CLERK SUES STATE DRUG AGENCY OVER ALLEGATIONS IN COCAINE CASE

Woman says her reputation was destroyed by officials who refuse to clear
her as a suspect in theft from an evidence locker.

Although a veteran law enforcement officer was prosecuted for the crime,
authorities have steadfastly refused to clear a civilian property clerk as
a suspect in the theft of 650 pounds of cocaine from the state Bureau of
Narcotic Enforcement office in Riverside.

Now, Shirleen Gravitt is suing the agency in federal court, claiming that
her reputation was destroyed when she was identified to her colleagues as
the prime suspect and subjected to a humiliating search of her home by as
many as 40 investigators.

Gravitt, the only civilian among 14 employees with access to the drug
locker, said in her suit that she had nothing to do with the theft over the
July 4, 1997 weekend.

On Friday, a federal jury convicted former state drug agent Richard Parker,
44, of filing a false income tax return, but acquitted him of three
criminal counts and deadlocked on four others stemming from the cocaine
theft. Parker was accused of faking a burglary to swipe the drugs.

The U.S. attorney's office must now decide whether to retry Parker, who has
been in jail since his arrest a year ago.

Asked about Gravitt's status in the case, a spokesman for state Atty. Gen.
Bill Lockyer, who oversees the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, would say
only that the investigation into the cocaine theft "remains open." And in a
carefully worded response, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office
said Tuesday: "There is an ongoing investigation into the theft of the
narcotics from the BNE evidence locker. Because of that I am unable to
comment specifically on potential subjects of that investigation."
Gravitt's name surfaced several times during Parker's eight-week-long
trial, although no evidence was presented by either side linking her to the
theft.

Subpoenaed as a witness, she was not called when her lawyer told the court
she would invoke her 5th Amendment right against selfincrimination. He said
she would not testify as long as any threat of prosecution remained.

Gravitt, 49, declined to discuss the case on her attorneys' advice.

In his opening remarks at the trial, Parker's defense lawyer, Richard A.
Hamar, cast Gravitt as a possible suspect, saying she "had the motive,
means and opportunity" to commit the theft.

Hamar told jurors that Gravitt suffered a "mini-nervous breakdown" when
questioned by investigators after the theft; that her contractor husband
was working in the evidence locker shortly before the robbery; that the
Gravitts were in financial distress, and that they were observed driving
erratically, as if trying to shake a police tail.

In her lawsuit, filed late last year, Gravitt denied most of those
allegations, which originated in a police search warrant affidavit. She
accused a Riverside police detective of lying to a local judge to get the
warrant.

She cited these statements as examples:

* That her husband, Donald, had been working in the evidence locker "as
recently as the weekend prior to the burglary." She said investigators knew
her husband was working in the bureau's garage, and not the evidence
locker, on the weekend before the theft.

* That she possessed "the only key" to the locker housing the cocaine. She
said investigators knew but did not disclose to the judge that she kept the
key in an unlocked desk drawer with the knowledge of everyone who had
access to the outer vault.

* That she was the only person with "an intimate knowledge" of the evidence
locker's contents. Six weeks before the theft, she said, she was
temporarily reassigned to duties elsewhere because she was recovering from
foot surgery.

* That she and her husband engaged in "counter-surveillance driving
techniques" frequently employed by drug traffickers. On the date of the
surveillance, she said, she and her husband were driving through various
neighborhoods looking for houses or condos to rent.

Four months after the theft, Gravitt said, she was summoned without notice
to the Riverside police headquarters and subjected to a day-long
interrogation, followed by an "extraordinarily invasive" search of her
small home by as many as 40 investigators aided by drug-sniffing dogs.

Gravitt was given a polygraph test, the results of which were inconclusive,
according to court records.

The search turned up nothing incriminating, her lawsuit said, but her
colleagues were told by a high-ranking bureau official afterward that she
was the "prime suspect" in the theft, and she was put on involuntary leave
for two months.

Early in 1998, she said, she was "cleared" to return to work, but her
superiors told her they still considered her a suspect, adding to her
emotional suffering.

With the advice of her psychiatrist, she decided not to return to work
under those circumstances, said her civil lawyers, Scott W. Williams of
Fresno and Michael G. Magnuson of Whittier.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, said her superiors at the
Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement destroyed her reputation among friends,
neighbors and coworkers, ruined her career as a public servant and violated
her constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

Also named as a defendant was the Riverside Police Department, which
investigated the theft at the outset. The case has since been taken over by
the FBI.

Lawyers for the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and the Riverside Police
Department have filed initial denials of Gravitt's claims, saying the
investigators were engaged in the "proper exercise of police powers." In
addition to the criminal investigation, the theft sparked an audit of
operations at the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in Riverside. The agent in
charge, Edward Synicky, was reprimanded after an internal review board
found that he did not know everyone who had keys and the combination to the
evidence locker and vault. The audit found that locks and combinations to
the cocaine vault were not changed, as required, when someone transferred
out of the Riverside office.