This is a copy of Buncombe County’s audit of the Sheriff’s Department evidence room. The report cites “poor management, poor organizational skills and failure to maintain a clear chain of custody” during the administration of former Sheriff Bobby Medford. The audit was done as part of the transition that took place after Medford lost a re-election bid to incoming Sheriff Van Duncan.
Auditors selected a 30-item sample from the evidence room database and found major problems, according to the report: “The audit disclosed that 50 percent of the sample was no longer in evidence inventory; 27 percent of the sample could not be located and 14 percent of located items had been compromised. With a 91 percent error rate, the audit was expanded to to a complete inventory before evidence rooms were released to the new Sheriff’s administration.”
Click here to read a Mountain Xpress story from 2007 about the audit.
Click here to download a PDF file of the document.
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