Gwinnett County, Atlanta- Missing drugs and cash in the police department and no one is prosecuted.
Atlanta: Investigators never learned why a large quantity of drugs disappeared from the Gwinnett County Police Department, but they did make troubling discoveries about lax oversight of the narcotics unit that may have contributed to officer misconduct.
At the request of Chief Charles Walters, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began in March 2010 to probe the disappearance of two kilograms of missing cocaine from a safe in the narcotics unit. The police department also conducted its own investigation focused on whether officers followed proper procedures.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained hundreds of pages of documents related to both investigations, which concluded in February, via an Open Records Act request and spent several weeks reviewing them.
According to the files, the GBI discovered that the two missing kilograms of cocaine weren't the only dope to vanish. A larger cache of drugs slated for destruction in 2008 also was unaccounted for. That cache included 25 pounds of marijuana, four and a half kilos of cocaine, and a small quantity of methamphetamine.
In addition, two high-ranking officers were demoted following the scandal for failure to properly supervise the narcotics unit.
One of them, Maj. Bart Hulsey, retired at the end of December just before the demotion was to take effect. The other, Assistant Chief Dan Bruno, also took a voluntary demotion and is now a major, Gwinnett police spokesman Cpl. Edwin Ritter told the AJC.
At the conclusion of the investigation in mid-February, Walters and Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter announced that no criminal charges were filed and no disciplinary action was taken against any officers.
The two men were indicted on felony charges in February. Butler is accused of taking $4,000 from a safe and making unapproved charges on a department credit card. Harden allegedly forged Butler's name to authorize payment of a confidential informant. Harden and Butler resigned in 2009 in lieu of termination.
Both men said they had no knowledge of what happened to the missing drugs.
Ritter said there wasn't enough evidence to charge anyone with taking the drugs, even though many people suspected that Butler and Harden were responsible.
Link:
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/going-deeper-on-gwinnetts-899751.html