EX-AIDES SAY SHERIFF KNEW OF HIDDEN CASH

Two more former Prince George's County sheriff's officials have said that
Sheriff Alonzo Black had known for years about $45,000 in confiscated cash
hidden in a department safe. And, they said, Black had been charged
personally with finding a legal way to keep it.

Those allegations were first made last week by the man Black replaced in
December 1998, James V. Aluisi. Black's top deputy, Col. John E. Moss, said
then that the sheriff was unaware of the money and didn't know why the
agency concealed it from county auditors when they inspected the
department's finances early last year.

Black has not returned repeated phone calls asking him to comment on any
role he might have played in keeping the money, seized from a suspected
drug dealer in 1993. The money was kept in a department property safe and
was not reported to county officials, as required by law, until December,
when it was deposited in the county treasury.

In fact, prior to the audit, the sheriff's office hadn't turned in any
confiscated cash for years, according to county finance officials. The
audit turned up $15,000 in other confiscated funds, which had been held in
the same property safe as the $45,000.

Black's spokesman, Cpl. Bill Ament, said no one in the sheriff's office
would comment because the issue was under investigation.

Three former sheriff's department officials said they and Black were in a
1993 meeting during which they debated what to do with about the $45,000 in
cash.

"He knew about the money - most definitely," said Gerry R. Powers, who
served 22 years as an assistant sheriff before retiring a year ago. "Al
Black was given the job of changing the law so we could keep [the cash]. He
was fully aware of what was going on."

Ernest Zaccanelli, another former assistant sheriff said: "Right is right
and you have to tell it the way it is. ... Al Black was told to find out
what needed to be done to get us [the money]. I do remember that very, very
vividly."

Powers, Zaccanelli and Aluisi said they were frustrated because legally
they could not keep the confiscated money and use it to increase their
budget. In Prince George's, all drug forfeiture funds are divided among the
health department, state's attorney's office and the county police - but
none goes to the sheriff. Aluisi has said he wanted to use the money to buy
bulletproof vests for his deputies.

Aluisi has said that he instructed Black, who was then the agency's legal
counsel, to lobby for legislation that would enable the sheriff's office to
keep the $45,000, as well as any other confiscated property.

The legislation never passed, but the sheriff's office kept the money
anyway. A tipster finally told auditors in November that the sheriff's
department was hiding $45,000 in confiscated funds.

Under Maryland law, law enforcement agencies must immediately turn in any
contraband cash - such as money seized from gamblers or drug dealers - to
the county treasury.

The sheriff's office began its probe last week, after The Washington Post
first asked questions about the money, which was seized by sheriff's
deputies and FBI agents on Feb. 18, 1993 during a raid in Oxon Hill. All
charges against the suspects in that case were later dropped after a judge
ruled the search was illegal.

There are conflicting accounts about exactly how much money was
confiscated. Some court records put the total at $45,653, although other
court documents give a slightly lesser figure: $45,638.

The sheriff's incident report from the raid, however, states that only
$44,653 was taken - about $1,000 less. That's the amount that the sheriff's
office turned in to county officials on Dec. 6, 1999 - a few weeks after
auditors discovered the money and ordered that it be handed over.

The money was hidden from the auditors when they first came to conduct an
inventory of the agency's cash, weapons, computers and other "fixed assets"
a year ago. Black, 54, who was elected sheriff in November 1998, ordered
the audit shortly after he took office to make sure there was no missing or
unaccounted-for property.

"An integral part of my campaign promise was to ensure that the Office of
the Sheriff would be run in an efficient, ethical manner," Black wrote in a
Jan. 6, 1999 letter in which he requested the audit. "A cornerstone of this
approach is to start with a basic review of property ... held by this Office."

Auditors completed their report in March 1999, but no one told them about
the $45,000 until November, when a sheriff's employee tipped them off that
they had been kept in the dark.

The whistleblower, Harold Irv Smith, a senior fiscal manager, was notified
this month that his job is being eliminated. Sheriff's officials have
confirmed that Smith was recently placed on administrative leave but
declined to say why.

The auditors, who work for the Prince George's County Council, also found
the other $15,000 in other confiscated cash.

Sheriff's officials said they were holding onto the money until the courts
could rule on whether it had to be returned to the criminal suspects it was
taken from.