If you caught an employee stealing, there’d be severe disciplinary action. But what if police officers are the suspected thieves — and they made off with inappropriate goods?

That’s what the owners (and lawyer) of Adult Video Megaplexxx are asking. Three years after House police officers seized over $50,000 in adult toys from the business, a U.S. Court of Appeals declared the items were legal to sell.

But once the business-owners showed up at the station to collect their property, they hit a minor roadblock — officers were unable to locate the items in the property room.

How exactly do 564 adult items go missing? Police officials are claiming the items were destroyed, yet there were no court orders authorizing the destruction of any materials.

Richard Segura, acting director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law claims that the police shouldn’t have had to safeguard the items for so long.

“If I go over to your house and spend the night there and leave my shoes, can I expect my shoes to be there three years later?” asked Segura. “What is the police department going to do with a bunch of sex toys … keep them?”

That’s what the business’s owners and lawyers think. Regardless of how much time passed, the police department wasn’t within its rights to destroy property without following regulations.

Tags: Adult toys, Employee theft, Following regulations, Houston, Police