to felony charges of grand theft and possession of heroin and face up to one year in county jail. 
East Bay Express (California) - April 5,2006

• DALLAS COUNTY, IOWA - Dallas County handed over the keys to the county's evidence room to the West Des Moines police to supervise, amid a state investigation into the alleged disappearance of a packet of money that was part of a seizure made during a traffic stop in March. 
The Des Moines Register - April 9, 2006

• ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA - A former Rochester Police Department employee who stole about 500 grams of cocaine from the department's evidence room has been sentenced to about half a year in jail. Over a period of nine months, the former employee took 46 pieces of evidence seized in more than 30 narcotics cases.

• WINDER, GEORGIA - An Arcade Police Department lieutenant Thursday admitted he took a cigarette lighter and a switch-blade knife from the department's evidence locker and gave them to a woman who claimed the officer stalked her. [The former] police lieutenant pleaded guilty Thursday in Barrow County Superior Court to two counts of misdemeanor theft by taking, exactly one week after he was fired from his post in Arcade. Su­perior Court Judge Robert Adamson sentenced the former officer to two years of probation and ordered him to pay a $1,400 fine.

As a part of probation, [the former officer] will not be allowed to have a gun and was stripped of his police certification. 
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 03/24/06

• JESSUP, PENNSYLVANIA - A Jessup police officer's theft of suspected marijuana and other evidence from the borough police station prevented the arrest of a drug dealer, the borough's assistant police chief testified Tuesday.

[The] Police Chief later confirmed the testimony and said the dealer could not be prosecuted because the chain of custody of the evidence was interrupted. Establishing a chain of custody, which shows police were in control of evidence at all times after they took possession of it, is crucial to protecting against evidence tampering. The inability to establish a chain of custody risks the dis­missal of a case, according to previous court rulings.

[The accused] officer is charged with burglary, theft, receiving stolen property, tampering with evidence and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia at police headquarters.

Testimony at the hearing showed the officer took bolt cutters from the borough garage, cut open a padlock on the borough evidence room door and stole a small amount of suspected marijuana, three hypodermic syringes, unspecified prescription pills, a shotgun and two rifles. The officer later admitted the theft, a state trooper testified. 
Published in the timesshamrock.com - April 12,2006

• SCHENECTADY, NEW YORK - A vet­eran investigator with the county Sheriff's Department pleaded guilty in City Court to stealing $133 from an evidence locker late last year. Before he was fired this past winter, [he] had logged 27 years with the Schenectady County Sheriff's Department.
The Times Union (Albany, New York) April 18,2006

• GREENWOOD, MISSISSIPPI - An investigation is under way after it was determined that drug evidence is missing from the Greenwood Police Department, according to Mayor Harry Smith. [Mayor] Smith said Thursday that he was notified this week that the evidence, about 90 pounds of marijuana, could not be accounted for.

• CEDAR CITY, UTAH - Police in Cedar City have arrested three S1. George area teenagers - including the son of a Utah Highway Patrol trooper - after they allegedly raided the UHP's evidence locker and stole more than 23 pounds of marijuana. Entry into the property room was made with the use of the father's property room keys.
Deseret Morning News, March 08, 2006

• HAVERSTRAW, NEW YORK - A Thiells man says the Haverstraw Police Department lost his submachine gun and other weapons after his wife brought them to the station in 2004 for safekeeping while the couple was estranged. [He] said he was told by Detective Henry Soto on Thursday that the police didn't have his five guns and that a person claiming to be either his father or brother had picked them up.
The Journal News, April 22, 2006