Sunday, May 8, 2016

Montana: Coby James Lewis: Police Department employee with access to police evidence arraigned after allegedly stealing drugs from a police evidence locker. .."When Lewis was employed with Billings Police in November 2014, a syringe with suspected liquid methamphetamine and two other evidence items were logged as destroyed on Nov. 18, 2014, according to court documents. A supervisor at the police evidence building became suspicious because the items were not recorded as being transferred to be destroyed. The supervisor contacted both Lewis and a second technician who purportedly logged the destroyed evidence. That technician said he was not at the evidence facility on the day the items were logged."..."This was the second occurrence of drug evidence theft to affect law enforcement agencies in Yellowstone County, the first coming out of the Montana State Crime Lab. Steve Brester is suspected of stealing prescription medications from lab evidence between September 2014 to June 2015. He was fired in June 2015. Brester spent about nine months working for the lab before an internal audit discovered evidence had gone missing. Charges are still pending in that case." The Missoulian;