Pubdate: Thu, 07 Dec 2006
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2006 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?246 (Policing - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)

HUB POLICE DRUG PROBE BROADENS

Thefts Suspected; Staff at Depository Is Shifted

All 10 officers working in the Boston Police Department's central 
drug warehouse have been transferred to other duties, because 
anticorruption investigators believe that evidence is being stolen, 
officials said yesterday.

For now, only department auditors and investigators from the Internal 
Affairs Division who are working on the case will be allowed into the 
Hyde Park depository, where drugs seized as evidence in thousands of 
cases are stored until trial.

In another sign that the two-month investigation is broadening, 
police officials also said they are seeking help from State Police 
and confirmed for the first time that they believe that drugs have been stolen.

The decision to transfer the personnel -- made by top department 
officials, including new Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis -- was 
criticized by a police union official, who said it makes the staff 
appear guilty of theft.

A police official with knowledge of the probe said Internal Affairs 
investigators have discovered that drugs that were checked in recent 
weeks are now missing. The official, who spoke on condition of 
anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said much of the 
stolen drugs is OxyContin, a prescription painkiller.

A second police official briefed on the probe said that investigators 
noticed that many of the missing drugs were involved in cases that 
had been dismissed or continued without a finding, suggesting that 
the culprit or culprits may have targeted evidence bags they believed 
would be overlooked because they were no longer relevant to an active 
case and were destined to be destroyed.

With that in mind, investigators recently decided to recheck bags 
they had already looked at since the audit began. When they found 
newly missing drugs, that allowed them to significantly narrow the 
pool of potential suspects to employees who have had access to the 
depository since August, the official said.

Drugs from about 190,000 cases, some dating back 20 years, are in the 
warehouse. Police have not been able to say when they performed the 
last audit before August. The investigation began in October after a 
routine audit, launched in August because drugs were being moved to a 
more secure space inside the depository, indicated that some drugs 
were missing.

A police statement issued yesterday said that "findings suggest that 
evidence tampering is not solely historical, but also current." 
Police officials declined to comment on the quantity or type of drugs 
that were missing initially or that have disappeared since August.

Elaine Driscoll, a department spokeswoman, said that no criminal 
prosecutions will be compromised by the missing drugs, but she 
declined to elaborate. The department, she said, is working closely 
with Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office to better 
protect drug evidence in future.

Driscoll said that 10 employees have been moved and that two other 
officers who are assigned to the warehouse but are on injury leave 
will be transferred when they return to work.

"Due diligence requires that we transfer all employees with access to 
drug evidence," Superintendent in Chief Albert E. Goslin said in the 
statement. "This step is necessary to both protect the investigative 
process and ensure the integrity of the current drug evidence. This 
in no way should be seen as compromising our original intent behind 
this investigation: to identify the person or persons responsible 
without compromising the professionalism and honor of others 
associated with the unit."

Davis met with leaders of the three main police unions at 
headquarters yesterday to tell them about the turn in the 
investigation and the personnel transfers.

After the meeting, Lieutenant Joseph Gillespie, president of the 
Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, said he appreciated the 
commissioner's outreach, but said it is wrong for Davis to transfer 
the two supervising officers, particularly Captain Frank Armstrong, 
who took charge of the warehouse in April and who Gillespie said 
initially requested the probe after he discovered that the depository 
was in disarray.

"He led the charge, and he sought an outside expert to train not only 
himself, but also his entire staff on how to manage evidence," 
Gillespie said. "They say they have some type of suspicious activity 
going on there. The problem is painting everybody in that unit with 
the same brush."

In the department statement, Davis took care to recognize Armstrong's 
work to "uncover the problem," signaling that he anticipated union 
opposition to the transfer of Armstrong.

Armstrong has been sent to Hyde Park, where he will work as district 
captain. Captain Michael Broderick, who had been running the Hyde 
Park station, has been moved to evidence management and will soon be 
in charge of the drug evidence warehouse.

Gillespie said he is also surprised that the department would 
transfer Armstrong, a union representative for the Superior Officers 
Federation, but not Lieutenant Detective John Fedorchuk, who is 
conducting the audit, even though he supervised the drug depository 
in the early 1990s.

"There's an inherent conflict," Gillespie said. "I find it 
problematic that the former commander has the ability to conduct an 
audit on his former command, yet the current commander who demanded 
the audit has to be removed to protect the integrity of the investigation."

Goslin has said that he trusts Fedorchuk as a "very ethical and 
quality person."

Davis, who was sworn in Monday, has pledged to make officers' 
integrity one of his biggest priorities, saying he wants honesty 
"uppermost in the officers' minds."

The department is trying to recover from a series of high-profile 
corruption scandals, including the July arrest of three officers who 
are accused of guarding a shipment of what they believed to be 100 
kilograms of cocaine.

In July, the Globe reported that 75 officers have failed department 
drug tests since 1999, including 61 who tested positive for cocaine. 
In September, a 12-year department veteran resigned after he was 
charged with extorting sex from a teenage prostitute. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake