VOLUSIA SHERIFF: MORE DRUGS MISSING THAN FIRST THOUGHT

Authorities Announced In January That Evidence as Taken. A Former Employee
Is The Suspect

DELAND -- A piece-by-piece audit of the Volusia County Sheriff's Office
evidence compound has revealed that more drugs are missing than first thought.

Investigators have now discovered that nearly 950 pounds of marijuana are
missing from the evidence compound in DeLand. In January, an angry Sheriff
Ben Johnson publicly announced that about 370 pounds of marijuana and 859
grams -- about 1.89 pounds -- of cocaine were missing and accused an
employee of being responsible for the thefts.

Tim Wallace, the department's former evidence manager, has been charged
with conspiracy to traffic in marijuana and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.

Gary Davidson, a sheriff's spokesman, said Thursday that Wallace, 47,
remains the only sheriff's employee, current or former, suspected in the
thefts. Wallace was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after 20
years, and investigators said he was highly recommended when he applied to
the Sheriff's Office.

"We have no reason to suspect anybody in the thefts except Tim Wallace,"
Davidson said.

Wallace was released from the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach
on March 5 after posting $300,000 bail. His attorney, Brett Hartley,
submitted a written not-guilty plea Wednesday. Hartley could not be reached
for comment.

Davidson said the nearly 580 additional pounds of marijuana now confirmed
to be gone are connected to 10 cases from 2000 to 2003. It was unclear
Thursday how much of the marijuana is connected to each case.

Also confirmed Thursday was the recovery of a piece of "nondrug evidence."
Davidson said Wallace is thought to have stolen the item, which he would
not discuss in detail because it is part of an ongoing criminal
investigation, and given it away.

"We were not aware that the item was missing," Davidson said. "We had
received some information indicating Tim Wallace had given away a piece of
property that was seized in a criminal investigation. With that
information, we were able to recover it and match its serial number to
evidence records."

Davidson said the discovery of the additional missing evidence was not
previously made public because investigators had not completed their review
of the nearly 60,000 pieces of evidence stored at the compound.

"We knew that there was obviously a problem -- a very big problem -- and
that's why we went public," Davidson said. "We said at the time we didn't
know the full extent of the problem and wouldn't until we completed our
audit. Several individual discoveries have been made throughout the audit
process."

Davidson said the internal evidence inventory is continuing, though he was
"99 percent certain that we have uncovered all the missing drugs that we
are going to find. Right now we are concentrating on nondrug evidence."

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, whose investigators have been
conducting the criminal probe into the drug thefts, will begin a "100
percent inventory of our drug and currency evidence next week. They are
also going to conduct a random or spot inventory of firearms and jewelry
evidence."

Davidson said investigators do not think any money or firearms are missing.