LYNNWOOD – FBI agents seized money, police files and suspected missing evidence from a 1996 robbery case during a search of the Everett-area home of a Lynnwood deputy police chief now under investigation for allegedly stealing money, drugs and guns confiscated as part of police investigations, according to court documents.
A .38-caliber revolver was found inside Paul Watkins home on Monday during a search by FBI agents. The gun’s serial number matches one that Lynnwood police said they have been unable to locate since Watkins checked it out from the Snohomish County Courthouse in 2002, according to an FBI search warrant filed Thursday.
Watkins had earlier told investigators that he’d placed the gun, more than $14,000 in cash and several grams of cocaine into the police department’s evidence lockers, but simply hadn’t filled out paperwork, documents show.
Watkins, 50, is one of the department’s two deputy chiefs. He’s now the subject of an FBI public corruption investigation.
The probe has examined Watkins’ personal finances as well as evidence-handling practices at the police department.
The investigation has documented repeated instances where cash seized by police was passed around without necessary paperwork, according to documents made public Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
Federal agents have focused in particular on allegations that Watkins in 2002 took money, drugs and two guns from the custody of Snohomish County Superior Court and never booked the items into the Lynnwood police evidence room, documents show.
“These items were never received by the Lynnwood Police Department’s evidence section and all efforts to locate them have been made to no avail,” FBI agent Edward Quintanta Jr., wrote in an affidavit filed with the court prior to searching Watkins’ home.
Paperwork documenting the search of Watkins’ home shows that FBI agents found one of the missing handguns, and also discovered seizure and forfeiture paperwork in drug cases. They also took Lynnwood police evidence folders, property release statements, bankruptcy documents and apparent drug evidence, including pipes, some sort of powder and a scale, documents show.
Reached at his home on Wednesday evening, Watkins declined to comment. No charges have been filed.
The documents say Watkins also is suspected of stealing money that was supposed to be forfeited to the city of Lynnwood or returned to its original owners between October 2001 and October 2005.
Watkins has been placed on administrative leave and relieved of his police authority, Lynnwood police spokeswoman Shannon Sessions said Thursday. She declined to provide additional details, saying that “city officials are prohibited from discussing the ongoing criminal investigation or in-progress administrative investigation involving Watkins.”
Lynnwood city attorney Michael Ruark on Wednesday said he would not discuss the investigation “until there is some resolution by a grand jury.”
Watkins has risen through the ranks of the Lynnwood Police Department. He was the commander of the investigators division when he was promoted to deputy chief in 2005.
The state Auditor’s Office in July examined the police department’s evidence policies from 2006. No discrepancies were reported, auditor spokeswoman Mindy Chambers said.
Chambers didn’t know what procedures of evidence collection were inspected. She said her office is trying to determine why missing funds were never reported to state auditors.
The auditor’s review began about a month after FBI agents began work on the Watkins case. According to the search warrant affidavit, Lynnwood Police Chief Steven Jensen in June requested assistance from the FBI on a “public corruption matter.” Lynnwood officials had discovered money missing when police conducted their own audit of cases involving seized evidence.
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