Pubdate: Wed, 25 May 2005
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2005 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact:  http://news.bostonherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Author: Michele McPhee
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

SEIZED DRUG $$ USED ON BACKLOG OF FINGERPRINTS

The Boston Police Department has used $187,000 in cash earmarked for drug 
programs to process a backlog of fingerprint evidence by hiring 
out-of-state experts and will continue to pay until the BPD can create a 
crime scene unit, police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole said yesterday.

The costly hire of Ron Smith & Associates, a Mississippi-based forensic 
consulting firm which released a critical report of the BPD fingerprint 
unit, is being covered by the Law Enforcement Trust Fund, which is built 
with proceeds from drug-related seizures.

"Those monies should be reinvested in preventive anti-drug measures," city 
councilman Charles Yancey said yesterday after a City Council hearing on 
police staffing levels.

Yancey also grilled O'Toole on why the contract to process latent prints 
was not put out to public bid. The commissioner said Smith's company was 
recommended by the FBI.

The experts - who are paid up to $30,000 for hotel, travel and per diem 
expenses - were slated to end their contract this month. So far, the 
company has been paid $187,000 from the law enforcement trust, BPD 
officials said yesterday.

However, O'Toole said she will continue to pay Smith's company until "the 
backlog is cleared."

"I am not going to allow a backlog to accumulate. Until we have a long-term 
solution, this is what we have to do," O'Toole said. "It's costing us a 
substantial amount of money, but you can't put a price on justice."

O'Toole demolished the fingerprint unit in November after a Roxbury man, 
Stephan Cowans, spent six years behind bars for shooting a Boston cop after 
shoddy fingerprint analysis falsely linked him to the crime.
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MAP posted-by: Beth