FEAR-List Bulletin
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 96 08:46 PST
Reply-To: j.paff1@genie.com
From: j.paff1@genie.com
Subject: Dirty Forfeiture deal in Mass.

The following is a summary of a story that appeared on page 13 of
 the Boston Globe, March 2, 1996.

===

LAW ENFORCEMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS INVESTIGATED OVER FORFEITURE
CASH SPLIT

In mid February, Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph C.
Martin, 2d, stated the following to the Boston Globe:

     It is not unusual for us to split the [forfeiture] money at
     the court house and we take ours and the police take their
     share with them.  That's the way it works.

Two weeks later, however, Assistant District Attorney Robert
Gittens said that his boss "mis-spoke" when he made that
statement.

This law-enforcement flip-flop came after Boston Police Detective
Kenneth Acerra returned $22,000 to authorities after the Globe
began investigating whether he and his partner, Detective Walter
F. Robinson, Jr., stole $44,000 seized in a 1992 drug raid.

Apparently, police procedures that require seized cash to be
deposited in a trust account were bypassed, and the $44,000 in
cash was split between Acerra and Assistant District Attorney
John Julian.

The U.S. Attorney's office has launched an investigation, and
Acerra's union representative said that Acerra "put the $22,000
in an evidence locker and forgot it was there after going out on
sick leave."