Thee KB Breaking News Blog

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Property Room

Seattle Police seized-items auctions make more online
Inside the Seattle Police Department's property room, rows of bicycles, Christmas decorations, wheelchairs and other unclaimed or seized items gather dust until they're put up for auction. But bargain hunters no longer have to wait for police, or the King County Sheriff's Office, to schedule a public auction to score a deal. They now merely need to log onto a computer.

Seattle police and the Sheriff's Office contract with PropertyRoom.com, a California-based Web site that receives items from the property rooms of 1,600 law-enforcement agencies in the U.S. — 124 in Washington state — and sells them online.

Proceeds are split between the police departments and the Web site.

Before, the Seattle Police Department and Sheriff's Office periodically held auctions to sell off unclaimed items — and there wasn't even a guarantee they could sell it all.

"It's a lot easier for them [PropertyRoom.com] to come and take it all than for us to auction it off," said sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart "It's a very efficient way to dispose of excess property we get."

"It's a very green way to do it," added Cindy Granard, detective sergeant of evidence for Seattle police. "It's recycling old material and giving it to someone new."

When Granard wants to give items to PropertyRoom.com, she compiles a list and calls the Web site, which sends a truck to get them. The truck then takes the items to a facility in Seattle, where they move from one truck to another that goes to PropertyRoom.com's processing facility in Los Angeles.

"We usually wait until we have pallets full of stuff before we give to them." Granard said.

Once the items arrive in Los Angeles, Gemological Institute of America-trained specialists look over items containing precious stones to ensure they are real. They are then listed for auction on the Web site.

Once an item sells, the originating law-enforcement agency receives 50 percent of the proceeds if the item sells for less than $1,000, and 75 percent if it's more than $1,000.

Since using PropertyRoom.com starting in July 2003, Seattle police have seen their profits go up. From 2004 to 2005, for example, police recorded about a $28,000 increase in auction profit. In 2004, the department's auction profit was $29,951. In 2005, it was $57,974.

Proceeds from the sale go toward the department's pension fund....


Police auction goods at Property Room
LONG ISLAND (WABC) -- Find everything from unique items to high-end items, including diamond jewelery, all at a steal. And the best part is you can do it without ever leaving your home.

And here's another interesting aspect - all the items for sale are being sold by police departments around the country. They're selling off items retrieved from burglaries, credit card fraud and other crimes. And they're giving you a chance to get in on the deals.

The deals are found on the Web site PropertyRoom.com and the items sold online are stored around the country in warehouses. And among the biggest sellers is bicycles.

Many of these items have been recovered from crimes and, for a variety of reasons, never made it back to the rightful owner. So police departments can sell the items to make money for the local community, or they can have the Property Room can do the selling for them....



$200,000 missing from New Orleans police evidence room
Investigations into missing evidence determined that about $200,000 was taken from the New Orleans Police Department's evidence and property room, Superintendent Warren Riley said Wednesday.

Riley's disclosure comes as a preliminary report about the problems at the evidence room by the state's legislative auditor was given to the department, as well as other officials in city government, including the mayor's office and members of the City Council.

The missing money was taken from envelopes containing cash seized from four or five criminal cases, Riley said.

Speaking at a news conference at police headquarters, Riley said the police investigation into the missing money is ongoing and that suspects have been identified. He said he plans to respond to the audit report after a meeting with staff later this week.

During the news conference, Riley initially said more than $100,000 was missing from the property and evidence room, but later changed that tally to about $200,000.

Louisiana State Auditor Steve Theriot said Wednesday evening that his report will be made public in several weeks, once the NOPD has a chance to respond to his findings. He declined to say what his audit found or elaborate on the contents of his report.

Since the first reports about missing cash from the evidence room surfaced last fall, the NOPD has declined to provide documents requested by The Times-Picayune, citing the ongoing internal investigation. The documents the NOPD has refused to provide include weekly staff reports that the newspaper believes should be provided in accordance with Louisiana's public records law.

Riley's disclosure on Wednesday evening about the missing money appeared to be prompted by television reports about the audit findings.

The auditor's office likely began looking into the NOPD's evidence and property room issues last year following some high-profile complaints from local defense attorneys, who said their clients' evidence was missing.

In November, lawyer Rick Teissier discovered that about $19,000 of his client's money -- the $100 and $50 bills from a $35,903 stash of cash -- had been taken from the NOPD Central Evidence and Property division.

Riley acknowledged the missing money at the time and promised a thorough investigation.

A month later, news of more missing money spread. This time it was $9,000 in evidence cash that had been checked out by a district attorney investigator. To avoid a conflict of interest, newly minted District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro asked the State Police to investigate.

In both cases, the missing money stems from cases after Hurricane Katrina.

Riley had criticized a former high-ranking cop last fall for lax security of the evidence room, saying too many people had keys to the room under Capt. Danny Lawless' watch.

But Lawless countered Riley's blame by showing off a collection of memos and paperwork in which he had warned supervisors of the temporary facility's security shortcomings and manpower shortages, calling them a "recipe for disaster."...


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