Cops throw out over $30,000 in cash
By George P. Hassett

   $31,535 in cash was mistakenly thrown out by Somerville Police Monday, said Acting Police Chief Robert Bradley today. The money had been seized by police in various criminal investigations. Evidence and other seized property was also inadvertently disposed, said Bradley.
   ‚ÄúEveryone in the Department ‚Äì myself most of all ‚Äì understands the severity of this error,‚Äù said Bradley.  ‚ÄúEverything we know now points to human error rather than any deliberate misdeed, but it‚Äôs still a very bad mistake.  Because we‚Äôre talking in some instances about seized property rather than actual evidence, this may not end up affecting many cases, but that doesn‚Äôt excuse what happened.‚Äù

    Bradley said the cash and evidence was disposed of as part of cleaning the evidence room in anticipation of installing a new, federally funded automated record-keeping system.
The seized property and evidence items, including the $31,000 in cash, had been temporarily stored in the drawer of a detached portion of a metal desk located in a secure room that formed part of the evidence storage area at police headquarters in the Public Safety Building on Washington Street.  The broken drawer unit was not in an office area and was leaning on its side when it was mistakenly identified last Monday as junked furniture and tossed into a dumpster for disposal.
    The cleanup was initiated at the request of Bradley by Captain Charles Femino, whose command includes the evidence room.  ‚ÄúItems that we no longer need to preserve for evidentiary purposes are supposed to cleaned out of the evidence room and either returned to the owners, disposed of or auctioned off annually,‚Äù said Bradley.  ‚ÄúThe amount of material stored in the evidence room had grown so much in recent years that we‚Äôd had to expand into additional secure space ‚Äì so we were determined to get the room cleaned, sorted and organized in advance of deploying our new record-keeping system.‚Äù 
      Captain Femino hired two retired officers to assist him with the project, and maintained a record of all the items thrown out in the cleanup. ‚ÄúUnfortunately, this piece of broken furniture did not appear to be in use,‚Äù said Femino, ‚Äúand the officer who knew that items were stored in the drawer was not on duty on the day of the cleanup.
     Two officers went to New Hampshire Wednesday to inspect the waste disposal company‚Äôs site for the desk. They discovered the contents of their dumpster had already been buried under hundred of tons of industrially compacted trash.
    There‚Äôs no way to recover it, even with heavy equipment.  We know what it is and where it is, but we can‚Äôt get to it ‚Äì and neither can anybody else.‚Äù
    Bradley said the incident will be investigated internally.
   ‚ÄúObviously, our Office of Professional Standards will conduct a full review of this incident.‚Äù said Bradley. ‚ÄúOnly after we‚Äôve completed that review will we be able to assign responsibility and make a decision about whether there‚Äôs a need for disciplinary action.  In the meantime, it‚Äôs very important for the public to know that this error has no effect on the integrity of the evidence system as it affects any other cases, past or present.‚Äù