ANOTHER SHAKE-UP AT STATE POLICE LAB

Sergeant Fired; Captain Resigns

The State Police on Friday fired the sergeant whose testing of suspected
drug evidence prompted internal and FBI investigations of the crime lab's work.

Timothy Grant White had been on paid leave since March, when Superintendent
Howard Hill ordered the retesting of four months' worth of White's lab results.

The chief of the entire crime lab, meanwhile, has resigned.

Capt. Rick Theis also had been placed on paid leave for failing to tell
Hill of a June 2001 lab report "discrepancy" that first raised suspicions
about White's work.

The State Police has completed its internal probe of the lab's Drug
Identification Section, but has not yet released any findings, general
counsel Kelly Ambrose said.

"That investigation is over," she said Friday. "The FBI continues to
examine aspects of this."

Ambrose did say that the decision to fire White, 35, arose from the
internal review.

White's firing is but the latest shake-up at the South Charleston lab. The
state's only facility for testing criminal evidence has been repeatedly
buffeted by allegations of sloppiness and worse since the early 1990s.

White was initially given credit in 2000 after tipping off superiors to
shoddy lab work by a civilian co-worker, Todd Owen McDaniel.

McDaniel, 33, later pleaded guilty to a fraud charge for falsely reporting
results for drug analysis tests he never conducted.

The discovery of McDaniel's wrongdoing shut down the drug section and
forced the retesting of all of its evidence. Both state and federal drug
cases pending throughout West Virginia were thrown into turmoil.

The section was reopened and declared trouble-free in 2001. Though a
problem with White's test results was discovered that June, Hill said he
was not informed of it until March.

When the FBI investigated McDaniel, it also reviewed the work of others in
the drug section. The FBI's confidential report of that probe said White
had periodically failed to conduct "preliminary testing" then required by
lab policy.

The report, obtained by The Charleston Gazette earlier this year, also said
that White showed signs of deception during a lie detector test.

The State Police revamped the entire crime lab in 1994, amid a scandal
involving one of its former section chiefs. Exaggerated tests, altered lab
reports and false testimony by Fred Zain have been blamed for at least a
half-dozen wrongful convictions.

The State Police has repeatedly maintained that no one has been wrongly
accused, convicted or imprisoned because of misconduct at the Drug
Identification Section.