ACLU sues over DNA sample
Alleges Cape DA may have kept it
The ACLU of Massachusetts filed a suit yesterday alleging that law enforcement officials have broken a promise to destroy a DNA sample voluntarily provided by a Provincetown man to rule him out as a suspect in the 2002 rape and murder of fashion writer Christa Worthington.
The complaint alleges that State Police detectives working with Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe promised Keith Amato, the former son-in-law of Worthington's erstwhile lover, Tony Jackett, that they would destroy the sample if it did not match biological evidence found at the crime scene in Worthington's Truro house.
However, Mary Kate McGilvray, acting director of the State Police crime laboratory, wrote the ACLU's legal director, John Reinstein, Nov. 19 to say that the lab had to retain the DNA sample until O'Keefe told her otherwise, according to the lawsuit filed yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court.
Reinstein said he has written O'Keefe and officials at the state Executive Office of Public Safety asking them to let the lab destroy the sample, but has received no responses. The situation has raised concerns that the lab is illegally keeping a "shadow DNA database" of samples provided voluntarily by about 100 Cape Cod men during the Worthington murder investigation, the class-action suit said.
"There's no authority for maintaining these rule-out samples," Reinstein said in an interview yesterday. "The people consented [to give the samples] because it was going to be used in that particular case. They didn't consent for it to be kept in the permanent files of the State Police."
O'Keefe, however, said yesterday that after Amato first wrote to his office asking for his sample back, the DA wrote to the lab on Dec. 14, 2007, authorizing that Amato's sample be destroyed or returned to the DA's office.
Christopher M. McCowen, a trash collector, was convicted in November 2006 of raping and murdering Worthington.
Amato testified at the Superior Court trial in Barnstable that state troopers accused him of having an affair with Worthington, threatened him with prison, and applied so much pressure on him to confess to killing her that he vomited after investigators let him go. He could not be reached yesterday.
In an interview yesterday, O'Keefe said he had not seen the lawsuit but asserted that all DNA samples voluntarily provided by Cape Cod men - he estimated it was 80 to 100 - were returned or destroyed by March 15 last year. He said Amato's sample was among those he authorized the lab to return or destroy.
"This is an individual who wants an additional 15 minutes of fame, and apparently the ACLU is willing to be complicit," O'Keefe said.
State Police spokesman David Procopio declined to comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit asks the Superior Court to make sure that State Police destroy or return all the DNA samples voluntarily provided and verify the outcome in writing. The ACLU also wants the public safety office to adopt regulations that guarantee the privacy of people who provide such samples.
Civil libertarians criticized the widespread collection of DNA samples after Worthington's slaying. They said the tactic was an ineffective and intrusive investigative tool whose only purpose was to identify people unwilling to cooperate with police.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.
