Nassau County officials have shut down the drug testing section of the troubled police crime lab following revelations this week that at least six drug tests may have resulted in false positives.
The Nassau County police laboratory, which has been under probation by a national accrediting agency since December, was found to have compromised cases between 2007 and 2009 involving drug arrests for Ketamine and MDMA, commonely known as ecstasy. Nassau’s is currently the only crime lab in the country under probation.
“Until further notice, forensic analysis of narcotics will be conducted by an independent agency,” Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano said Thursday. He ordered an investigation into the root cause of the errors and directed detectives currently working in the Drug Chemistry Section of the laboratory to be reassigned to local precincts.
advertisement
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice had called for the lab’s immediate closure out of concern that the revelation could “make it impossible for our prosecutors to offer narcotics evidence to the court with the fairness and integrity that I believe are required of us.”
Mangano directed the lab’s interim director, Dr. Pasquale Buffalino, who previously served as director of the Department of Forensic Genetics in the Medical Examiner’s Office, to hire both an independent testing agency and new staff for the lab. The doctor replaced Detective Lt. James Granelle, who was reassigned in December shortly after the bad review.
Buffalino is working alongside Dr. Peter Pizzola, an independent contractor and 40-year forensic scientist who was hired to establish new policies and protocols and ensure quality control as a part of a comprehensive overhaul.
Criminal defense attorneys, some of whom have already filed challenges on behalf of their clients, are expected to redouble efforts to review cases involving evidence handled by the lab upon hearing the news.
“To me, the entire credibility of the lab is undermined,” said Marc Gann, a Mineola-based attorney and former prosecutor who is president of the Nassau County Bar Association. He said “it certainly may be the tip of the iceberg” and said he believes the issue may be more widespread with commonly abused substances like heroin and cocaine.
Gann added: “This is a very frightening proposition and should give the public great pause about the credibility of not only the work that had come out of there but … also the convictions that have been obtained.”
No one was immediately available for comment at the county police department.
With Associated Press.
