Mass. DNA lab's lapses draw Beacon Hill inquiry
Delays, errors laid to lack of oversight
By Jonathan Saltzman and John R. Ellement
Boston Globe
January 17, 2007
Key state lawmakers demanded answers yesterday about the mishandling of DNA test results at the State Police laboratory, as the agency acknowledged that analyses of genetic material from unsolved rape cases sat on an administrator's desk for months while prosecutors lost their chance to pursue charges.
Senator Jarrett T. Barrios, who expects to be reappointed as cochairman of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, said that state public safety officials told him yesterday that the DNA database administrator knew last February of DNA matches in several cases but waited until September to inform police and prosecutors. In other cases, matches were reported in error .
Barrios -- who was briefed yesterday by Colonel Mark F. Delaney, superintendent of the State Police, and LaDonna Hatton, undersecretary for forensic sciences -- said the delays and erroneous reports reveal a serious deficiency at the lab: The administrator alone appeared to control the reporting of DNA test results to police and prosecutors.
"I'm not passing judgment on this person," Barrios said. "But suppose the [positive] hit was on his brother and he chose not to tell anybody? Nobody would be the wiser."
The investigation will look at who was supposed to be supervising the DNA administrator, Robert E. Pino, said Lieutenant Detective William Powers, a State Police spokesman.
"I don't think you'd find that this whole investigation would center on just this one guy," Powers said. "It's going to be not just why the work didn't get done, but why it didn't get noticed."
Barrios said the lapses were particularly alarming because the Legislature increased funding of the lab from $6.2 million in fiscal 2005 to $16.2 million in fiscal 2007. The Cambridge Democrat, who was cochairman of the Public Safety Committee last year, said he plans to hold hearings this year on the lab's performance.
"The public has a right to know why their dollars, apparently, have been misspent," he said. "We need to have confidence that this is just one person and not something systemic in the lab that allowed this to happen."
Ann Dufresne, a spokeswoman for Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, said he championed the creation of Hatton's post to help fix problems at the lab. In light of the latest disclosure, she said, "we want accountability."
State Police disclosed Friday that the internal investigation showed that the administrator had failed to tell prosecutors of DNA matches in some cases and in other cases falsely reported that DNA found at crime scenes matched suspects.
In the statement, Delaney said he is bringing in the FBI to conduct an independent audit of DNA testing procedures at the lab in Sudbury, which he headed for about four years before becoming superintendent last year.
State Police did not name the administrator, but his union confirmed Saturday that it was Pino and blamed the problems on understaffing and inadequate funding. Pino was suspended with pay Thursday, Powers said.
Pino declined to comment yesterday, saying that he remains an employee and that the allegations are under investigation. Pino, a 1983 graduate of Boston College, has worked at the crime lab for more than 22 years and has been the civilian DNA administrator for the last seven, according to a short biography on the BC website.
Powers acknowledged yesterday that the problems came to light in September when a police officer in Hampden County received written notification from Pino of a match for DNA recovered in an old rape case with genetic material provided by a convicted felon under a state law that requires such submissions.
The officer "looked at the package and the date that he received it and the date that the scientific work was actually completed, and it was several months later," said Powers.
After the lab's chief scientist conducted an initial inquiry, he contacted top State Police officials, Powers said. In mid-November, Delaney began an internal investigation that found that the administrator mishandled 15 test results involving unsolved rape cases that date to the 1980s, Powers said.
In 11 of the cases, Pino received test results indicating matches but failed to report the information to police departments for several months, during which the statute of limitations expired, Powers said.
In four cases, he said, the administrator prepared reports to police saying that tests linked DNA recovered at crime scenes to suspects when, in fact, they had not. Pino did not mail all four reports.
Powers said that no one was wrongly arrested in those four cases because other officials discovered Pino's mistake. "Nobody was arrested, nobody went to trial as a result of his sloppy paperwork," said Powers.
Nonetheless, William J. Leahy, chief counsel of the state's public defender agency, said the disclosure raises the specter of someone being wrongly convicted. He wrote yesterday to Public Safety Secretary Kevin M. Burke, requesting copies of the same information about specific cases involved that the State Police sent to district attorneys in the past several days.
Several district attorney s' offices said yesterday they are not giving up on prosecuting suspects in the cases, despite the apparent expiration of the statute of limitations. In rape cases, that is normally 15 years from the time of the alleged offense.
Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett, for example, said his prosecutors intend to bring charges in one of his cases because the defendant was incarcerated in Connecticut for a period that could extend the 15-year statute of limitations.
In Plymouth County, one DNA match was in a 1990 sex assault investigation, but police at the time knew who the alleged assailant was, investigated, and decided not to bring charges, said Bridget Norton Middleton, spokeswoman for District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz.
But she said in a second case, also from 1990, the victim has been notified that the statute of limitations has probably passed. Norton Middleton would not comment on whether the suspect in that case poses a threat to the public.
Stephen O'Connell, spokesman for Essex District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett , said that in a Lynn case, his office was told that there was a DNA match, then that the match was in error.
However, O'Connell said, the suspect was arrested without any forensic evidence, and prosecutors will now alert the man's lawyer to the DNA mistake.
The office of Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said it learned yesterday the identity of the person whose DNA matched a 1989 sexual assault investigation. Spokesman David Traub said the suspect is imprisoned on other charges. He said investigators are trying to track down the victim.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com; and John R. Ellement at ellement@globe.com.
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