COKE SCANDAL SHAKE-UP: TROOPER TRIAL SPURS 'UGLY' PROBE OF NARC UNIT

Former state police narcotics officers are likely to face discipline - up
to firing - over lax oversight of drugs that allegedly allowed a sergeant
to steal massive quantities of cocaine, the Herald has learned.

"It's going to be ugly," said a source, one of several who confirmed an
internal affairs investigation is ongoing. "They're waiting until (the
Dedham Superior Court trial of Sgt. Timothy White) is over."

White, 42, is accused of stealing up to 27 pounds of cocaine and other
drugs while assigned to the Narcotics Inspection Unit in 2002 and 2003. The
unit's former commander, Lt. Michael Kelly, testified yesterday he has been
interviewed by state police Lt. Col. John Kelly, department detectives and
Lt. Michael Pavone, an internal affairs investigator. Another internal
affairs investig ator, David Ott, is attending White's trial.

A state police spokeswoman would not comment on the internal affairs
investigation of the NIU, which is charged with overseeing and destroying
seized narcotics.

Lt. Kelly told defense attorney Robert A. George that he and the other
members of the then six-member NIU were given drug tests and transferred
after White's January 2003 arrest on spousal abuse and drug trafficking
charges.

Answering both George and prosecutor William Bloomer, Kelly detailed a
system of maintaining and protecting the vast quantities of seized drugs
that was devoid of written policies and procedures and relied on verbal
parameters and "a level of trust."

Kelly listed a myriad of shortcomings in the unit that included:

Members of the unit being allowed to work alone in the department's
concrete drug-storage bunker in Framingham

An antiquated record-keeping system that used handwritten ledgers with no
computer backup or accounting

Contradictions in unit log entries that indicated drugs were not put in the
bunker the day they were collected

Allowing NIU members to sign each other in and out of the bunker. Kelly
noted that although there was a surveillance camera on the bunker's door,
it was used for active monitoring by desk officers in the Framingham
barracks and did not record. There were no cameras inside the bunker.

Sources say the situation, an embarrassment to the department, almost will
certainly result in disciplinary action.

"We knew when all this came out, it was going to be a mess," another source
told the Herald.