PITTSBURGH -- A local veteran police officer is under federal investigation for allegedly selling guns out of a police department evidence room. Investigative Reporter Jim Parsons reports, it is the latest incident in a growing problem of property disappearing from police evidence rooms.

The following Team 4 investigative report by Jim Parsons first aired July 25, 2003, on WTAE Action News at 6 p.m.

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Jim Parsons: Did you ever sell guns out of the property room?

Officer McBane: I have no comment sir.

McKees Rocks police Sergeant Carl McBane is the target of a federal investigation that began almost a full year ago. McBane is under suspicion of taking two guns from the police department property room and selling them on the street.

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Team 4 Investigates Missing Property From Police Evidence Rooms

One weapon was a 22-caliber rifle - allegedly sold for $80. The other was a Harrington and Richardson 22-caliber handgun. That sale allegedly brought McBane $50.

Here's how the handgun first ended up with the McKees Rocks Police Department. According to a police department receipt obtained by Team 4, a woman by the name of Maria Iyengar turned the 22-handgun over to Sergeant McBane in December 1999. Both Mrs. Iyengar and Sergeant McBane signed the receipt.

Mrs. Iyengar and her husband live on Russellwood Avenue in McKees Rocks. They declined to speak on camera, but told Team 4 they discovered the handgun in the attic of a deceased uncle's house. Mrs. Iyengar says she didn't want the gun to end up on the street, so she called the McKees Rocks Police Department. She says Sergeant McBane showed up in a police car a few minutes later and took the gun.

Jim Parsons: Whether Sergeant McBane ever checked the gun into the police property room is unclear. What is clear is that the handgun and the survivor rifle both wound up in the hands of an elected Pennsylvania constable who is cooperating with the FBI.

Constable Jerry Smith allegedly purchased the guns from Sergeant McBane, then turned the weapons over to federal agents. Smith, who has spoken to Team 4 in the past about alleged voter fraud in Kennedy Township, declined to comment on this investigation. So did Sergeant McBane.

Parsons: Wanted to ask you about the federal investigation into guns being sold out of the property room here. I understand you're a target of that?

McBane: I have no comment sir, I apologize, but I have no comment.

McBane isn't the first local police officer suspected of stealing from an evidence room.

Just last month, a jury convicted former Wilkinsburg Police Chief Gerald Brewer of stealing $5,000 in cash from an evidence safe in his office.

At Plum Police Department, marijuana and two handguns vanished last year from the evidence locker. A Plum sergeant is under federal investigation from allegedly taking one of the missing guns.

And earlier this month, an audit from the county controller found inventory weaknesses in the Property Room at Allegheny County Police Headquarters. While it turned out that no evidence was missing, the audit found 'security is not maintained...over individual pieces of evidence.'

Dan Onorato: If you're talking about drugs, money and guns, who took it and where is it?

Controller Dan Onorato says it's no coincidence that there's been a rash of police evidence room thefts in recent months.

Dan Onorato: There's an environment out there for the ability to abuse the system. And that environment has to be eliminated because if people have the ability to have items disappear, stolen, whatever it might be, and not be detected then we've got internal controls problems. So the environment right now is ripe for abuse.