A review of cases handled by the now-shuttered Nassau County Police Department’s crime lab will be expanded to include misdemeanor as well as felony drug cases. “New information, including the potential of cross contamination [of evidence], has been uncovered as part of the ongoing investigation and retesting process,” said John Byrne, a spokesman for Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice. “The D.A. believed that broader retesting was appropriate and discussed this with the Office of the State Inspector General.” Inspector General Ellen Biben is conducting a probe of the lab.
Felony drug cases dating back to 2007 and drunken-driving cases going back to 2006 are already being reviewed by outside contractors retained by the county and paid by forfeited funds. Mr. Byrne said it would be premature to speculate on how far back the retesting of misdemeanor cases would go or how many cases would be retested. But Joseph Lo Piccolo, president of the county’s Criminal Courts Bar Association, told the Associated Press that retesting will have to go back several years to see how many people may have been wrongly charged because of mishandling of evidence.
