The head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told legislators Wednesday that the arrest of a former crime-lab chemist has sparked new precautions in handling drug evidence. FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey gave a Senate panel an update on Joseph Graves, the Pensacola crime-lab chemist accused of compromising hundreds of state drug cases.
Graves has been charged with taking prescription pain pills involved in criminal cases and replacing them in evidence bags with over-the-counter medication. Bailey says FDLE is working on internal measures to avoid a repeat, such as conducting random audits of all agency chemists who process drugs.
He says Floridians should remain confident in the overall reputation of FDLE."It is just one guy in one lab in one section, but still I don’t want to demean the significance of this", Bailey said. "The morale hit with all our forensics has been rough."
The investigation was triggered by the discovery that the drugs had gone missing from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
So far, Graves has been charged with grand theft, tampering with evidence and drug trafficking. More charges may still be coming.
Bailey says there are likely not as many compromised cases as he first feared, but no number is acceptable.