Ohio police dept.'s aren’t reporting property seizures

[Algorem]

Hide And Go Seize: Ohio police departments aren’t reporting property seizures. The attorney general doesn’t seem to care.

http://www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3188

By Greg Schwartz


On March 1, all Ohio law enforcement agencies
were supposed to send an annual report to the state attorney general’s office listing all money and property they’ve seized in drug cases during the previous fiscal year. But since 1997, less than half have complied, according to Attorney General Jim Petro’s staff.

What’s worse, it’s not clear that Petro even cares. His staff claims that the AG’s office has “neither the authority nor the resources” to enforce such reporting, which is required by Ohio law.

Ed Orlett, a spokesperson for the Ohio chapter of Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), believes this lack of enforcement could open a Pandora’s box of potential corruption. “It’s a multi-million dollar business,” says Orlett of search-and-seizure operations. “ seize cash and property which they liquidate, and which goes into a law enforcement slush fund of sorts.”


Before becoming involved with DPA, a national organization that is working to replace the “drug war” with more comprehensive drug policies, Orlett spent 13 years representing a Dayton district in the Ohio House of Representatives. This service included a stint as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on drug laws, so Orlett is intimately familiar with state drug policy...


Resigning officer complains about evidence vault security

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-23/1142927749195490.xml&storylist=cleveland

3/21/2006, 2:47 a.m. ET
The Associated Press

AKRON, Ohio (AP) — A Summit County evidence officer who resigned last week said her complaints about security issues involving the prosecutor's office evidence vault were ignored.

The resignation of Johanna Nelsen came amid an investigation into $7,000 missing from the vault. Authorities also are looking into the disappearance of cocaine and about $2,500 from an evidence vault in the county courthouse, and about $34,000 from the Akron police property room.

County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh has said the cases are not related.

In the police department matter, a former prosecutor's intern has been accused of taking the money, authorities said. Leon Harris III, 25, faces charges of theft and evidence tampering, police said. Harris' lawyer, Timothy Ivey, said his client denies the accusations...

[MADem]

1. A law enforcement slush fund !!!

Sounds like the "widows and orphans" funds of old....!!!

Sadly, it's unsurprising. They have trouble counting votes, so why should accounting for property be any more rigorous....?

[woodsprite]

2. I'm not surprised since it seems Ohio has been taken over by the mob.

I had a boss that had a "slush" fund like that. She was purchasing supplies for her "clients" using school monies, then having clients write her checks for the supplies, which she wrote "deposit only" and put in her own account. She insisted to admin and police that she was cashing them, putting them into petty cash in her desk and that I was stealing the money. Only one problem - when they subpeonaed her bank records, canceled checks (hers and faculty) gave a great paper trail, no withdrawals of cash from that account, just checks written to cover her own personal bills.

[sarcasmo]

4. Nice, did she serve any jail time?

[woodsprite]

5. No jail time. Just got ousted from her job.

She went to work for Playtex after that. I would doubt that they checked pertinent references or why would they even hire her.

I had to take alot of crap for going along with the investigation, but when your admins/police come to you and say very pointedly "Do you know of ANYTHING that is going on that looks suspicious or out of the ordinary with your boss." If you have statements and purchasing records saying she's been buying supplies for equipment that we don't even possess to the tune of several thousand dollars. When you've questioned her as to why that money is not being credited back to the accounts and she blows you off, you tend to answer the authorities honestly when asked about it.

They saw something that I didn't. They didn't know about the money part. They sent her to a daylong meeting and had me show them all the books, receipts, etc. Until I showed them that, they only knew that she was running a private consulting business during work hours. That's what info they were looking for from me, but I didn't know about that since she didn't meet in her office.

[greekspeak]

3. A major problem with any government...actually enforcing laws

When intellectual idealism meets reality, this type of thing is bound to happen. We can pass all the great legislation we want, and we should. However, if we cannot enforce the law that we have instituted, have we really done anything?

A solution I see to this problem is to add a rider that a fine will be assessed on head of each agency out of his or her own salary.

[rodeodance]

6. and our Congress does not even enforse the NSA act!

.However, if we cannot enforce the law that we have instituted, have we really done anything?