Cocaine stolen from Refugio courthouse

Sheriff's department investigating theft
worth $1 million

By MARY LEE GRANT, Staff Writer

When Refugio County Sheriff's Department
employees entered the courthouse Monday, they
found a shattered window, a breached wall and a
66pound deficit in the cocaine stored in the
evidence room, officials said.
``They broke into a window and got through
two locked doors, then knocked a wall out,''
Sheriff Jim Hodges said. ``A secretary was the
first one to find it.''
The missing cocaine's street value is about $1
million, he said.
Hodges said there had been 500 pounds of
uncut cocaine locked in the evidence room, from
seizures that date back about two months.
``I don't know why they didn't take all of it,''
Hodges said. ``I guess they didn't want to get too
greedy. Maybe $1 million was enough for them.''
Hodges said one man, a former jail inmate, is
being held for questioning.
The cocaine had not been recovered as of
Tuesday, the sheriff said.
The theft could be the work of a former inmate
because inmates know the layout of the
courthouse from the community service work
they perform there, Hodges said.
He said he had been under the impression that
the walls of the evidence room were concrete, but
that it turned out they are wood.
``I suspect more than one person was involved
in this,'' Hodges said.
He said he called in the Corpus Christi Police
Department to aid in examining the crime scene.
``They just have more sophisticated equipment
for things like fingerprinting than we do,'' Hodges
said.
He said the Corpus Christi Police Department
will not assist with investigating the theft beyond
the initial stages.
``Basically, we're assisting with identification
techniques,'' said Corpus Christ Police Chief Pete
Alvarez. ``Every now and then, we get asked to
help out with other departments.''
He said two Corpus Christi police officers are
assisting at the crime scene.
Alvarez said Texas Rangers also are
investigating the theft.
``The Texas Rangers are involved very simply
because it occurred in the sheriff's department,''
Alvarez said.
Hodges said he is not investigating sheriff's
department employees in connection with the
theft.
Two sheriff's department employees were fired
and one later was convicted after $100,000 was
stolen from a 1994 seizure of $4.2 million in
suspected drug money.
``I don't think anything like that is going on here
this time,'' Hodges said Tuesday. ``I think it was
from the outside.''
He said the broken windows and wall led him to
conclude the thief is an outsider.