RALEIGH -- The attorney representing a man accused of murdering UNC Chapel Hill student Eve Carson said probation officials "dropped the ball" with his client. During a probation revocation hearing Thursday for 21-year-old Demario Atwater, attorney Rudy Renfer told a Superior Court judge that probation officials did not keep in touch with Atwater as often as they should have.

"If the probation office, the probation department does not do a better job informing them, and keeping people on probation informed of their responsibilities, they can't fulfill those responsibilities," Renfer said, after Superior Court Judge Ripley Rand revoked Atwater's probation, sending him behind bars for 20 to 25 months. "I think if this had been an average probation violation hearing, the problems that the probation department had supervising him, I don't think it would have led to a revocation."

Atwater was placed on three years of probation in February 2005 after he was convicted of felony breaking and entering in Wake County. In June 2007 he was convicted of possessing a firearm in Granville County. That conviction violated his probation terms. Renfer said Atwater did not think he was still on probation for that conviction because officers did not keep in touch with him.

"When it comes to community service he was supposed to do, probation officers they assign that, they tell you where to go, bring me proof that you're doing it - who does he go to? Who does he pay the money to? Who does he bring proof of employment to? There was simply none of that in this case," Renfer said.

Officials with the Department of Corrections have acknowledged they mishandled probation for Atwater and his co-defendant in the Carson case, 17-year-old Laurence Lovette. Lovette also faces first-degree murder charges in the shooting death of Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato. Both Lovette and Atwater were out on probation when the crimes occurred.

"The supervision of Mr. Atwater on probation by this division is extremely disappoint, flat-out embarrassing," said Robert Guy, director of the state Department of Corrections' Division of Community Corrections, in a news conference last month after his department released a report investigating the issue. The report found that probation officers did not make sure that Atwater met the terms of his probation, which required him to meet every week with an officer. The report also faulted officials for not immediately revoking his probation after he was convicted of having a gun in June 2007.

"They were told by computer as well as telephone 'we've got him, he's here, what do you want us to do with him,'" Guy said. "We just told them to come in next month for a contact. That's unacceptable."

The report also pointed out that Atwater's case was transferred to several probation officers, and at one point a year passed without anyone making contact with him. Guy said the report found more unacceptable issues in Lovette's file.

"Only one face-to-face contact occurred with Lovette, that was the day of processing," Guy said.

Several people within the state Department of Corrections have already resigned as a result of the investigation into the probation files of Lovette and Atwater.

During Thursday's court appearance, Atwater acknowledged violating probation, and listened quietly as the judge activated his suspended sentences. Renfer said if the probation system doesn't change, others will meet the same fate.

"You're going to have a lot of folks who are going to be charged and arrested and charged with violating probation, when the probation department hasn't been doing their job sufficiently," Renfer said.

Atwater appeared in court days before Carson's death to answer to probation violation charges, but an administrative error sent him home.