Attorney: Crime lab closure 'right call'

The December report about the Nassau police crime lab was devastating - enough to put the county facility on probation for the second time, making it only the second department in the country to earn that distinction.

Yet county police officials said they were unperturbed, and optimistic the problems would be quickly fixed. "None of this poses a threat that the lab is being closed down," said department spokesman Det. Lt. Kevin Smith.

Two months later, that is exactly what happened. County officials announced Friday they were closing the lab because of myriad problems.

"It's the right call," said defense attorney Brian Griffin, who has launched the first attempt in court to have a conviction overturned because of the work done at the lab. "It probably took a lot longer than it should have."

The lab's shutdown is triggering questions about who knew what and when. If an investigation shows police knew evidence was compromised and did nothing, hundreds of arrests and criminal convictions could be challenged, lawyers and experts said.

The lab's troubles began escalating after the Dec. 3 report issued by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors following its five-day inspection and review. Generally, just two or three labs nationally are put on probation in the course of a year, the board said.

On Dec. 9, as defense lawyers started calling for the lab to be shut, Mulvey announced he was hiring an independent expert to help overhaul the lab.

Then, a day later, the crime lab's longtime chief, Det. Lt. James Granelle, was reassigned, as Mulvey also created a new oversight committee to help fix the problems.

But the moves weren't enough to stop convicted criminals to start challenging their convictions. On Dec. 14, a Hicksville woman, Erin Marino, found guilty of aggravated vehicular assault for slamming into a minivan while driving drunk, became the first criminal defendant to ask for a conviction to be overturned.

Griffin, her lawyer, contended that the machine used to test the level of alcohol in people's blood had not been properly maintained. Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey denied the problem affected test results.

By Dec. 21, Mulvey announced that a search of department archives had turned up an internal report as far back as 2006 detailing serious deficiencies. Mulvey, who took over the department in 2007, said he was never made aware of the report and that the lab was put on probation in 2005.

Richard McGuire, a former assistant chief of detectives who said he wrote a report at the behest of former Commissioner James Lawrence in 2007 outlining problems at the lab, commented, "I think it is very unfortunate this had to happen to such a professional police department."

Mulvey has said he had no knowledge of the problems until the evaluation results were released in early December.

By mid-January, a feared avalanche of suits claiming wrongful convictions did not materialize. Legal experts said most prison inmates would not have the money to hire attorneys to undo convictions, and it would not be easy to pin convictions on crime lab mistakes.

But on Feb. 9, the new director of the lab, Pasquale Buffolino, said incorrect drug samples in nine cases appeared to have left some defendants overcharged.

The next day, a Nassau judge postponed sentencing for a man convicted of striking and killing two brothers on Hempstead Turnpike while he was driving drunk, after his lawyer said the crime lab problems may have affected the case.

Meanwhile, on the same day, County Executive Edward Mangano and District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced they were closing the lab's narcotics section because of errors in drug testing. An independent firm will be hired to do its work, they said.

A week later, on Feb. 17, at Marino's court hearing to get her conviction overturned, Granelle, the former lab director, testified that he told his commanding officer about significant problems at the lab as far back as 2006. The next day, Mangano and Rice announced they were shutting down the lab.