CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Former Mathis Police Department Chief Scott Roush pled guilty to tampering with evidence on Friday and was given 10 years in state prison.
Roush was arrested on nine counts of felony evidence tampering in February after a third-party reported drugs had gone missing from the police station's evidence room.
Somewhere between 80 and 90 drug cases brought forth by the Mathis Police Department had to be dismissed because of the charges against Roush, said San Patricio County District Attorney Sam Smith on Friday.
He said the logged drug weights did not match up what was reported to the Department of Public Safety laboratories who handle their cases.
Roush admitted taking the drugs to 3NEWS in a phone interview. He was the only person assigned a key to the storage room during his time as chief.
He originally told 3NEWS in February that the drugs were "just lost" in the messy room.
Roush was the city's police chief for five years.
Guillermo Figueroa was hired as his replacement in August.
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