Bar accounts conflicting, NYC police say

NEW YORK -- The manager of the SoHo tavern where Imette St. Guillen was last seen alive told police conflicting stories about the presence of the graduate student from Boston at the trendy bar on the night she disappeared, according to a high-ranking police official involved in the investigation.

Daniel Dorrian, who is related to a co-owner of The Falls bar, Michael Dorrian, originally said she had not been seen there that night, but later told police he had asked Darryl Littlejohn, the sole suspect in St. Guillen's murder, to escort her from the nightspot because she was intoxicated.

The police official, who asked not to be identified because the investigation is ongoing, criticized the bar staff for not alerting police immediately after St. Guillen's body was discovered Feb. 25.

''They completely lied to us," said the officer.

After Daniel Dorrian acknowledged he had seen St. Guillen at the bar, he gave authorities conflicting accounts, said the officer. Dorrian first told authorities that St. Guillen, 24, had left the bar by herself. But in Dorrian's later version of events, which prompted investigators to interview Littlejohn, the bar manager said he asked Littlejohn to escort St. Guillen outside, police said.

Last week, Dorrian told the Globe that he had not been working the night of St. Guillen's disappearance and did not know whether anyone had seen her at the bar. Dorrian's lawyer, Daniel Connolly, declined to comment yesterday.

Littlejohn, a seven-time felon who is being held on a parole violation, is the only suspect in the grisly slaying of St. Guillen, a Mission Hill native who was found raped and strangled in a desolate Brooklyn lot about 17 hours after she left the bar. According to the official, Littlejohn and St. Guillen were seen by a witness sitting in a vehicle outside The Falls just after closing.

Police have combed Littlejohn's basement residence in the Jamaica section of Queens for potential evidence and are investigating two vans, one of which was parked in his driveway and another about four blocks away.

In another development involving Littlejohn, a bank-robbery parolee, Nassau County authorities said yesterday that they are trying to determine whether he is linked to an unsolved sexual assault on Long Island. In November, a 15-year-old girl was abducted at gunpoint in Elmont, forced into a van, had her head covered by a coat, and was raped in a basement.

State Liquor Authority officials said yesterday that they had begun a preliminary inquiry into The Falls because of Littlejohn's employment as a bouncer, which is prohibited under state law for felons and violated his parole-imposed curfew of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Littlejohn had also not obtained a security-guard license or been fingerprinted by state authorities and the FBI, as required.

''It's a privilege to have a liquor license, and an applicant has to go through quite a bit," said Kimberly Morella, an authority spokeswoman. ''To put that in jeopardy, that's something you wouldn't want to do. You're going to want to ensure that everything is up to par."

The Falls is owned by members of the same family that has operated Dorrian's Red Hand, an Upper East Side bar where in 1986 an 18-year-old woman met a regular of the bar who later strangled her in Central Park.

A decade later, the parents of the victim accepted a $100,000 settlement of a $25 million wrongful-death lawsuit, which alleged that the establishment illegally served alcohol to her 19-year-old killer.

The Falls is facing a pending charge of serving alcohol to an underage drinker, Morella said.

In addition, federal probation officials have issued a warrant for Littlejohn's detention because he failed to adhere to a supervisory program following his 2004 release on a bank robbery conviction, according to Tony Garoppolo, federal chief of probation for the Eastern District of New York.

Garoppolo said federal probation officials lost track of Littlejohn because of ''human error," even though state parole officers met with him regularly.

''We should have had him under active supervision," Garoppolo said. ''Unfortunately, that did not happen."

John R. Ellement and Maria Cramer of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Silva and Cramer reported from New York; MacQuarrie and Ellement from Boston.