Nassau officials vow swift crime lab fix

Nassau officials promised a swift overhaul of the police crime lab as a state commission Tuesday levied harsh criticism following a report detailing a litany of problems there.

The committee said the report called into the question the integrity of ongoing criminal cases and could potentially affect past criminal convictions. One board member also said a vote on whether to suspend the lab's state accreditation could take place, if the county doesn't fix the problem.

The panel also voted unanimously to send a letter calling on police, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano, District Attorney Kathleen Rice and others to quickly take action and address "root causes."

"I'm sure every commissioner here had the same reaction I did. It's terrible, and it's been brewing a long time," said Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, a member of the state Committee on Forensic Science, which oversees crime labs.

Mangano said he's considering changes in lab management and asked Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey to appoint someone to head a lab overhaul.

The Nassau lab stores and analyzes physical evidence for criminal cases and is run by the police department.

Mangano also pledged to fast-track a plan to move the lab into a new New Cassel facility, which he promises will be "state-of-the-art."

Rice said immediate action was needed "to ensure that the criminal justice system is doing everything it can to protect against wrongful convictions."

At Tuesday's meeting, New York City defense attorney and committee member Marvin Schechter said, "This appears to be a lab in free fall."

The session in state offices in Manhattan came just days after a national accrediting body, the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, notified Nassau and state officials that an inspection last month found 15 issues of noncompliance at the lab.

They included unsecured storage of evidence, an uncalibrated instrument used to determine alcohol content in blood and unmarked drug containers.

The lab was placed on probation for one year, making it the only accredited crime lab of nearly 400 in the country with such a distinction.

No one from the Nassau County Police Department attended the meeting.

Nassau police Chief of Department Steven Skrynecki said by phone that the department indicated to the committee it needed time to consider the report. While acknowledging "significant issues" in the lab, Skrynecki said personnel there were already working on the problems.

"We're confident the conditions behind any evidence will stand any test in the judicial system," Skrynecki said.

The lab was previously put on probation in 2007 for "relatively similar" problems but was reaccredited the next year, Skrynecki said.

Defense attorney Stephen Scaring - a former Major Offense Bureau chief in the Nassau district attorney's office - called the report "devastating" to Rice's office, saying it will be used to call into question the validity of evidence in criminal cases through cross-examination of lab witnesses.

THE FINDINGS

Investigators found the Nassau Police Department's Crime Lab at fault for several breaches of protocol, including:

Inventory of controlled substances:

"They do not keep track of the amounts of drug standards, such as cocaine, diacetylmorphine, (heroin), tetrahydrocannabinol and ketamine, which are used in the section."

Markings for identification:

"In the controlled substance discipline, neither the actual evidence nor its proximal container is being marked for identification."

Evidence storage:

"The items were placed into the evidence storage facility and not placed under a proper seal."

Securing laboratory conditions:

"In the latent print laboratory, the evidence room and the case record file storage, which contains evidence, is open during the day. The area was observed to be open when no one was present in the office area and the evidence room and case record file storage were open."

Instrument upkeep:

"In blood alcohol, the pippetor has not been calibrated since 2007. Laboratory policy does not specify the frequency of calibration of pippetors."