STRIP-SEARCH SUIT GOES TO FEDERAL TRIAL

U.S. customs agents had no cause to strip-search a former Chicago woman for
drugs when she returned to O'Hare Airport after a Jamaican vacation, and
they covered up what they had done by lying and altering documents, the
woman's attorneys argued Monday in federal court at the start of the latest
court fight over searches at O'Hare.

The agents found no drugs on Kathryn "Kate" Kaniff, 36. Kaniff, a former
Lakeview resident who has moved to Wisconsin, is suing the government,
seeking $2 million in damages, saying the experience scarred her emotionally.

Her trial began Monday in federal court.

The Customs Service also faces another court fight over searches at O'Hare.
A group of about 90 African-American women, represented by attorney Ed Fox,
has sued the government, arguing that agents target black women for
searches based on their race.

Kaniff, who is white, isn't arguing discrimination.

But she says that the 1997 search by customs agents--which included a
body-cavity search and later an X-ray for which she was sent the hospital
bill--troubled her so much that she still has flashbacks and nightmares
over what happened.

"Kate's life has forever changed, much for the worse," one of her
attorneys, Deidre Baumann, said in opening statements Monday.

Government attorneys argued there was good reason to stop Kaniff and
defended the search.

"That's not necessarily a mistake," Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Simon
said of the fact that no drugs were found. "That's the Customs Service
doing its job."

On Dec. 28, 1997, a dog trained to sniff out drugs alerted its handler that
Kaniff might be carrying drugs. Agents performed a pat-down search, then a
strip-search, then took Kaniff to Resurrection Hospital, where she was
forced to relieve herself in front of inspectors and was X-rayed.

The government argues that Kaniff signed a consent form to be X-rayed, but
the original form was destroyed, and a copy doesn't have her signature on
it, court records show.

Simon acknowledged that some government documents have been lost and also
that some statements from government witnesses are inconsistent.

But she argued that it was proper for agents to search Kaniff because of
the circumstances of her trip.

She noted that Kaniff bought her airline ticket shortly before her trip,
paying $600 in cash. She stayed just four days in Jamaica. And she didn't
have anyone pick her up at the airport when she arrived, telling inspectors
she was going to page a friend to get her.