Attorney: Throw out lab-based conviction

An attorney for a Queens man jailed for felony cocaine possession plans to subpoena officials who worked at the now-shuttered Nassau crime lab to testify at a Jan. 30 hearing about whether to toss his client's conviction.

Hauppauge attorney Scott Gross, who represents Khurram Shahzad, 27, of Jamaica, said Tuesday he will subpoena Det. Michael Cole, Det. Jayson Pinsky and former Det. Lt. James Granelle, who once headed the facility, so he can quiz them about their work at the lab, which has a history of faulty evidence testing.

He also plans to subpoena Pasquale Buffolino, an official at the medical examiner's office, who took over the lab after it was placed on probation in December 2010.

Cole and Pinsky still work on the force, but Granelle has retired, said Dep. Insp. Kenneth Lack, a police spokesman.

A spokesman for County Executive Edward Mangano said he had no comment on Buffolino's subpoena.

"We're going to prove the inadequacies in the lab were so severe they tainted the case against my client," Gross said after meeting privately with Judge Tammy Robbin, who will hold the hearing.

A jury convicted Shahzad in 2010 after police said they found cocaine in his glove compartment when he ran a red light in Massapequa. He awaits sentencing at the county jail in East Meadow.

The lab's shutdown this past February after disclosures of shoddy evidence testing unleashed dozens of court filings on pending cases and past convictions.

Judges have tossed two convictions, faulting unreliable lab evidence. The cases are under appeal.

Shahzad's brother, Saeed Hassan, 26, and his mother, Abida Nasreen, 48, both of Hicksville, accompanied Gross Tuesday to the courthouse.

"He didn't know something was in the glove compartment," said Hassan. Shahzad had a passenger who was also convicted on drug charges.

Citing state Inspector General Ellen Biben's recent report criticizing the lab's testing, Gross said no one can be sure the substance in the car "actually was cocaine."

Shahzad, a Pakistani citizen, legally resides here. By law, noncitizens convicted of narcotics felonies can be deported.