Features

Ex-Officer Kent Sentenced to Home Detention for Stealing Drug Evidence

By Judith Scherr
Friday July 28, 2006

Cary Kent, a former Berkeley police sergeant, was formally sentenced in Alameda County Superior Court Thursday for theft of drugs from the evidence locker at the Berkeley Police Department.  

He will serve one year in the Contra Costa sheriff’s alternative custody home detention program and wear a leg bracelet, which will monitor his movements during that time, according to Harry Stern, Kent’s attorney. 

Kent will submit quarterly progress reports to the judge, Stern said. He will serve five years probation. 

Berkeley CopWatch, which has been monitoring the case, sent letters to Judge C. Don Clay and District Attorney Tom Orloff requesting that the court delay sentencing until Kent testifies on the record about what happened. 

(By retiring from the police force, he avoided having to answer the police chief’s questions. And by pleading guilty, he also avoided talking about the case.) CopWatch did not receive any response to its letters. 

A subcommittee of the Police Review Commission is reviewing the police-district attorney investigation of the case.