Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/evidence-booking-scandal/)
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and Sheriff Don Barnes continued to take aim at each other this week, in the wake of an evidence-booking scandal that has already triggered four fired and seven disciplined deputy sheriffs along with four ongoing probes inside the Sheriff’s department.
Sheriff Don Barnes’ spokeswoman declined to say why county supervisors and the district attorney weren’t told of the scale of the issue sooner.
A disturbing OC Sheriff’s Department Audit of late evidence bookings finds that 30 percent of evidence booked by deputies over the last two years didn’t comply with policy. While photos and videos are the majority of late bookings, there’s also cash, drugs and guns among the items booked into evidence late, sometimes by as much as a month. The audit, kept secret until recently, raises a host of issues for Sheriff Don Barnes and District Attorney Todd Spitzer and could affect thousands of criminal cases across Orange County.