- Anna Darron / Foter / CC BY-ND
Delaware State Police Criminal Investigative Unit and the Delaware Attorney General’s Office initiated a joint investigation during the past month.
That came after the discovery of drug evidence submitted for analysis to the Controlled Substances Lab within the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.. The evidence was found to be compromised after being returned to law enforcement agencies. A terse release from State Police stated that drug evidence was tampered, missing, or substituted.
The amount or other details of tampered evidence were not disclosed by State Police, citing the fact that the investigation is ongoing. Tampered evidence has the potential to throw out a number of drug cases.
The Delaware State Police and Department of Justice initiated the investigation, including internal audits of police evidence lockers which detected discrepancies amongst several Delaware law enforcement agencies that existed between drug evidence submitted to the OCME Controlled Substances Lab and evidence returned to police evidence lockers in sealed envelopes after analysis and testing.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is fully cooperating in the investigation and all drug evidence has been secured.
Based on the nature of the ongoing investigation, the Controlled Substances Lab has discontinued drug analysis; however, all other functions of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner remain uninterrupted and fully functional.
I see that you’ve used my photo for this story – this is an image I took at our ‘Breaking Bad’ finale party!