NARCS FACE CORRUPTION PROBE

CROWN POINT, INDIANA -- As many as seven members of the Lake County Drug
Task Force are under investigation for alleged police corruption, and
federal authorities said they expect several to be indicted within two
months.

One officer, former narcotics Detective Alex Richardson, is to be sentenced
Wednesday in federal court for extorting $25,000 from a drug dealer.

Agents conducting the probe say it would have been impossible for Richardson
to have acted alone in stealing cocaine from the sheriff's department
evidence vault and to have sold the stolen drugs on Lake County streets.