The proper procedure

Idaho code explains what should be done with weapons that police seize.

Idaho code spells out how guns and other weapons seized by law enforcement officers should be processed.

When a person is arrested in Idaho, even for a misdemeanor, and a gun is found in their possession, officers may confiscate it.

If a gun is confiscated, it is stored in the evidence room of the arresting police department or sheriff's office.

Once a misdemeanor charge is resolved, an offender can get his gun back as long as he doesn't have any felony convictions on his record that occurred after 1991. The exception is for those who have convictions for murder or voluntary manslaughter. No matter when those occurred, these offenders can never own a gun.

If a person is convicted of a felony, any gun found in his possession or under his control at the time of the arrest may be confiscated and disposed of in accordance with a court order.

If a police department intends to keep a gun, it must notify the owner by certified mail or by publishing a notice in the newspaper. This doesn't apply to someone who's been convicted of a felony and wants his gun back. A lot of guns confiscated by police are not owned by those arrested. This is a way for someone whose gun was stolen and used by a criminal to get it back.

The gun's owner has 20 days after the mailing or publication to file a claim on the weapon. At a hearing, he would have to argue that he is innocent of any involvement in the crime or that the gun wasn't used by someone in the commission of a crime. If that's the case, the court may return the gun to the owner.

If the owner misses the 20-day deadline, and a judge rules the gun was being used by a criminal when he was arrested, the firearm will go to the law enforcement agency which apprehended the defendant.

There, the gun can be used three different ways: It may be converted by the police department or sheriff's office for official law enforcement duty use, it may be sold to a licensed gun dealer with the proceeds going to the city or county in which it was confiscated; or the gun may be scrapped by melting or another method of destruction.

-- From the Idaho State Code

How Mason worked the system

Nothing in Idaho law indicates that a gun -- other than those confiscated in a drug arrest -- can be forfeited to a specific prosecutor's office.

In many of the 18 cases investigated by the Idaho Attorney General's Office, Kimball Mason negotiated deals where defendants gave up their guns in exchange for guilty pleas to reduced charges.

Because some were only misdemeanor charges, the defendants could have gotten their guns back.

These guns were to be kept, sold or destroyed at the police department's discretion, but Mason convinced evidence custodians that they could release the weapons to him. Investigators say he then kept, sold or traded them for his own use.

Here are some of the other items Mason took from the police department's evidence vault:

- 65 counterfeit Oakley sunglasses

- 78 "designer" T-shirts

- 49 BB guns

- A Sentry locking storage box

- A Japanese Samurai sword

- Two pairs of brass knuckles

- Butterfly knife

- Rebel Extreme paintball gun

- Three daggers

- Two switchblades

- Three pairs of binoculars