FBI WANTS DRUGS KEPT

Police Asked Not To Destroy Evidence Amid Fake-Narcotics Inquiry

The FBI has asked Dallas police to halt destruction of drugs and other
evidence seized since 1997 as part of the agency's investigation into
dozens of questionable busts, according to a letter sent to Police
Chief Terrell Bolton.

Background Coverage of the ongoing investigation from The Dallas
Morning News and WFAA.

Since November, about 7 tons of drug evidence stored in the police
property room has been incinerated as part of a program started after
a city audit found huge backlogs of old evidence. The Police
Department ended the incineration program in early January, about
three weeks before the FBI's Jan. 23 letter. Police supervisors were
alerted to several drug cases in October in which suspected illegal
substances were later found to be ground gypsum, or Sheetrock. Police
launched a public integrity investigation Nov. 30.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Danny Defenbaugh said he could not comment
about an ongoing investigation. Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ed
Lueckenhoff, who wrote the letter, also declined to discuss the
investigation.

Department spokeswoman Janice Houston said the decision to stop the
incineration was based on the department's internal inquiry.

"We had an ongoing public integrity investigation, and we thought it
was the right thing to do in light of what the issues were surrounding
the investigation," she said. "We're confident about everything that's
taken place in the property room up to this point, as far as the
destruction of evidence goes."

A police property room supervisor said Wednesday that she didn't think
any of the drugs destroyed were related to any of the questionable
cases but added that it was possible. Most of the cases involved
confidential informants used by two officers who were placed on
administrative leave last month.

The property room supervisor, Lt. Forrest Fenwick, said records
relating to the destroyed drugs would not necessarily show the names
of officers who worked on the cases.

The Dallas County district attorney has dismissed more than 70 drug
cases filed by Dallas narcotics detectives. The common link in many of
the dismissed cases is either the two officers or informants they
regularly used.

The two undercover narcotics officers, Senior Cpl. Mark Delapaz and
Officer Eddie Herrera, were placed on paid leave last month. Police
have cut ties with the officers' primary confidential informant, who
faces federal charges of Social Security fraud.

Police halted the incineration program after a large Jan. 3 burning,
before the FBI began its inquiry Jan. 18, to guard against possible
mistakes or perception problems, Lt. Fenwick said.

Lt. Fenwick, who was assigned in November to oversee the destruction
of evidence, said the four burns that took place were carefully
monitored by city auditors and police personnel.

"Every invoice was connected directly to a specific case," she
said.

The only officer named on an evidence invoice is the one who delivers
the evidence to the property room, Lt. Fenwick said, so police
officials would not know for sure whether drugs from any cases filed
by the two officers were destroyed.

She said police officials were concerned enough about the possibility
that needed evidence could have been destroyed that a review of all
Jan. 3 burn cases was ordered. She said none of the invoices from that
burn showed the names of the officers on leave.

"It's feasible that someone else brought the officers' evidence in,
but nobody's told me they've been unable to find any evidence that was
related to them," she said. "It appears to me that we have maintained
what evidence ... [the FBI] might have been investigating."

Shortly after the FBI started its investigation, agents came to the
property room and gathered evidence, Lt. Fenwick said.

The FBI letter to Chief Bolton asked for all police records related to
the incineration program dating to July 1, 2001. The letter also asked
for the names of officers who helped load the drugs on a truck
destined for an incineration facility in Carthage in East Texas.

Invoices from the two private companies that conducted the burnings
show:

. The department paid to have 6,171 pounds of old drug evidence burned
Nov. 1 and 7, five weeks after police officials authorized that a lie
detector test be given to a police informant involved in all of the
questioned narcotics unit busts.

. Another 6,280 pounds of old drug evidence from the property room was
destroyed on or about Dec. 18, nearly three weeks after Chief Bolton
said he had ordered the public integrity investigation.

. Another 2,740 pounds was destroyed Jan. 3, three days after Chief
Bolton had a news conference to acknowledge problems with the cases.

Sharps Compliance Inc., a Houston-based environmental cleanup company,
conducted two of the incinerations at its Carthage facility with
oversight by several police officers, which is routine for such
operations. The names of those officers are unknown.

Burt Kunik, president of Sharps Compliance, said the Police Department
hired his company to do the incinerations within the last two months.
He referred other questions to police officials.

Evidence and property from about 12,000 drug and 50,000 property crime
cases is stored in police property rooms each year. Last year, the
department disposed of items from only about 8,000 drug cases and
25,000 property crimes, auditors found.

The city audit concluded that an obsolete manual record-keeping
system, understaffing and massive evidence backlogs had contributed to
haphazard methods of storing seized drugs.

The audit of the property room did not require a deadline for the
department to begin destroying evidence. In response to the auditors,
the Police Department set a voluntary deadline of Feb. 15, 2002, for a
special task force to reduce the backlogs of obsolete drug evidence to
a "manageable level."