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To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (813)	8/4/2000 4:46:49 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1397

Re: 8/4/00 - City ordered to surrender police files City ordered to surrender police files William Kaempffer, Register Staff August 04, 2000 The city must hand over to a grand jury police internal affairs records concerning allegations members of its detective bureau hid evidence from another police department in a murder case, a Superior Court judge has ruled. Judge Christina G. Dunnell rejected the city’s request Wednesday to squelch state subpoenas seeking police records about the possible misconduct, court documents show. The judge, who sits in Bristol, also rejected the city’s motion to allow internal affairs investigators to withhold information from the grand jury until members of the department could be apprised of the subpoenas. The judge’s decision means the records must be surrendered. The ruling is the latest development in an ongoing probe into whether top brass in the New Haven police department hid evidence from North Haven police investigating the 1996 murder of Philip S. Cusick. Two top supervisors have been placed on paid leave pending the outcome. Contacted Thursday, city officials said the purpose of the motion was never to withhold information from the grand jury. "We weren’t trying to deny them access," said city Corporation Counsel Thayer Baldwin Jr. "We were just trying to protect the individuals involved." In the motion, the city maintained the internal affairs statements of officers are protected under the "Garrity rule." During internal investigations, officers can be compelled to make statements and refusal can lead to discipline and even firing. Since they cannot refuse, under the Garrity rule their statements to internal affairs cannot be used against them in a criminal proceeding. The grand jury investigation is a criminal proceeding and will result in a recommendation to state prosecutors whether any officer should face charges. Late last month, the grand jury, which meets behind closed doors in New Britain, issued subpoenas to Capt. Bryan Kearney, head of internal affairs, and Sgt. John Minardi, a supervisor in the unit. The grand jury also requested all police records from the Cusick murder and the internal affairs investigation into why potentially key evidence may have been hidden. Included in the request were statements made by the potential targets of the probe. Minardi and Kearney were due in court Monday at 10 a.m. The city filed the motion to quash the subpoenas Monday afternoon. Attorney Martin S. Echter, who filed the motion, said Thursday the issue was never whether the city would provide access to the investigation. Rather, he said, it was whether the city was permitted to inform officers who made statements in the investigation that the subpoena was received. The state grand jury process is secretive and people who testify often are under a gag order not to discuss the proceeding. The motion to suppress the subpoenas is the first record made public and the first official acknowledgement that a grand jury investigation is underway. Echter said the law is ambiguous and the city wasn’t certain if it could even acknowledge it received the subpoena for the records. The police internal affairs investigation has been running parallel to the state grand jury probe, and it was long suspected the grand jury would request the internal affairs file. The case centers on the November 1996 murder of Cusick, 23. Police believe Cusick was in a car when a drug dealer shot him in the city’s Fair Haven section. The driver sped off and later left Cusick’s body outside the home of Cusick’s mother in North Haven. North Haven police handled the investigation because it was never proven the shooting happened in New Haven. The investigation had hit a dead end in 1998 when two New Haven detectives interviewed an alleged witness who named a suspect. The detectives took a statement and the witness picked the alleged shooter from a photo array, police said. When the detectives brought the information to their boss, Capt. Brian Sullivan, he allegedly told them to stop the investigation. North Haven detectives weren’t informed of the statement. The audio tape later disappeared. A transcript sat in the desk drawer of Sgt. Edward Kendall, Sullivan’s second-in-command, for two years. Earlier this year, New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington requested and secured a grand jury to investigate why. ©New Haven Register 2000 zwire.com