HPD track record with seized property takes another hit

Sharon Russell was grieving the death of a daughter when she was hit with another loss.

Russell called Houston police to retrieve rings, computers and other property belonging to her daughter, Tara Ann Sganga. Police seized them for use in the investigation of her daughter's boyfriend, a Brazoria County defense attorney charged with causing her drowning death in 2009 by injecting her with drugs.

The day after the trial ended in an acquittal in September 2010, Russell called Houston police officials who admitted they had disposed of her daughter's property long before.

"I was in shock. I was hung up on, and when I called back they told me they had auctioned her things off a year and a half before the trial was over," Russell said. "They gave me no explanation whatsoever. They stole from my deceased daughter. They're doing the same things they arrest people for."

Russell, on behalf of her daughter's estate, filed a $200,000 lawsuit against HPD this month, saying they not only sold her daughter's property but have refused to hand over any proceeds the department received from the auction.

The items included two family heirloom rings - one with a diamond - two Compaq computers, three cell phones, a CD player, more than 200 CDs and other electronic equipment.

'People make mistakes'

Houston police have a long history of mishandling property in their control, including a case resulting in a landmark 1990 federal appeals court ruling that held lax HPD policies made it easy to violate a citizen's constitutional rights against unlawful seizure of their property.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury's award of $147,779 to a Houston couple whose stereo equipment, video recorder, cameras, jewels, gold coins, hunting rifles and other property had been seized by Houston police. When the couple obtained a court order for the property's return, they learned most of it had been sold in two auctions and the rest was converted to police use.

In 2007, two HPD property room supervisors were suspended after 35 firearms turned up missing from the property room, including two that had resurfaced in the possession of criminal suspects. In 2004, HPD acknowledged that evidence from 8,000 criminal cases, going back to the 1960s, had been found in 280 boxes that were improperly labeled and stored.

Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland, while declining to comment on Russell's lawsuit, said employees of the department's $13 million property room are not perfect. But he noted the 59,000-square-foot property room, which opened in June 2009, earned certification from the International Organization for Standardization in October, the only police property room given that certification.

"We have human beings working in the property room," McClellend said. "People make mistakes. People in your business make mistakes. No one's perfect, and when you're dealing with that type of inventory of property and evidence, something can go to the wrong place, get mislabeled."

Previous incidents

Russell's attorney, Ernest M. Powell, said police should at least return proceeds of the sale to his client.

"They treat it like any other lawsuit," Powell said. "You would really expect they would have at least some compassion for a grieving mother. She's not just any crime victim. Her daughter was a victim. It's not as if her home had been burglarized. Her daughter has been killed, and she cannot grieve properly because she can't have her daughter's items."

A similar lawsuit Powell filed over the property disposition was dismissed in August after the city invoked governmental immunity.

Houston attorney Richard Kuniansky got a surprise in 2008 when he tried to retrieve 564 sex toys worth $50,000 from the police property room. They had been seized during a raid on Adult Video Megaplexxx, but an appeals court overturned the law prohibiting the sale of sex toys.

When he called the property room and explained the products were no longer contraband and his client wanted them back, he was told to come pick them up. But when he called back to arrange a time, police said the entire inventory of sex toys had been "lost."

"I think it's pretty obvious where the goods went," Kuniansky said.

Thousands of items

The attorney said missing sex toys can be humorous, but few businesses could afford to lose $50,000 in inventory.

Capt. Charles Vazquez, who heads the HPD property room, said there are 380,000 separate items currently in storage, and employees know where the "overwhelming majority" are located. "I'm not saying we could get every single item," he said.

Last year, police checked in 65,000 items and disposed of another 24,000 items, including 8,200 returned to their owners. The other items were either auctioned off, donated to charity, converted to police use, destroyed or returned to the HPD division that checked them in.

"Although we strive for perfection ... sometimes we don't hit that mark," said Vazquez, adding he was not aware of any complaints from residents over lost property since he took over the facility last August.

james.pinkerton@chron.com