DETROIT COP DRUG PROBE EXPANDS TO CASH, GUNS

Chief Says Property Room Was Mess, Much More May Be Missing

DETROIT -- The indictment of nine people on charges of stealing at least
222 pounds of cocaine from the Detroit Police Department's evidence room is
the first step in a wider investigation to account for weapons and cash
that could be missing from the storage area, Chief Jerry A. Oliver Sr. said
Wednesday.

"There are whole lockers and vaults of weapons that have to be inventoried
and accounted for," Oliver said. "We have huge amounts of money, cash, that
must be inventoried and we are in the process of doing that. There are
hundreds of property envelopes filled with cash. Our procedures associated
with destroying drugs have not been stringently adhered to."

The indictments come as a team of 17 FBI and Detroit police officers,
created in late July, is looking into a wide range of charges of
wrong-doing in the Police Department, said Oliver and Paula Wendell, the
acting special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI. More prosecutions of
Police Department employees for misconduct are expected, Wendell said.

There are about 200,000 guns listed in property records at the Detroit
Police Department's evidence room. But because there has been no recent
inventory, the department's leadership has no way of knowing how many are
actually there, Oliver said.

"I don't know how many guns we have. We have far too many guns," he said.

Up until a few months ago, all confiscated property was recorded on paper,
and there were no cameras in the evidence room. The cameras still have
problems in that they don't cover the entire room, Oliver said.

Detroit has had problems with its evidence room for years. In 1994, a
Detroit police officer was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for
stealing 200 weapons that were found in Sanilac County.

For decades, the department has used one sprawling room, with no
segregation of property by vaults or other safeguards to protect and keep
evidence. Valuables were kept behind mesh wire, and in open cabinets or on
the floor.

By comparison, the FBI in Detroit has four separate evidence rooms -- for
weapons, drugs, valuable property and regular property. In order to remove
valuable items, two witnesses are required and strict scrutiny is maintained.

Stolen Cocaine

Wednesday's indictments of nine people on charges of stealing cocaine from
the evidence room and then selling it are the result of an investigation
that began in March 2001. Police discovered that the cocaine, which was to
be used in a sting, was missing when they found a sealed package of Gold
Medal flour in a box that was supposed to contain the drug.

Those charged Wednesday included former Detroit Police Officer Donald C.
Hynes, 41, who left the department last year; Michigan State Police Lt.
Ernest D. Myatt Sr., 49, a polygraph examiner; and John Earl Cole Sr., 50,
a 24-year civilian police employee who worked as a driver ferrying seized
evidence, including drugs, from crime scenes and precincts to the downtown
property room. The indictment also charges that Myatt was Cole's business
partner. Myatt, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, was suspended
without pay from the state police.

Cole, who worked in the property room as recently as last Saturday, stole
the cocaine and sold it for $1.3 million, along with at least one gun from
the property room, the indictment says.

Cole, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, was ordered held by federal
Magistrate Steven Pepe, pending a hearing today.

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey G. Collins, who announced the indictment, said the
missing cocaine did not affect the outcome of six cases in which the drugs
were seized.

Called Mastermind

Cole, who made $30,000 in his Police Department job, was described as the
mastermind of the cocaine thefts that allegedly occurred between 1994 and
2000 and netted him more than $1.3 million when the drugs were sold. About
$500,000 of that money was used to buy and renovate 18 properties, mostly
rental homes, and a barber shop, the indictment says.

To hide the transactions, Cole enlisted family members in the scheme,
federal authorities said. Their names, as well as that of Myatt, were used
on the titles of the properties, the indictment says. The purchases of
property with the drug money continued until earlier this year.

Cole also is accused of using $23,433 in a cashier's check to buy a 1992
Corvette sports car. He allegedly used three kilograms of the stolen
cocaine to pay Anthony Lasenby for another Corvette.

He also gave a gun -- a .357 Derringer-style handgun valued at $5,000 -- to
Lasenby. The gun had been in evidence at Detroit police headquarters since
1986. In another transaction, Cole sold a kilogram of cocaine to Lasenby,
who was also indicted on Wednesday.

Family, Friends Tied In

Also named in the indictment were Cora L. Cole-Robinson, 74, Cole's mother;
Ida Mae Hall, 72, his former mother-in-law; his brother, David L. Cole, 60;
his daughter, Chontrice Cole; and a friend, Shirley Terry, who was employed
as a teller at Comerica Bank.

