AFTER TESTING SCANDAL, STATE POLICE LAB CHANGES

It was mid-1994, and Todd Owen McDaniel felt that his life was beginning to unravel.

Barely two years into his job as a civilian chemist at the State Police Drug Identification Section, his caseload had begun to stack up.  His wife's pregnancy, meanwhile, was breaking up their marriage.

"A big strain existed," he would later tell an FBI agent.

A once-secret FBI report reveals the ways McDaniel and others in his section tried to whittle down their daunting caseloads: They skipped required tests of suspected drug evidence.

McDaniel, 33, has since pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges for his crime lab misdeeds.  The FBI probe found sloppy work by others at the drug section, but no other criminal wrongdoing.

The report, obtained by the Gazette, includes interviews with current and former lab chemists.  They help explain McDaniel's misdeeds, which went undetected for years.

Backlogs and Video Games

McDaniel had left a job in the Valley's chemical industry for a post at the State Police crime lab.  At the time, the crime lab's civilian chemists were paid more than troopers, who had a pension plan and their own cruisers.

But that changed.  McDaniel would tell the FBI that by 1999, the crime lab brimmed with tension.

"A lot of resentment, which continues to this day, developed between trooper[s] and civilian personnel," the interviewing FBI agent would later report.  "Troopers assigned to the laboratory are treated as second-class individuals, and McDaniel claims that civilian personnel were treated worse."

Former section co-workers blamed McDaniel for his case backlog.  At least three described McDaniel as "lazy," their FBI interview reports said.

One worked at the lab for less than a year before going to medical school in 2000.  He called McDaniel a complainer who spent little time testing evidence.

"When McDaniel was on the job, he was generally in his cubicle playing video games or conducting Civil War research," the FBI report from his interview said.

McDaniel separated from his wife in 1996.  The ensuing custody battle over their son transformed him into a high-profile "father's rights" advocate at the Legislature.  Co-workers said he often dwelt on his custody battle or his lobbying when he should have been testing evidence.

The FBI report indicates that section workers began skipping mandatory tests as early as 1993.  But the misdeeds that resulted in criminal charges against McDaniel came shortly before he was caught in September 2000.

The FBI interviews may explain why McDaniel's cutting of corners worsened at that time.  His ex-wife planned to move to New Jersey with their son.  Despite the skipped testing, his backlog had grown to 158 cases.  His supervisors yanked his overtime until he pared down his caseload.

"McDaniel has been under a lot of stress, both professionally and personally," the FBI report from his September 2000 interview said.  "McDaniel is behind in his caseload work and describes his personal life as being in shambles."

McDaniel increased the number and type of tests he skipped.  Shortly before he was found out, he knocked down his backlog to 30 cases.

LearningFrom Mistakes

Discovery of McDaniel's wrongdoing shut down both the lab section and state and federal drug prosecutions throughout West Virginia.  The U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration re-tested the section's entire evidence caseload.  McDaniel and the section's other civilian chemist resigned.  The State Police replaced the section's remaining staffers before it re-opened.

"We've done a lot, actually, to make the lab a lot more professional, to identify the weaknesses that the FBI found in the lab," State Police chief legal counsel Kelly Ambrose said Friday.

Perhaps most importantly, Ambrose said, the State Police scrutinized why McDaniel and others began skipping required tests.

"One of the big problems the lab had been faced with at that time was the sheer volume of the work that it had to do," she said.

"It's a very burdensome process.  Regardless of whether the case is a felony case or a misdemeanor case, it takes the same amount of time to test the evidence."

The lab shed tests deemed "self-imposed requirements," and retained or adopted tests that ensured the lab's national accreditation.

Ambrose said the State Police have also sent troopers to Kentucky, where suspected marijuana is tested "in the field," to learn those methods to use in West Virginia.

"You don't have to send it in to the lab.  It's not a highly sophisticated drug," she said.  "That's going to save us a lot of time."

All told, the State Police want to learn from the McDaniel episode, Ambrose said.

"We've taken these steps to make sure that we're not overburdening the lab," Ambrose said.  "So, in a way, all this was a very good experience."