Newsclipping summary:

FEAR-List Bulletin posted by John Paff, 3/21/96

The following is a summary of a story that appeared on page 13 of the Boston Globe, March 2, 1996.

In mid February, Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph C. Martin, 2d, stated the following to the Boston Globe:
 

It is not unusual for us to split the [forfeiture] money at
the court house and we take ours and the police take their
share with them. That's the way it works.

This law-enforcement flip-flop came after Boston Police Detective Kenneth Acerra returned $22,000 to authorities after the Globe began investigating whether he and his partner, Detective Walter F. Robinson, Jr., stole $44,000 seized in a 1992 drug raid.

Apparently, police procedures that require seized cash to be deposited in a trust account were bypassed, and the $44,000 in cash was split between Acerra and Assistant District Attorney John Julian.

The U.S. Attorney's office has launched an investigation, and Acerra's union representative said that Acerra "put the $22,000 in an evidence locker and forgot it was there after going out on sick leave."