SBI misconduct may not be limited to crime lab

The ongoing revelations of the N.C. State Bureau of Investigations' questionable (and possibly criminal) conduct should come as no surprise to Mooresville.

As an area that has been rocked by one scandal after another, prompting the SBI to visit several times in the past eight years – then in most cases waiting, to no avail, for the results – the Town of Mooresville is no stranger to the SBI sweeping cases under the rug.

Attorney General Roy Cooper recently ordered an independent review of the SBI's crime lab. The results, released late last week, were damning, revealing that the SBI “withheld or distorted evidence in more than 200 cases at the expense of potentially innocent men and women” (http://%28http//www.newsobserver.com/2010/08/19/635632/scathing-sbi-audit-says-230-cases.html#ixzz0x52LRIZc%29.).

Countless lives have clearly been sabotaged by the very “investigators” who are supposed to be protecting the public's interest. Of the cases that must now be reviewed, three of the defendants have already been executed. Five have died in prison. And 80 are still serving sentences – four of whom are on death row.

On the other hand, it's only natural to speculate that despite botched evidence and investigations, prosecutors perhaps tried and convicted the true criminal. But because of the crime lab's questionable lab practices, those cases now have a real chance of being appealed and overturned, potentially leading to the early release of violent criminals back into society.

After all is said and done, the taxpayers will pay a hefty price. And the cost is sure to be enormous.

But with the exposure of the SBI's misconduct, we have identified only a symptom of the real disease plaguing the bureau and thus our state: the absence of open, honest, accountable practices within the agency and our government itself.

The SBI blood analysts, arguably, are not incompetent. They didn't withhold information, or fall down on their duties, because they are stupid. At least we should hope not. The only way those agents were able to get away with their misconduct is because someone else has allowed, or endorsed, it to happen.

The SBI serves under a director – until recently, Robin Pendergraft. That director is appointed by the Attorney General, an elected position. What's more, the SBI crime lab – as indicated by the Raleigh News & Observer – is charged with using science to prove cases built by district attorneys, also elected positions.

In this sort of arrangement, if one person – just one – is corrupt, or chooses to turn a blind-eye to corruption, the entire judicial system crumbles, and the people left to suffer are the very ones the system was created to protect and serve. Essentially, people’s freedom – their lives – are caught in the crosshairs of law enforcement and politics. And it appears as though the SBI has somehow been ordained to decide if a person is worthy of their freedom. And only after that determination is made will the agents use “science” to fit it.

Even in the midst of public humiliation, politics and favoritism are apparently still at work among the bureau's ranks. Even while the attorney general, Roy Cooper, removed Pendergraft from her position as SBI director – moving her to another unit with no change in pay – he praised her work as the bureau's director, saying, as reported by the News & Observer: “'I think Robin has done an excellent job at the SBI.'”

The problem is clearly deep-rooted in the political structure. And perhaps the most unsettling question is this: if it has been this easy for SBI agents to botch life-and-death cases, just how easy has it been for them to ignore cases of public corruption?

In Mooresville, we're in a unique position – perhaps more so than any other city in North Carolina – to help shed some light on that.

A brief review:

• In 2002, the SBI was called in to Mooresville after a private citizen, earlier in 2001, brought to light financial inconsistencies at the Mooresville Public Library. Town officials allowed the town librarian to resign and she later pleaded guilty to felony embezzlement. Though the SBI was supposedly called in to review the matter, the public, seven years later, has not been informed of the review's outcome.
• Three years later, in 2005, the SBI was called in after yet another private citizen conducted his own well-documented financial investigation of the Mooresville Golf Course which revealed a substantial loss of inventory, and perhaps cash, from the golf course pro shop. The citizens' efforts prompted town officials to call for an outside audit of the golf course, which showed thousands of dollars in merchandise missing from the pro shop. The SBI was called in to investigate, but five years later, the public has not been informed of the outcome of that investigation, either.
• In 2008, the SBI was called in to investigate former Mooresville Police Chief John Crone's Cops for Kids program. Once again, private citizens conducted their own investigation of the program and uncovered, among other questionable items, a receipt for a deposit of $361 in “loose change” from the evidence room into the Cops for Kids account. One month later, the town fired the police chief and called in the SBI. But it took two years – and a new Iredell County District Attorney – before the public would hear anything about that investigation. Crone has been indicted and his next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 8. Town commissioners, from the beginning, expressed skepticism about involving the SBI, citing their lack of confidence in the agency conducting a thorough, timely review. And in fact, when the initial SBI report was complete, town officials said the bureau indicated in its report that it had nothing on which to follow up. At the same time, however, Sarah Kirkman – who was elected Iredell's new district attorney at the same time the Cops for Kids story was breaking – told the Report in February that while she had received a copy of the SBI's report, she still had questions for the investigating agent. Only after that were charges produced by the SBI's “investigation.”

Interestingly, however, when Crone himself called the SBI to Mooresville in November 2002 to investigate $4 of missing money from the police department's evidence room, the SBI moved quickly. The Mooresville Tribune first reported on Nov. 6, 2002 that Crone had called in the SBI. Within seven months, the SBI had investigated the matter, a grand jury had indicted the former evidence-room custodian, and the custodian had pleaded guilty to embezzlement. It took seven months, start to finish, for the case to be opened and closed when the police chief called in the SBI. But when the town called the bureau in to investigate that same police chief for misappropriating $361 of money from the evidence-room – as opposed to the custodian's $4 - it took two years and a new DA for the SBI to produce results.

Such inconsistencies beg the question: Is it less about what you know, and more about who you know, when dealing with the SBI? Does the SBI use selective leniency and favoritism depending on a person's political influence and/or his or her perceived community status?

Unfortunately, we may never know the answers to those questions.

But thanks to the tireless efforts of a few dogged reporters in Raleigh, what we do know is that the SBI has at least been consistent the past decade. Whether “investigating” violent criminals or public corruption, the agency has demonstrated – consistently – laziness, incompetence, neglect or, worse yet, corruption … and perhaps a combination of them all.

Unfortunately, long before the Raleigh News & Observer began asking questions – and long before Cooper ordered an audit of the SBI crime lab – the people of Mooresville had learned to distrust the SBI, an agency they used to rely on as being legitimate, credible and trustworthy.

While people in this community worked courageously and tirelessly to uncover and expose corruption, the SBI repeatedly dragged its feet and used its authority to employ delay tactics and provide loopholes for those who enjoyed membership in the dwindling political patronage system of Mooresville.

The SBI’s stubborn refusal to do its job in Mooresville led to a community unnecessarily divided and polarized. The intangible harm that resulted from this monumental failure will be difficult, if not impossible, to measure.

While these new revelations about the SBI confirm the long-standing suspicions held by many in Mooresville, this is nothing to celebrate. The truth has now been exposed that the largest investigative agency in this state has dropped the ball on some 200 criminal cases. What remains unknown is how many public-corruption cases the agency has approached and treated with the same careless and reckless attitude.