Missing Sex Toys Raise Concerns at Police Property Room

Three years after Houston police seized these and hundreds of other sex toys worth $50,000 from the Adult Video Megaplexxx, the devices may be missing from the department's property room.

The discovery came to light when a lawyer for the adult-entertainment shop sought to reclaim the 564 items that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently declared legal to sell.

After initially telling attorney Richard Kuniansky the sex toys would be returned, Houston police then said they were destroyed.

"They said no problem you can send somebody by to pick them up, and then we get another call and it's 'Whoops, we don't have them,' " Kuniansky said.

Kuniansky said police told him they were destroyed, but he doubts that explanation.

"There is apparently no court order authorizing destruction of the property or any record of what happened to the property," he said.

A check of Harris County court files did not turn up a destruction order in any of the cases involving the store's employees.

The last time the products were seen by Adult Video Megaplexxx employees was in 2005, when they were carried away by vice officers.

They were to be locked in a property room as evidence. The charges against employees were dropped. And in February,a federal appeals court ruled that Texas' 35-year-old law banning the sale of sex toys was unconstitutional.