The 17 counts against the defendants include conspiracy to commit perjury,
laundering money and distributing cocaine, as well as making false
declarations before a grand jury and obstruction of justice.

Terry helped Cole launder the drug proceeds by advising him on how to avoid
the government's reporting requirements for transaction of more than
$10,000 in currency, the indictment says.

She also intentionally failed to file legally required reports on some of
Cole's deals and purchases above $10,000.

The indictment also charges that Terry, now a credit union employee,
conspired with Cole in buying a home on Cole's behalf and then negotiating
a $19,000 mortgage in her name from Comerica on Feb. 11, 1997. Less than
three weeks after making an initial payment of $448, the balance of the
mortgage was paid off.

Cole's son, John E. "John John" Cole Jr. was named in the indictment but
was not charged in the alleged crimes. By not charging the younger Cole,
government prosecutor's may use his testimony against the others.

The younger Cole's name was used to hide his father's ownership of several
pieces of property, the indictment says. For example, in November 1998,
Cole and then-police Officer Hynes deposited two checks for $9,000 each
into an account in the name of William Hynes.

Those deposits were then turned into a $25,000 check from the William Hynes
account and used to buy a barber shop on Van Dyke. The ownership of the
barber shop was placed in the name of John E. Cole Jr.

In explaining the purchase of another home on Outer Drive to a federal
grand jury, Ida Mae Hall testified she saved $36,000 in cash through hard
work and gave the money to her grandson, the younger Cole, and that he used
the money to buy the home.

She told the grand jurors she kept the $36,000 cash in pillow cases and in
a mattress even though she and her husband regularly deposited about $2,500
every month in an account at Comerica Bank.

Task Force Probe

The task force conducting the investigation of the department was created
on July 30, when the FBI and the Detroit Police signed a memorandum of
understanding. The FBI committed an entire squad -- 10 agents -- to work in
an undisclosed location with seven Detroit police officers.

The signing of the legally binding memorandum is an indication of how
concerned officials are about charges of corruption in the department.

"There are a number of public corruption cases that we expect to bring
forward," said Wendell, the acting special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI.

Oliver is not confident all the evidence can be accounted for. To safeguard
confiscated property in the future, he said he has begun to take
precautions and make procedural changes.

The department needs a system where items are bar-coded and computer
programs can carefully track the whereabouts of evidence, he said.

While acknowledging the failures of Police Department employees and the
lack of proper oversight, Oliver said the decrepit condition of police
headquarters precluded establishing a modern, efficient property room.

"We're under new management. We're under construction. We're being
remodeled and that's going to be painful," Chief Oliver said. "We're not
tolerating misconduct that was tolerated before."

Former Mayor Dennis Archer said the indictments of misconduct that occurred
while he was mayor were troubling, but noted it was the Police Department
that brought it to the attention of the FBI.

"This is a continuation of the department's attempts to cleanse itself of
apparent wrongdoing," Archer said.

(SIDEBAR)

The nine who were charged

* John Earl Cole Sr., 50, of Detroit, a 24-veteran civilian employee of the
Detroit Police Department, faces life in prison if convicted of money
laundering and conspiracy to embezzle and distribute cocaine.

* David L. Cole Jr., 60, of Detroit, is the brother of Cole.

* Ernest D. Myatt Sr., 49, of Belleville is a lieutenant with the Michigan
State Police and is a certified polygraph examiner.

* Anthony Lasenby, 33, of Detroit allegedly bought drugs and a stolen gun
from Cole.

* Shirley Terry, 34, of Detroit is a friend of Cole Sr.'s who was a bank
teller employed by Comerica bank.

* Cora L. Cole-Robinson, 74, of Detroit is Cole Sr.'s mother.

* Chontrice Cole, 28, is Cole Sr.'s daughter.

* Ida Mae Hall, 72, of Detroit is the former mother-in-law of Cole.

* Donald C. Hynes, 41, is a retired Detroit police officer and business
associate of Cole Sr.

Nine people were indicted Wednesday on charges of stealing cocaine from the
Detroit Police Department's evidence room, where drugs, cash and guns
seized in arrests are kept. All but John Cole face 20 years in prison for
money laundering. They are: