IAPE Evidence Blog

www.citizen-times.com, citizen-times.com
BYLINE: Romando Dix­son
Link to Article

Asheville, NC

Dis­trict attor­ney to get report soon

ASHEVILLE — Blue­line Sys­tems & Ser­vices exhausted nearly all money bud­geted for an audit of the Police Depart­ment evi­dence room and is in the final stages of prepar­ing a report for Bun­combe County Dis­trict Attor­ney Ron Moore.

“We’re just double-checking fig­ures and doing final edit­ing on the report,” Blue­line direc­tor Mike Wright said.

Blue­line billed the city $174,722.50 dur­ing inven­tory data col­lec­tion, and no more invoices will be filed.

City Coun­cil approved spend­ing up to $175,000 in money from drug seizures after a par­tial audit ear­lier this year found police had lost track of at least 27 guns taken as evi­dence, along with drugs and cash.

Moore said he has a few inklings of what may be in the audit report based on talks with Wright but it isn’t any­thing he can dis­cuss. He said he is anx­ious to see the com­plete find­ings of the audit.

“I know they have exam­ined thou­sands of items,” Moore said. “As far as results, we’re going to have to wait.”

Moore told police it would be about a month before he is ready to dis­cuss the report with APD staff, Capt. Tim Splain said.

The State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion is con­tin­u­ing its crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, which Moore requested after an assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney and a defense lawyer went to the evi­dence room in prepa­ra­tion for a case against a drug sus­pect and dis­cov­ered 397 pills of oxy­codone were miss­ing from an evi­dence envelope.

The dis­cov­ery led Moore to drop drug traf­fick­ing charges against the suspect.

“We’ll still con­tinue to be avail­able to coop­er­ate with the SBI inves­ti­ga­tion if they need to talk with us or we need to inter­act with them in any way,” Wright said.

Wright is lim­ited on what he can say about the audit because of a con­fi­den­tial­ity agree­ment in his contract.

The report will be about 20 pages in text and also include charts, attach­ments and dif­fer­ent data­bases, he said.

It will include rec­om­men­da­tions to make track­ing items in the evi­dence room more accu­rate and effi­cient in the future, Wright said.

Blue­line employ­ees were paid an hourly rate for work that began in June, and some earned $85 an hour. Since April, the com­pany also has billed the city for train­ing, media inter­views and meet­ings with attor­neys and police, which cost $120 an hour, accord­ing to invoices obtained by the Citizen-Times.

Moore said Blue­line had to estab­lish and record the meth­ods they used in case there are ques­tions down the road.

“I think they were very, very metic­u­lous about that, which is why it’s taken as long as it has,” Moore said.

Wright said the require­ments of the exist­ing con­tract will be ful­filled when the report is turned in.

He said the city and his com­pany have not had a talk about whether more work will need to be done. That will not hap­pen until Moore reviews the report.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Robeson­ian, robesonian.com
BYLINE: Matt Elof­son
Link to Article

Red Springs, NC

RED SPRINGS — The State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion is try­ing to deter­mine how evi­dence in two sep­a­rate cases dis­ap­peared from the Red Springs Police Department.

Dis­trict Attor­ney John­son Britt requested the inves­ti­ga­tion on Sept. 29. Some of the evi­dence was for a mur­der trial and the other evi­dence was 2 ounces of crack cocaine that had been seized by the SBI.

SBI agents have taken con­trol of the Police Department’s evi­dence room and changed the locks on the door Tues­day, Britt said. Agents began an inven­tory of items stored in the evi­dence room on Wednes­day to com­pare what is there with what logs show should be there.

Britt said he called for the inves­ti­ga­tion after his office was forced to agree to a plea deal in the first-degree mur­der of Mar­cus Gal­breath. Gal­breath, 30, was charged with the 2001 mur­der of Jef­frey Thomas Fair­ley. But Britt said Red Springs police could not find four shell cas­ings col­lected at the crime scene, the victim’s cloth­ing, and photographs.

Gal­breath pleaded guilty last month to vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter. He was sen­tenced to six to eight years in prison.

SBI agents on Sept. 28 went to the Police Depart­ment to col­lect drug evi­dence that was part of an under­cover inves­ti­ga­tion that occurred dur­ing 2002. The drugs had been turned over to a Red Springs police offi­cer, but there was no writ­ten doc­u­men­ta­tion that the drugs ever existed, Britt said.

”The SBI is engaged in a fed­eral drug inves­ti­ga­tion,“ Britt said. ”It includes a tar­get, and as I recall, it was 2 ounces of crack cocaine that was pur­chased. It can­not be accounted for right now.“

Britt did not want to release the name of the Red Springs offi­cer who had han­dled the cocaine.

Red Spring Police Chief Lum Edwards appeared to be taken by sur­prise by the investigation.

”All I know is they said they wanted to help us straighten out our (evi­dence) room,“ Edwards said.

He said his depart­ment is using dif­fer­ent lock­ers to store any new evi­dence that is collected.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

CITIZEN-TIMES.COM, citizen-times.com
BYLINE: Romando Dixson

Asheville, NC

Com­pany has billed city about $130K

ASHEVILLE — A Police Depart­ment evi­dence room audit has cost the city about $130,000, keep­ing the project under bud­get so far.

The com­pany Blue­line Sys­tems & Ser­vices has scanned all high-risk items — money, firearms and nar­cotics — and could be within weeks of fin­ish­ing work, Blue­line direc­tor Mike Wright said.

City Coun­cil approved spend­ing up to $175,000 in money from drug seizures after a par­tial audit found police had lost track of at least 27 guns taken as evi­dence, along with drugs and cash.

Blue­line will send a report to Dis­trict Attor­ney Ron Moore and the State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion when the work is done.

Wright said the dis­trict attor­ney, SBI and the city will deter­mine if addi­tional work is required, poten­tially adding costs.

“We are pos­si­bly near­ing the end of one phase,” said Wright, a for­mer crime scene ana­lyst with the Bun­combe County Sheriff’s Office. “If they elect to go on with it, it might go on some time longer. It depends on the dis­cus­sion of those parties.”

Blue­line Sys­tems is being paid an hourly rate for work that began in June, and some employ­ees are cost­ing the city $85 an hour. Since April, the com­pany also has billed the city for train­ing, media inter­views and meet­ings with attor­neys and police, which cost $120 an hour, accord­ing to invoices obtained by the Citizen-Times.

Moore in April ordered the evi­dence room sealed and that an inde­pen­dent audit be con­ducted after learn­ing about prob­lems uncov­ered by a par­tial audit.

He also requested an SBI inves­ti­ga­tion after an assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney and defense lawyer went to the evi­dence room in prepa­ra­tion for a case against a drug sus­pect and dis­cov­ered 397 pills of oxy­codone were miss­ing from an evi­dence envelope.

The dis­cov­ery prompted Moore to drop drug traf­fick­ing charges against the sus­pect. The par­tial audit found that of 1,097 items audited, 27 guns, 54 con­tain­ers of drugs and 34 pack­ets of money and valu­ables couldn’t be located.

Wright said he could not dis­cuss the results of his audit because of his con­tract with the city and the ongo­ing SBI investigation.

The Police Depart­ment is not updated on the sta­tus of the audit. The company’s reports go to Moore’s office and the SBI.

“APD won’t be noti­fied of the results of the audit until the DA and SBI are sat­is­fied that by reveal­ing the results of the audit, it won’t harm any poten­tial crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion,” police Capt. Tim Splain said.

Blue­line is still rec­on­cil­ing court sys­tem file num­bers and law enforce­ment file num­bers on some items.

Wright declined to say how many items have been scanned and counted but said the num­ber exceeds 14,000.

With the evi­dence room being sealed, police had to cre­ate another place to store prop­erty. They turned a SWAT bay, where vehi­cles are usu­ally kept, into a tem­po­rary prop­erty room.

Staff writer Jon Osten­dorff con­tributed to this article.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org