SEIZED DRUG $$ USED ON BACKLOG OF FINGERPRINTS

The Boston Police Department has used $187,000 in cash earmarked for drug
programs to process a backlog of fingerprint evidence by hiring
out-of-state experts and will continue to pay until the BPD can create a
crime scene unit, police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole said yesterday.

The costly hire of Ron Smith & Associates, a Mississippi-based forensic
consulting firm which released a critical report of the BPD fingerprint
unit, is being covered by the Law Enforcement Trust Fund, which is built
with proceeds from drug-related seizures.

"Those monies should be reinvested in preventive anti-drug measures," city
councilman Charles Yancey said yesterday after a City Council hearing on
police staffing levels.

Yancey also grilled O'Toole on why the contract to process latent prints
was not put out to public bid. The commissioner said Smith's company was
recommended by the FBI.

The experts - who are paid up to $30,000 for hotel, travel and per diem
expenses - were slated to end their contract this month. So far, the
company has been paid $187,000 from the law enforcement trust, BPD
officials said yesterday.

However, O'Toole said she will continue to pay Smith's company until "the
backlog is cleared."

"I am not going to allow a backlog to accumulate. Until we have a long-term
solution, this is what we have to do," O'Toole said. "It's costing us a
substantial amount of money, but you can't put a price on justice."

O'Toole demolished the fingerprint unit in November after a Roxbury man,
Stephan Cowans, spent six years behind bars for shooting a Boston cop after
shoddy fingerprint analysis falsely linked him to the crime.