Ex-DHB exec Brooks returns to federal detention

Former body-armor executive David Brooks will be transferred back to a federal detention center Tuesday, after 10 days in the Nassau County jail prompted him to lodge a series of complaints about his treatment there.

Attorneys in the case did not say why Brooks was being transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the fifth time his place of confinement has been changed since charges were brought against him. Within days of his arrival at the East Meadow facility, Brooks complained that he was not allowed contact with other prisoners and was only permitted out of his cell when he was in arm and leg shackles, according to several sources.

Brooks was recently transferred from a federal detention center in Queens to the Nassau County jail after a series of incidents in which he allegedly possessed tranquilizers as well as written material that prompted federal authorities to investigate whether he had tampered with the jury.

Brooks, former chief of the body armor company DHB Industries that once was based in Westbury, is awaiting a verdict in a $185-million fraud case. The jury, which has indicated that it is having trouble reaching a consensus, again failed to reach a verdict Monday.

Also Monday, Judge Joanna Seybert ruled that Newsday reporter Robert E. Kessler would not have to take the stand to be questioned about confidential sources who described a motion outlining Brooks' complaints about conditions at the Nassau County jail.

In a brief hearing at the federal courthouse in Central Islip Monday, David Schulz, an attorney for Newsday, said he did not understand why Brooks' lawyers were so concerned about the leak of information from a sealed motion, since most details of Brooks' incarceration were already publicly known and had nothing to do with the charges pending against him.

Schulz said even if the leaked details had been consequential, Brooks' defense lawyers should have to do two things before questioning the reporter: First, prove that it was not they who leaked the information, and second, ask permission to question other people who could have been the source of the information.

But Brooks attorney, Richard Levitt of Manhattan, said in court that the leak was a serious matter and that it is important to discover anyone who is leaking information before serious harm is done.

"To say this is not a significant fact fails to acknowledge the importance of the integrity of this court's rules," he said.

Seybert denied the defense's request either to question Kessler or appoint an independent investigator to look into the source of the leak, saying that Brooks' status as an inmate had been revealed many times in the past and did not affect jury deliberations in the case.