State ordered to release crime lab letter

A Nassau County judge Tuesday ordered a state law enforcement agency to turn over a 2008 letter addressed to several county officials about "problems" at the crime lab, unless a state appellate court rules otherwise.

Nassau County Court Judge George Peck said in court that, although the letter is unsigned and several county and state officials maintain that it was never sent, it should be released next Wednesday to Erin Marino of Hicksville, whose drunken driving conviction was overturned because of "potentially tainted evidence" at the lab.

The letter, addressed to Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice, former Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey, former County Executive Thomas Suozzi and crime lab director James Granelle, is dated April 28, 2008, two years before Rice and Mulvey have said they learned of issues related to the lab.

Suozzi has said he didn't recall receiving the letter and Granelle said he knew of problems at the lab and alerted his supervisors.

Peck's decision came after Marino's lawyer, Brian Griffin, of Garden City, subpoenaed the letter, saying he has a right to have it in order to represent Marino in a new trial ordered by Peck in March and in an appeal of the judge's decision by the district attorney. Marino was arrested following a June 2009 crash in Glen Cove.

A state appellate court last week denied a request by Rice's office to stop Marino's case from going forward until the inspector general ends its investigation into the lab in about a month. Peck said he will give Rice's office one week to appeal that decision. If Rice is not successful, he will release the letter on Sept. 14.

"I'm very concerned about the Marino prosecution, and hundreds of others that have to do with the lab results," Peck said in court.

Valerie Friedlander, a senior attorney for the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, sent the court a letter dated Sept. 2, a day after Peck held a hearing about whether the 2008 letter should be released, confirming an unsigned copy of the document had been found in an electronic file at the agency.

She also said a second page of the letter was discovered and it contained the words "not sent 10/28/08 filed" with an asterisk next to Rice's name.

A lawyer for Rice also sent the court a letter, dated Sept. 2, noting that the 2008 letter was dated one day after a national accrediting agency found the lab to be "100 percent compliant" with all of its "essential criteria." Rice's lawyer said it makes sense that, after receiving such a positive report, the author of the letter, then-Division of Criminal Justice Services Director Denise O'Donnell, would hold off on sending it.

At Thursday's hearing, Peck didn't go into specifics of the letter's contents except to say it "informed" the recipients of "lab problems."

The crime lab, which tested blood, drugs, fingerprints, ballistics and other evidence, was put on probation for a second time on Dec. 3, 2010, by a national lab accreditation agency for failing to meet 26 protocols deemed essential to the proper handling of evidence.

County officials closed the lab's drug-testing unit Feb. 10 and shut the entire lab on Feb. 18 after allegations that police managers may have failed to disclose inaccurate testing.