Pubdate: Wed, 21 Mar 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
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Author: Laura Mansnerus

ATTORNEY GENERAL DISCOURAGED RELEASE OF DATA ON PROFILING, LAWYERS TESTIFY

While New Jersey was under scrutiny in a Justice Department investigation of
racial profiling, top state law enforcement officials including the former
attorney general, Peter G. Verniero, were so anxious about appearances that
they discouraged aides from providing data showing that the practice
continued unabated, two lawyers from the attorney general's office testified
today.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the two deputy attorneys
general portrayed superiors who showed no interest in seeing the data,
ignored what was available and then, in 1999, claimed that some reports had
only recently been made available by the state police.

But in testimony tonight, the former state police superintendent, Col. Carl
A. Williams, said emphatically, in response to several questions, that he
had never ordered anyone to withhold information from the attorney general's
office.

Deputy Attorney General George Rover, who was assigned to provide the
Justice Department with statistics on racial disparities in the treatment of
drivers, said that a superior had instructed him not to give the department
any documents that it had not specifically requested.

Much of the data, including audits from 1995 and 1996, came to light only in
the interim report that Mr. Verniero issued in April 1999, when he said he
had learned that racial profiling was "real, not imagined."

Mr. Rover and another deputy attorney general, John M. Fahy, who said he
briefed Mr. Verniero on racial profiling in 1996, sat together through seven
hours of often hostile questioning. They rarely mentioned Mr. Verniero, but
they were asked repeatedly whether he knew of data from several state police
units showing that a highly disproportionate number of black and Hispanic
drivers were being subjected to searches.

Mr. Verniero, now an associate justice of the State Supreme Court, faces
many questions about the timing of his response to reports of racial
profiling. He is to be the committee's final witness next week.

His handling of the racial profiling issue drew national attention after
three unarmed black and Hispanic men were shot by two troopers who pulled
them over on the New Jersey Turnpike in April 1998.

Colonel Williams insisted at the time that the state police were not
discriminatory in their patrols or in searches intended to interdict drug
trafficking. He said tonight that while the state police began compiling
records on stops, searches and arrests in 1996, no one from the attorney
general's office questioned him about these practices until the month after
the shooting. He was dismissed by Gov. Christie Whitman in 1999.

In the hearings on Monday and today, a series of witnesses on the lower
rungs of the chain of command testified that they had passed along damaging
data about profiling starting in 1996.

Mr. Fahy said "it was no secret" that the state police had found that
troopers were making stops and searches of black and Hispanic drivers at
unacceptably high rates.

Still, Mr. Fahy, who dealt with profiling only in the first few months of
Mr. Verniero's tenure, said he could not recall receiving much of the
information that state police officials had said was relayed to him.

Mr. Fahy tried the case that led to a 1996 ruling by a Superior Court judge
that the state police had shown a pattern of discrimination; that ruling
later prompted the Justice Department to investigate.

Questioned sharply by the committee's lead counsel, Michael Chertoff, Mr.
Fahy said that he would have asked for any statistics relevant to the case
had he known they existed. "I'm not afraid of the facts," he said
repeatedly.

Mr. Fahy said that when Mr. Verniero learned of the Justice Department
inquiry in December 1996, he called a meeting of top aides. The attorney
general, Mr. Fahy testified, was very concerned about how the inquiry was
portrayed, asking the aides to refer to it as a "review" rather than an
"investigation."

Mr. Fahy made clear that Mr. Verniero seemed to be aware that the profiling
issue was a problem for prosecutors in New Jersey. He said that when he
wrote a letter to the Justice Department for Mr. Verniero's signature in
January 1997, a paragraph about police searches was deleted without his
knowledge.

Mr. Fahy and Mr. Rover both said they were not consulted about the attorney
general's interim report, which said that "certain internal studies and
audits," including information on searches of minority motorists, "were not
made known" to lawyers in the office.

Mr. Rover said he was assigned by the executive assistant attorney general,
Alexander P. Waugh Jr., to respond to the Justice Department's general
request for documents. Later, he said, Mr. Waugh told him not to provide
anything unless and until the department asked for it. Asked if he thought
the instruction originated from a higher-ranking source, the deputy said he
did not know.

After Mr. Waugh left the attorney general's office, Mr. Rover told the first
assistant attorney general, David Hespe, about the Justice Department
requests, he testified. When the department called to ask for audits or
statistics on stops and searches on the southern portion of the turnpike, he
said, he asked Mr. Hespe whether he should forward a report that had been
sent to him by the state police.

Mr. Rover continued: "He told me, `Don't turn it over. Tell them we're
working on something. Let me know if they call again.' "
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