DRUGS TAKEN FROM SHAW

RALEIGH - A Shaw University police officer kept four bags of seized
marijuana and other campus evidence in the garage of her Johnston
County home, police reports say. After deputies recovered them from a
plastic box near the house, she also reported case files had been
stolen from the home.

In September, Johnston County deputies followed an anonymous tip to
the home of Officer Argentina Rojas near Garner. There, they found
the drugs, knives, toy guns, pictures and envelopes in the box,
police reports said. It was unclear how much marijuana the bags contained.

Shaw's interim president, Dorothy Cowser Yancy, said that the
university has disciplined the officer, who remains on the force.

"I think it was an isolated incident, and there were remedies taken,"
she said. "You're no more shocked than I was. I was quite surprised."

In September, deputies arrived at the house on Belve Drive and found
foot-high grass and an apparently vacant house, reports said. The
drugs were stuffed in evidence bags addressed to Shaw's police,
reports said, and like the other items in the box, bore campus police markings.

In court records, Rojas' attorney said they had been in her garage
for some time and that police Chief Thomas Lee knew they were there.

Rojas has no criminal record. She was not charged, but Yancy said her
punishment remains in effect. A note left at Rojas' Raleigh address
went unanswered, and an administrative assistant at the Shaw police
department would not comment.

Shaw is a small school occupying only a few blocks of downtown
Raleigh. The school's problem with evidence stemmed from too little
space on campus, Yancy said. The problem, she said, has since been
fixed by moving the six-officer department into a bigger space. Legal
and practical questions remain.

For one, Yancy did not know what happened to cases supported by the
evidence at Rojas' house. She referred questions to Lee, who would not comment.

Johnston County police reports described the marijuana as evidence
from "past or pending cases," and police records say the drugs were
taken back to Shaw for inventory. In court filings, Rojas' attorney
said the drugs were evidence in a case Rojas was investigating. If
the cases are pending, legal scholars say they will be hard to prosecute.

Duke University law professor Lisa Kern Griffin said criminal
evidence must show a "chain of custody," meaning if a drug case goes
to trial, prosecutors must show that the drugs were always in secure
police custody.

"The fact that they were kept in the private residence makes it
possible for the defense to argue that they are not the drugs in
question," Griffin said. "Others may have had access to them."

Shaw University is the oldest historically black school in the South,
and the downtown school has been trying to dig out of a $20-million debt.

Its police department is certified by the state Department of
Justice, said Noelle Talley, the justice department's spokeswoman.
Rojas is certified, she said, adding that personnel law keeps her
department from commenting on whether Shaw's department or officers
have accumulated complaints.

Reports filed with the U.S. Department of Education show sparse crime
at Shaw. Between 2006 and 2008, records show eight arrests for drug
law violations on campus - six in 2006 and two in 2007. Raleigh
police spokesman Jim Sughrue said that Shaw is not set up to handle
large cases and that Raleigh officers sometimes assist.

Battle for Custody

Much of the information about the Shaw drug evidence came to light in
a civil case between Rojas and Edwin Maldonado over custody of their
four children, ages 5 to 9. They were living at the house on Belve
Drive with Rojas, who in January won temporary custody of them.

Jonathan Breeden, a lawyer who represents Maldonado, told the story
of the wayward drugs as an argument that Maldonado should receive full custody.

In filings, Rojas said she was moving out and was in a dispute with
her landlord, who was trying to evict her. Rojas' attorney, Christi
Stem, said in court papers that the drugs had been at the home "for
some time," that Maldonado knew of them and that they never left
their "secure location."

Missing Papers

Rojas told deputies she suspected her landlord had moved the drugs
evidence from the garage to outside the house, and she reported
several items missing from her home the day after deputies came in
September. Among them: birth certificates, Social Security card and
Shaw University case files.

Rojas' attorney also put in the custody case file an unsigned report
that she attributed to Lee, the police chief. That report describes
maintaining evidence as a long and serious issue for Shaw police.

"There was unacceptable storage facilities and evidence was left in
unrestricted areas," the document said. "On many occasions evidence
was reported missing by the previous police chief."

Moving the Shaw police department from the Dimple Newsome building to
the old graphics building greatly improved the situation, and a chain
of custody procedure is in place, the report said.