HERALD EXCLUSIVE; FAKE FINGERPRINT PROBE; AG looks at lab techs in shooting frame-up

Apr 25, 2004 - Boston Herald
Author(s): Franci Richardson

Attorney General Tom Reilly is conducting an extensive criminal investigation into whether Boston police lab techs used a fake fingerprint to frame a wrongly convicted man who served nearly six years in jail for shooting a cop.

Lab technicians Dennis E. LeBlanc, 55, and Rosemary McLaughlin, 53, have been put on administrative leave, pending the results of a probe into whether they transferred a fingerprint to evidence to match that of Stephen Cowans, 33, of Mattapan, a source said.

The Herald has learned Reilly's investigation also will explore whether other employees in the identification lab conspired with LeBlanc and McLaughlin in testing evidence. Investigators are also inquiring about Boston police officer Kevin Waggett, Cowans' arresting officer.

A source said Reilly is moving quickly in the criminal investigation to determine whether he'll present evidence to a grand jury about illegal conduct that led to Cowans serving time for a crime he didn't commit.

Cowans' defense attorney, James Dilday, said he thinks his client was a victim.

"I truly believe that the Boston police set him up and I think it's because there was a policeman who was shot," Dilday said. "I think they deliberately tried to frame this young boy."

Dilday declined to comment extensively, saying he could be summonsed to testify before a grand jury if Reilly moves to bring charges.

But Dilday said the case against his client smacks of racism.

"Stephen was a young black man with a criminal record and he was nobody to them," Dilday said of Boston police. "As far as they were concerned, one black man with a criminal record was interchangeable with another black man with a criminal record."

Cowans was released from jail January 23 after serving 6 1/2 years of a 35- to 50-year sentence for shooting Sgt. Detective Gregory Gallagher in the buttocks with the officer's gun as the cop tried to scale a fence in a Jamaica Plain yard. Gallagher survived.

The key piece of evidence - aside from identification by Gallagher and another witness - was a fingerprint found on a glass mug in a nearby house the shooter entered to escape police.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Peter Lauriat dismissed the conviction after prosecutor David Meier told him the fingerprint used at trial did not come from Cowans.

On Feb. 24, newly appointed Boston police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole called on Reilly to conduct an investigation into why the technicians allegedly failed to test the original print on the glass, which would not have matched Cowans'.

"I think it's important we get an external review of this to determine if there were procedural errors made and if there are integrity issues," O'Toole said yesterday. "Some people failed appropriate identification, and if that's the case, we need to find out why."

Investigators are also looking at Cowans' arresting officer, Kevin Waggett, who initially stopped him for defaulting on a warrant. Waggett previously had "been involved in some kind of beef" with Cowans, who had no violent crimes on his record, a source said.

Reilly could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said the Cowans case forced him to have state police fingerprint technicians review the work done in the Boston lab on pending cases.

But Conley said he doesn't think the doubt cast on the identification lab will "open the floodgates" for all defendants to request retesting ."If those cases do come forward, we'll analyze them on a case-by-case basis," Conley said.