Winfield police are dealing with the kind of math problem no department wants: more than $30,000 in seized cash that simply is not lining up on the books.
An internal review found that tens of thousands of dollars taken during a November 2023 law-enforcement sweep are unaccounted for, which has now triggered an outside criminal probe. Town Marshal Robert Byrd says he discovered a large stash of cash stored in plastic bins in a rental locker and moved the money into the department’s evidence room in early May.
On May 6, Byrd and Deputy Chief Todd Koster took the haul to a bank, where they counted $61,544 in bills and $376.86 in coins. The next day, May 7, they went back to the locker and turned up another $1,553 in cash. The problem is that earlier tallies suggest there should have been roughly $30,000 more in the pot, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The Tribune reports that Detective Corporal Jordan Billups‑Taylor had previously calculated the seized cash total at $94,129.37. Frank Martinez later told Byrd the figure should have been $97,014.37. Those higher numbers are what set off the alarm and launched the internal review.
Timeline and local officials
Byrd is listed as Town Marshal on Winfield’s official police roster, with Koster named as Deputy Chief, and the department has been working to sort out the discrepancy. The town’s police page identifies Byrd as the marshal leading the department’s response to the discovery and provides contact information for the office: Town of Winfield Police Department.
According to the Tribune’s reporting, the money trail leads back to cash seized during a November 2023 raid that also turned up a 2017 Porsche Cayenne. The department’s internal review lists multiple current and former officers as witnesses as it tries to reconstruct what happened between that raid and the springtime bank count.
State police asked to step in
Once the numbers stopped adding up, Byrd went outside the department for help. He asked Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter to bring in the Indiana State Police to investigate the missing cash. Carter’s office did so earlier this month, according to the Chicago Tribune.
For now, the case is in the hands of the Lake County prosecutor’s office and the Indiana State Police. No criminal charges have been announced, and the investigation remains open. The county site lists contact information for Carter and his office as the review continues: Lake County Prosecutor’s Office.
Why the missing money matters
Missing evidence is not just embarrassing; it can damage prosecutions and spawn both administrative and criminal trouble for public officials. Indiana appellate courts have repeatedly stressed how critical it is to keep a clean chain of custody. State decisions have rejected the idea that any hypothetical tampering automatically kills evidence in court, but real gaps in how evidence is handled can weaken cases and raise separate legal exposure for officers, as reflected in rulings collected by Justia.
In Winfield, that legal backdrop now hangs over what started as an accounting problem and has become a full-blown investigation into where tens of thousands of seized dollars went, and who, if anyone, will be held to account.
