YOUNG MAN WHITMAN SEARCHED IN 1996 IS SUING HER AND POLICE

A young man who was photographed while being searched by Gov. Christie
Whitman in 1996 as she accompanied state troopers on a drug sweep in Camden
is suing Mrs. Whitman and the state police.

Lawyers for the man, Sherron Rolax, now 21, filed the suit on Tuesday in
United States District Court in Camden, charging that the former governor
violated his civil rights by patting him down after he had already been
searched. In addition to Mrs. Whitman, who is now the administrator of the
Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the suit names the former state
police superintendent, Carl A. Williams; two officers supervising the
Camden drug sweep in May 1996; and unnamed troopers who detained Mr. Rolax.

The suit charges that Mrs. Whitman agreed to a trooper's request to pose
for the photograph after Mr. Rolax had been searched by troopers and found
not to be carrying anything illegal. "Whitman's touching or frisking of
Rolax was without legitimate or lawful purpose," the suit states, adding
that it violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects
against illegal search and seizure.

The image of the smiling white governor with her gloved hands on the back
of the black suspect, with his feet spread and his hands against a wall,
outraged civil rights advocates.

Mrs. Whitman said then that it had been a mistake to pose for the picture,
but she never offered a public apology to Mr. Rolax, who was by then
serving a sentence for an unrelated drug offense. Mr. Rolax is in a halfway
house in Bayonne and would not comment on the suit, said his lawyer, Saul
J. Steinberg. Mrs. Whitman did not respond to requests for comment left at
the E.P.A. Mr. Williams and a spokesman for the state police also declined
to comment.