FBI scientist revised testimony in bomb case

ASHINGTON -- A prominent FBI science witness told federal investigators that his lab colleagues had performed shoddy work in the Timothy McVeigh case, and then abruptly retracted several statements before appearing as a prosecution witness at trial, a transcript shows.

Nichols called senator 2 days before bombing Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols called former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker's office two days before the bombing to complain about the deadly end of the Branch Davidian standoff in Texas, an aide to the former senator testified today.

"He was very stern and told us about his thinking on the matter," said Lee Ellen Alexander, who worked for the former Kansas senator.

She said Nichols also complained about gun laws and former Attorney General Janet Reno. Alexander heard days later that Nichols, who was living in Kansas at the time, was a suspect in the bombing. The April 19, 1995, bombing came on the second anniversary of the fiery end of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas.

"Oh, my God, I was literally surprised and shocked," she said.

Alexander's testimony came at the start of a preliminary hearing that will determine whether there is enough evidence to try Nichols on 160 counts of first-degree murder.

Nichols, 48, was previously convicted on federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter charges for the deaths of eight law enforcement officers in the bombing, which killed 168 people. The state charges involve victims who were not part of Nichols' federal trial.

A second witness, Sheryl Pankratz, who works at the court clerk's office in Marion, Kan., testified that in March 1994 a man who identified himself as Terry Nichols turned in a document at the office that renounced his U.S. citizenship.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty and say a state conviction is needed to eliminate the possibility that he could ever successfully appeal his federal case and gain freedom. They met twice this year with Nichols' attorney in attempts to settle the case, but no settlement was reached.

Martha Ridley said she has waited eight years for Nichols to be prosecuted for the death of her daughter, Kathy Ridley.

"These people deserve justice," Ridley said. "He wasn't given the death penalty and these people are just as dead today as they were April 19. And they will never come back."

Prosecutors allege that Nichols and co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh worked together to prepare a 4,000-pound fuel-and-fertilizer bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Nichols was at home in Herington, Kan., the day the bomb exploded. But prosecutors accused him of helping McVeigh deliver a getaway car to Oklahoma City and of working with McVeigh to pack the bomb inside a Ryder truck on the day before.

McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges. He was executed in June 2001.

Legal disputes, including complaints by Nichols' court-appointed defense attorneys that his legal bills are not being paid promptly, have postponed seven other preliminary hearing dates. Nichols' defense attorneys have been paid about $2.5 million so far.

The hearing could be complicated by revelations, first reported by The Associated Press, that the Justice Department received a letter before McVeigh's execution suggesting a key prosecution witness against McVeigh had given false testimony.

The letter cites testimony in a civil case from Steven Burmeister, now the FBI lab's chief of scientific analysis. The testimony contradicted what he said in the McVeigh case about key evidence regarding chemical residue of material used in making the bomb.

Justice Department officials have said they don't believe making the letter available would have affected the outcome of McVeigh's trial. State prosecutors said they have removed Burmeister from their witness list.

FBI agents allege racial bias

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May 04, 2003

NEW YORK - Six FBI agents filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the agency in Manhattan alleging they were subjected to harassment because of their race or ethnicity.

The suit was filed Friday by five black agents and a Hispanic agent, all based in New York. In it, they say their supervisor subjected them to a "pattern of disparate treatment and harassment based on their race or national origin."

The lawsuit says two of the agents were made fun of in an offensive cartoon that was pinned to a wall normally reserved for pictures of fugitives. In the drawing, they were depicted wearing gold medals inscribed with the words "Pairs Whining."

A message left yesterday with the FBI's Manhattan office seeking comment was not immediately returned.

The agents, Nathan Tucker; Paul Sutherland; Wilfred Baptiste; Kendall Hobson; and Carlos Luquis, also filed a discrimination lawsuit in Washington in September saying racial bias interfered with their work on investigations, including the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

FBI's DNA lab subject of probe into practices
'Gold standard' for assessing guilt 'tarnished' by failure to follow standard procedures
By John Solomon
Associated Press

Monday, April 28, 2003 - WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's inspector general has broadened an investi-gation, originally limited to alleged wrongdoing by a forensic technician, to look at the practices of the FBI lab unit that analyzes DNA in hundreds of crime cases a year, government officials say.

The inquiry, expected to last several more months, already has led to changes inside the lab's DNA unit in response to advice from outside scientists brought in by Justice investigators, the officials told Associated Press.

The inspector general, an independent watchdog within the Justice Department, is trying to identify shortcomings in the lab after an FBI technician went undetected for two years as she failed to follow required procedure in analyzing DNA evidence, the officials said.

DNA evidence has become increasingly important in criminal cases and in appeals from old convictions before DNA evidence was widely used.

The investigation, coupled with recent revelations of DNA irregularities in a few local crime labs that work with the FBI, could affect Attorney General John Ashcroft's high-profile project to create a national DNA database to help law enforcers identify crime suspects through their genetic fingerprints.

Criminal defense lawyers are planning challenges to the database and to DNA evidence in cases involving the one FBI lab technician or the local crime labs accused of wrongdoing.

"All of us are depending on DNA as a gold standard in forensics work -- innocence projects, prosecutors and defense lawyers. And now we don't have a gold standard. The gold has been tarnished," said Frederic Whitehurst, a lawyer and former FBI lab employee whose whistle-blower allegations led to major changes in the FBI lab in the mid-1990s.

Government officials, spea-king on condition of anonymity, said the goal of the current investigation is to identify vulnerabilities in lab procedure that could affect the quality of the FBI's DNA analyses or permit a rogue employee from going undetected.

FBI Lab Director Dwight Adams, himself a DNA scientist, disclosed the existence of the wider Justice Department inquiry during recent briefings on Capitol Hill, according to law enforcement and congressional officials. Adams told lawmakers and their staffs the DNA section has put changes in place to deal with issues raised by the outside scientists brought in by the inspector general, the officials said. **We want correct and unassailable results and objective testimony, and to do that we've got to be open to outside scrutiny and outside review,** Adams told the AP.

The investigation is the broadest inspector general's review of the FBI lab since one in 1997 concluded that scientists in the lab's explosive units engaged in bad science and gave inaccurate testimony. Those findings led to an overhaul of the world-renowned forensics facility.

AP reported this month that FBI lab technician Jacquelyn Blake recently resigned while under investigation for failing to follow required scientific procedures while analyzing 103 DNA samples over the past couple of years, and a second lab employee was indicted for false testimony. Government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Inspector General Glenn Fine expanded the Blake inquiry to examine the FBI lab's broader practices in DNA cases. The FBI has been cooperating, officials said.

FBI officials also are facing questions about how to protect the bureau's national DNA database from a growing number of problems at local police crime labs.

The police lab in Houston is under grand jury investigation for its DNA work. A police lab in Fort Worth, Texas, is facing a criminal inquiry after revelations that a senior forensic analysts ignored proper DNA procedures. Florida is grappling with a state crime lab worker in Orlando who falsified DNA data.

FBI officials have pulled DNA samples from the Houston lab from its national database and said they will examine the allegations involving Fort Worth and Orlando to determine if any action is required to protect the national DNA registry.

The inspector general has been trying to push the FBI lab for regular audits of state and local labs that put DNA evidence into the national registry. An audit in 2001 disclosed half the local labs examined were not in compliance with FBI DNA standards.

"No such audits of the DNA profiles in CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System) were being conducted at any level," the inspector general warned the FBI.

"The FBI needs to improve its oversight ... to ensure the laboratories are in compliance with the act, the FBI's quality assurance standards and the FBI requirements for laboratories participating in the national index," investigators warned.

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