SUIT CHALLENGES STRIP SEARCH OF MAN AT DRUG-RAID SITE

Lawyer Says Police Violated Own Policy

A Boston man who was visiting his girlfriend's apartment during a 2003
drug raid has sued the city and two Boston police drug investigators,
claiming his civil and constitutional rights were violated when he was
subjected to a body-cavity search allegedly conducted without probable
cause and in violation of police department policy.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston yesterday by a
lawyer for plaintiff Ivan Santiago, alleges that Santiago was visiting
the Roxbury apartment of Jacqueline Lugo on March 20, 2003, when two
squads of narcotics investigators executed a search warrant.

Lugo's brother, Ronaldo Lugo, was the target of the investigation, the
lawsuit states. After officers threatened to have Jacqueline Lugo's
2-year-old child taken away by the state Department of Social Services
if he did not cooperate, Ronaldo Lugo admitted that he had hidden
drugs in his anal cavity and in a stuffed animal, according to the
lawsuit.

Lugo turned over the drugs, but before investigators left, their
supervisor, Detective Sergeant William J. Feeney, ordered Officer
Marcus Eddings to take Santiago into the bathroom and search him, the
suit alleges.

Eddings ordered Santiago, who has no criminal record, according to the
lawsuit, to take off his clothes "piece by piece" and then performed a
cavity search with rubber gloves. Eddings then left the bathroom and
pronounced Santiago clean, the lawsuit states.

Santiago's attorney, Stephen Hrones of Boston, said yesterday that
having a valid search warrant for the apartment didn't give police the
authority for an invasive search of his client's body.

"You don't have a right to search everyone on the premises," Hrones
said. "Plus, they violated their own rules."

Hrones said that the department's policy allows body cavity searches
when there is a "high degree of probable cause" and requires that the
search be conducted by a qualified medical professional. Hrones said
he knows of three other similar searches and believes that Boston
police drug investigators routinely violate the policy.

Neither Feeney nor Eddings, who were both named as defendants in the
suit along with the City of Boston, could be reached yesterday at the
Area B-2 station in Roxbury, where they are based.

Boston Police spokeswoman Mariellen Burns declined to comment on the
lawsuit except to confirm that the matter had been investigated by the
department's internal affairs division.

That investigation found fault only with the fact that Feeney failed
to note the search on his incident report, she said.

"The technical reporting aspect of the complaint was sustained," Burns
said. "But no other allegations against the sergeant or anyone under
his command were sustained."