Investigator reportedly cooperating in HP case

Needham private investigator Ronald R. DeLia is cooperating with probes of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s conduct, his attorney said yesterday.

DeLia's input could be crucial as state and federal officials try to flesh out exactly how the California computer maker engaged outsiders who used ``pretexting," or lying, to get personal information about the company's own board members, employees, and journalists during a dispute over leaks to the news media.

The matter has already led to the resignation of company chairwoman Patricia Dunn.

The precise role of DeLia isn't clear. Last week, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he was seeking information about DeLia's work for the company, and that DeLia wasn't cooperating.

In a telephone interview yesterday, however, John A. Kiernan, DeLia's Boston attorney, said, ``We're trying to cooperate with everybody" and that he wasn't familiar with Lockyer's latest comments. ``Nothing has changed from our point of view," Kiernan said.

Kiernan said he couldn't discuss the specifics of the matter involving DeLia or the Needham investigations firm he owns, Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc., because of attorney-client privilege.

He also cited these constraints when asked if DeLia would appear before a congressional body investigating the matter, a subcommittee of the House's Energy & Commerce Committee, which last week sent letters to DeLia, two Hewlett-Packard executives, and the company's outside attorney, asking them to appear at a hearing later this month.

Lockyer has said he would seek a warrant to search DeLia and his business, with the help of Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, though DeLia's cooperation could make that step unnecessary.

Last night, a spokesman for Lockyer did not return a telephone message. A spokeswoman for Reilly, Meredith Baumann, referred questions to California officials.

A Hewlett-Packard spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment. The company has previously declined to discuss DeLia or the work of another Massachusetts figure reportedly involved in the matter, Anthony Gentilucci, head of Hewlett-Packard's local security investigation service.

Reached by telephone on Saturday, Gentilucci referred questions to the company.

Kiernan's biography states that he has been retained to represent the governor, the attorney general, and the secretary of public safety -- references, he said, to his work on a 1989 case. The case was covered by The Boston Globe at the time. From 1974 to 1988 he held various senior positions in the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.

Also yesterday, Hewlett-Packard acknowledged that it used improper methods to access phone records of two employees, including its own spokesman, during its internal probe of the media leaks. The HP spokesman, Michael Moeller, said that Dunn, the departing chairwoman, and chief executive Mark Hurd, who is due to replace Dunn in January, both apologized to him on the matter.

``Mark and Patty have personally apologized to me. I think it speaks volumes that I'm still doing my job," he said.

Robert Sherbin, another HP spokesman, said Moeller was not found to be a source of the leaks.

Sherbin said there was another employee who was a target of the probe, but declined to give any details on who that was.

Ross Kerber can be reached at kerber@globe.com. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.