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Highlands Today

Sheriff's Office Releases Results Of Inventory

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By BRAD DICKERSON Highlands Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 14, 2008

SEBRING - The Highlands County Sheriff's Office released the results Monday of its inventory of over 20,000 evidentiary items.

"We counted 20,510 items of the 29,811 in our custody, or 73 percent of all evidence items and have accounted for 99.77 percent," said Sheriff Susan Benton in a written statement.

The inventory found that 48 items were unaccounted for. Of those, 45 were for non-criminal cases, according to the statement.

"Mr. Hill (State Attorney Jerry Hill) has all of the reconciliation reports and will, upon his review of those reports, advise of the impact, if any, on the three open active cases," the statement said. "It appears at this time that these three items have no real bearing on the case outcome"

There were 19,565 bar-coded items counted and 945 non bar-coded items. Through the inventory, it was found that 100 percent of all money and firearms were located and accounted for.

Those missing items were 21 narcotics items, 2 DNA items, 18 bulk items entered on or after June 17, 2006 and 7 bulk items entered before June 17, 2006.

The inventory was completed through the cooperation of the Office of the State Attorney, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the sheriff's office.

In February, an inventory of about 4.5 percent of the 33,000 items stored in evidence for future court cases found 33 items to be missing, including a gun and DNA from several cases.

The report also found that marijuana seized from 16 of 79 grow-house raids "were unable to be weighed or individually accounted for due to advanced spoilage."

On Sept. 10, Benton and Hill met to discuss evidence handling and procedures. On Sept. 11, the sheriff agreed with Hill to account for all guns, drugs, cash and DNA evidence.

In a letter to Hill dated Oct. 12, Benton listed several actions that have occurred or will occur to ensure the evidence management system.

Those include having members of the property/evidence unit attend training within the next year to receive certification in evidence management systems by the International Association of Property and Evidence, an outline of procedures and timeframes to conduct inspections, inventories and audits, the appointment of a sheriff's office state attorney liaison and the production of software enhancements to incorporate the property receipts into the office's automated Reports Management System, among other initiatives.

"FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) indicated this morning (Oct. 13) that their review of our process and procedure was positive and that improvements made will ensure the integrity of the evidence handling in Highlands County," Benton said.

Neither Benton nor Hill would comment further until they have had an opportunity to fully review the reports and formulate a judgment.

Brad Dickerson can be reached at 863-386-5838 or at bdickerson@highlandstoday.com

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