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Audit finds St. Louis police mismanagement

St. Louis Business Journal
BYLINE: Kelsey Volkmann
Link to Article

St. Louis, MO

The St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners mismanaged money and failed to oversee a contract with St. Louis Metropolitan Towing, according to a state audit released Tuesday.

The police board held more than $4 million in money seized from criminal suspects, didn’t properly identify the owners of $591,000 of it and inappropriately spent more than $188,000 of it for various operating expenses, state auditor Susan Montee said.

More than $24,000 was stolen from the evidence room, auditors said.

The board also failed to adequately monitor the vehicle towing operations of St. Louis Metropolitan Towing, which underpaid towing fees totaling $453,509 to the police department and City of St. Louis, according to the audit.

The police department has filed a lawsuit to recover the amount underpaid and the matter is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.

The audit also questioned why the police board paid $109,000 in severance wages and benefits to Chief Joe Mokwa, who was ousted over the towing scandal in July 2008. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch first reported that the police department let Mokwa’s daughter and police officers use towed cars.

Auditors also raised concerns about $24,000 paid to public information officer Richard Wilkes after he left the department in January 2008.

The police department accepted free season tickets from the St. Louis Cardinals for at least seven years, which may be a violation of state law, Montee said. Based on the value of season tickets in a similar location in the stadium, the approximate value of the tickets in 2008 alone was $19,000, she said.

In response to the audit, the police department acknowledged “ineffective and inefficient business practices.” It said Police Chief Dan Isom, who was selected to lead the department in October 2008, has made fixing “complete breakdowns in procedures” his priority.

“There was a lack of oversight and a lack of accountability,” Isom said in a statement. “Those days are over.”

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