FBI investigating Lynnwood police

By Diana Hefley, Jim Haley and Scott North

A Lynnwood Police Department deputy chief is under investigation for allegedly stealing more than $14,000 cash plus cocaine and firearms seized in criminal investigations, court documents show.

Paul C. Watkins, 50, one of the department’s two deputy chiefs, is 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.

Federal agents have focused in particular on allegations that in 2002 Watkins took money, several grams of cocaine and two guns from the custody of Snohomish County Superior Court and never booked the items into the Lynnwood police evidence room, according to documents made public Oct. 25 in the U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The FBI found some of the missing evidence – including a .38-caliber revolver – and police files at Watkins’ home during an Oct. 22 search, documents show. Some of the evidence had been missing for five years.

Watkins has been placed on paid administrative leave. He declined comment. No charges have been filed, but the case appears to be the focus of a federal grand jury.

Watkins had been rising 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.

Watkins told investigators he put the missing items in evidence lockers at the police department, but failed to fill out the proper paperwork.

“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,” an FBI affidavit in support of a search warrant said.

The money should have been forfeited to the city of Lynnwood or returned to its original owners between October 2001 and October 2005, the FBI search warrant stated.

Lynnwood police alerted the FBI in June to a possible “public corruption matter,” and requested assistance, FBI documents show.