Pubdate: Sun, 22 May 2005
Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright: 2005 The Commercial Appeal
Contact:  http://www.commercialappeal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/95
Author: Chris Conley

PROPERTY-ROOM THEFT FIGURES NAMING OTHERS

In October 2002, Memphis narcotics officer Dion Cicinelli wanted to see
1,500 pounds of marijuana he had seized.

Property room supervisor Kenneth Dansberry, panicking, at first tried to
show the officer 1,500 grams of the drug. That's a little more than 3
pounds.

=09 He eventually scraped together 1,500 pounds of pot -- but Cicinelli knew
it wasn't the dope he had seized.

That realization was a turning point in the investigation into massive drug
and money theft from the property room, court records show.

Until then, there had only been rumors that Dansberry, department employee
Carl Johnson, Memphis drug dealer Eric Brown and Atlanta drug kingpin
Patrick Maxwell were a pipeline, putting tons of drugs back on the street.

Eighteen people, including Dansberry and other police department employees,
have pleaded guilty.

But the investigation isn't over.

Other department employees -- possibly high-ranking officers on the job
while the thefts were going on -- are now in the cross hairs.

Sentencing for several defendants has been put on hold because they are
naming names -- new ones.

Brown, the link between Dansberry and Maxwell, "is cooperating in the
government's planned prosecution of other individuals," Asst. U.S. Atty. Tom
Colthurst wrote in a motion to delay Brown's sentencing.

And, he wrote, "at least some charged cases are expected from those
investigations."

In the recent sentencing of Jay Liner, a manager drawn into the web of
thievery when he accepted stolen guns and other valuables, it was clear he's
helping prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors released grand jury transcripts to the sentencing judge
to show Liner's cooperation.

U.S. Dist. Judge Jon McCall, it seems, was impressed enough that he didn't
impose prison time.

Liner got three years' probation, community service, and a $3,000 fine.

Brown is scheduled to be sentenced in June, as is Maxwell, whose cooperation
also has been noted by prosecutors.

Nobody involved in the case will say who's being targeted, and Liner's grand
jury testimony is sealed.

The investigation, up to now, is spelled out in a statement by DEA agent
Brian Chambers in court papers that push for forfeiture of Maxwell's houses,
jewelry and money.

After Dansberry couldn't produce Cicinelli's marijuana, agents began
slipping into the evidence room at the old International Harvester plant at
night, to see how bad the thefts were.

What they found was breathtaking -- hundreds of pounds of cocaine and
marijuana, worth millions, were missing.

Much of the dope was seized at FedEx en route to other places and was held
in the Memphis police evidence room because the FedEx hub is here.

Since investigators sometimes don't know who's responsible for the drugs,
some were never needed as evidence and should have been destroyed.

But nobody was making sure that court orders to destroy the drugs were
carried out.

The agents inside the Harvester plant found piles of wrappers, which meant
the drugs inside the wrappers hadn't been burned as reported.

If they had, the wrappers would have been burned, too.

Drugs that computer records said should have been in the evidence room
weren't there.

And there were no computer records to match some drugs the agents found,
indicating the records had been erased.

In April 2003, investigators found a 1-kilogram brick of cocaine bearing an
MPD receipt number that didn't exist in the system.

They found kilos of cocaine and marijuana that were listed as destroyed,
hidden in cigar boxes and duffel bags.

As the case mounted against Dansberry and the others, investigators caught
another break.

In late April 2003, an arrest on the Arkansas interstate led investigators
to brothers Darren and Brian Cox, who linked Brown and Maxwell to the drugs.

The brothers made numerous calls from their jail cells to the drug lords --
all recorded.

In September 2003, police rounded up their suspects.

Dansberry alone had at least $1 million in his car and house.

Some of it was so moldy that investigators couldn't get an accurate count,
but they suggested it was likely "substantially greater" than $1 million. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Josh