U.S. ARMY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION LABORATORY; MORE TURMOIL IN PRESTIGIOUS FORENSIC LAB REVEALED BY MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS;

"Evidence in the military's highest-profile investigations has been analyzed there - from the friendly fire death in Afghanistan of former NFL player Pat Tillman to the mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

Five years ago, however, misconduct by two analysts tarnished the lab's reputation.

A McClatchy investigation revealed in March that one of the analysts, Phillip Mills, was found to have falsified a report, prompting a three-year, $1.4 million retesting of his cases. The lab concluded that he'd made dozens of mistakes, often when testing evidence in rape cases.

And the crime lab didn't always inform defense attorneys about mistakes, including evidence testing that wrongfully convicted defendants.

Since then, the accusations of impropriety have multiplied, court and military documents show."

REPORTER MARISA TAYLOR; MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS;

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"WASHINGTON The military's premier crime lab should be a place of sober scientific research, but lately it seems more like the set of a soap opera consumed with scandal and intrigue," the Mcclatchy Newspapers story by reporter Marisa Taylor published earlier today under the heading, "Turmoil wracks military's chief crime laboratory: Such claims as fraud, sexual harassment and assault have been investigated," begins.

"In less than four years, at least six internal investigations have been launched and six complaints filed against managers. The accusations and counter-accusations include racism, sexual harassment, assault and fraud," the story continues.

"The disputes have embroiled top managers and pitted them against one another. The lab's former lawyer says she was retaliated against for blowing the whistle. The military counters that she made off with official records.

Amid the upheaval and finger-pointing, a lab analyst was convicted of embezzling almost $70,000 from a professional association to pay for his gambling addiction.

"It's not conducive to science," said Mike Jellison, a former firearms examiner who worked at the lab 14 years.

Interviews and thousands of pages of court and military documents that McClatchy obtained reveal a litany of concerns about the lab where analysts handle evidence from all the military branches. Each year, about 3,000 criminal cases are processed at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory.

Acrimony and backbiting permeate the lab, military officials have found. Employees accuse the lab of protecting bad managers and ignoring serious complaints such as conflict of interest and waste.

Prompted by the swirling allegations, the military ordered sensitivity training for lab officials and conducted an employee survey.

"There are perceptions that managers are biased for a variety of reasons," Army Col. Eric Belcher concluded after one inquiry in 2009 that described a brewing problem with "extremely bad relationships between managers."

Military officials continue to back the lab's top leadership, including its longtime director.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Command, which oversees the lab, described it as "an exceptional organization, staffed by talented and committed scientists and managers."

In a statement, the CID said it couldn't legally discuss the employee claims: "In short, individuals may bring their side of the story to the media but CID cannot respond."

However, the statement said it takes "all credible allegations of wrongdoing and misconduct very seriously and continue(s) to take appropriate actions when and where warranted."

Recently, command officials sent an investigator to determine whether missing records that detailed the misconduct and forensic mistakes at the lab had been destroyed or stolen. The Army realized that the documents had disappeared from the lab when it began responding to McClatchy's questions about two discredited analysts.

Separately, the Defense Department's inspector general confirmed that he was conducting an inquiry into the lab's handling of one of the analysts' misconduct at the request of Sens. Charles Grassley, R- Iowa, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Started in 1943 by two soldiers at the Allied front in North Africa, the lab now has 180 employees in Fort Gillem, Ga.

Evidence in the military's highest-profile investigations has been analyzed there - from the friendly fire death in Afghanistan of former NFL player Pat Tillman to the mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

Five years ago, however, misconduct by two analysts tarnished the lab's reputation.

A McClatchy investigation revealed in March that one of the analysts, Phillip Mills, was found to have falsified a report, prompting a three-year, $1.4 million retesting of his cases. The lab concluded that he'd made dozens of mistakes, often when testing evidence in rape cases.

And the crime lab didn't always inform defense attorneys about mistakes, including evidence testing that wrongfully convicted defendants.

Since then, the accusations of impropriety have multiplied, court and military documents show.

Misconduct by an employee prompted the FBI to search of one of the lab's offices. The probe resulted in the arrest of Allen Southmayd, a 63-year-old handwriting expert who court records show had a gambling problem.

After he joined the lab in 2000, he began to write checks to himself from a professional organization where he was treasurer. He spent the money from the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners at casinos. In 2007, the group caught on, and Southmayd resigned from the lab. He pleaded guilty to embezzling in federal court and was sentenced to probation.

Turn to civilians

To some, the morale problems began when the Army tapped chemist Larry Chelko in 1993 to be the lab's first civilian director and began replacing most of its military examiners with civilians. Although many of the lab's first civilian hires were former soldiers and Army investigators, many of the younger hires have no military background.

"I loved working there at one point but the people in management don't want any ex-military people there, period," said Jellison, a former Army warrant officer who recently decided against returning to the lab as a civilian.

Lab officials have denied trying to weed out employees with military backgrounds.

Allegations of racism

After a black temporary employee, A.D. Bell, was passed over for a permanent position, the lab's lawyer, Lisa Kreeger, testified in May 2010 that she'd overheard a manager make a racist remark about him.

Donald Mikko, the chief of the firearms branch, backed Kreeger, alleging that his boss resisted hiring Bell because he's black.

Lab officials said Kreeger misheard the remark and point out that when the director confronted Kreeger about her claim, she conceded that she might have misheard it.

But a Defense Department investigator concluded "Management has not articulated a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the action contested.""

The story can be found at:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/06/26/2407709/turmoil-wracks-militarys-chief.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;