NASSAU PROBE WIDENS

The Nassau County district attorney says she plans to have scores of
drug samples from past felony cases retested, a step that comes days
after a judge threw out a driving-while-impaired conviction because of
questions surrounding the accuracy of county crime lab.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice now is calling for
retesting nearly 3,000 felony drug cases between 2008 and 2010 and a
technical review of about 1,000 drunk-driving cases handled by the lab
since 2006. Last month, Ms. Rice had suggested reviewing 20% of the
drunk-driving cases.

Ms. Rice and Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano said in a
statement that the costs would be covered by money police recover from
drug busts.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently appointed the state's inspector general to
investigate the situation, which has prompted defense attorneys-who
say the evidence in thousands of cases could be compromised-to
challenge their clients' convictions.