Four Dallas detectives are spending almost all of their work hours sifting through the jumbled heap of police records that had been stored in the garage of a family violence detective.

To date, Dallas officials have found at least 70 cases assigned to Detective Mickey East that had not been properly filed with the district attorney's office, said Deputy Chief Michael Genovesi, who oversees the family violence unit.

"We're not done with this year," said Genovesi, also noting that in some of the cases there could be a reasonable explanation for why it was not yet filed. "That number could grow."

More than 2,000 cases dating back to 2004 are being reviewed by the police after East's supervisors discovered in September that he had been storing files in his garage.

In some cases, officials said East began the paperwork to file a case with the district attorney's office but did not complete it.

East, a 35-year veteran of the department, has said he took the documents home to organize them and put files together.

In a brief telephone interview Wednesday, he said he has not spoken to anyone recently about the review.

"I'll have to explain whenever they ask me about it," said East, who has been temporarily assigned to the auto pound.

Police are reviewing each case file by working backward from the most recent ones.

Two cold-case homicide detectives and two auto theft detectives have been assigned to the effort. Two civilians also are helping out with the project on a periodic basis, Genovesi said.

Police officials have said that the review of East's records could take weeks, if not months, because there was little rhyme or reason to East's recordkeeping system.

Officials are compiling lists of the cases that had not been filed or cases in which they had to make corrections to East's records.

Problems with East's files were discovered in late September during an audit of an internal tracking database at the Police Department's family violence unit.

East, who has been assigned to the unit since 2004, had entered about 10 of his cases into the system.

Supervisors then asked to look at his case files, which he told them that he kept at home. East then brought in a dozen large boxes, some of them labeled by year, that were filled to the brim with records.

Officials also are reviewing department policies to determine what rules may have been violated, including ones that require detectives to keep evidence in its proper place.