Bitter accusations over news leaks from Patrick Dorismond’s autopsy report flew in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday, with city officials insisting to the slain man’s family that they were not the source.
“We have not released information, or leaked information, period,” Sarah Scott, the city medical examiner’s senior lawyer, firmly told Supreme Court Justice Louise Gans.
Dorismond’s family is taking city coroners to court, demanding a copy of the autopsy report – saying they need it to meet a June deadline for alerting the city that they intend to sue for wrongful death.
Lawyers for the family say the request was prompted in part by news accounts from the days after the security guard was shot dead by an undercover narcotics cop as he stood with his friend outside an Eighth Avenue bar last month.
In those news accounts, Mayor Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir said Dorismond had traces of marijuana in his bloodstream.
Dorismond lawyer Derek Sells told Gans yesterday that if the mayor and top cop have seen at least part of the autopsy results, so should the family.
Sells also complained that he needs the reports promptly because the family may decide to exhume Dorismond’s body in order to have their own experts controvert the autopsy’s conclusions.
But the ME’s office told Gans yesterday that, by law, they cannot release the reports to the public while Manhattan prosecutors continue to investigate whether Dorismond’s shooting was a criminal offense.
A grand jury has yet to hear witness testimony in the case, but “I know there is an extremely active investigation going on – and at the highest level,” Scott told Gans.
Scott said her office had only given the report to the DA’s office, as required by law. Lawyers for the DA’s office also insisted they didn’t leak the report – and don’t want it given to the family.
“This [report] cannot get into the hands – at least through us – of anybody who is a witness to this case,” said Morrie Kleinbart, lawyer for the DA’s office.
The city Department of Investigation is investigating how portions of the autopsy report were leaked. Gans may decide the family’s request early next week.