NEW TEST REOPENS PROBE OF SEX ASSAULT BY COPS

New test results on a stained plastic bag have resurrected an investigation
into whether Boston police officers performed an illegal body cavity search
on a drug suspect last summer, authorities said yesterday. "Because of the
results, we felt it was imperative that we pass this along to the district
attorney's office, so they can determine what action to take,"
Superintendent-in-Chief James Hussey said.However, the new evidence
returned Tuesday did not "rise to the level where we feel the need to
change the status of the officers," Hussey said. The officers remain on
duty.The alleged victim's attorney, Stephen Hrones, said Mario Lacy was
"raped," plain and simple."It's an absolute no-no to invade the body,
particularly that area," Hrones said. "It's an extreme of a strip search .
. . It's unlawful physical intrusion.

It's a rape."Lacy, a 46-year-old homeless recovering heroin addict, first
alleged one officer held him down in a Roxbury alley while officer Kenneth
Hearns covered his hand with a plastic evidence bag and repeatedly searched
his rectum for drugs last July.Initially, after Lacy was examined and
interviewed by medical personnel at Boston Medical Center, technicians at
the police crime lab found no evidence to support his story.However, after
prosecutors in October also found no reason to believe anything criminal
had occurred, one of the officers involved in the BPD's administrative
review of the incident suggested further testing of the evidence bag
recovered in the alley behind Dudley Station.The bag was sent to Serology
Research Institute in California, where chemical tests - not performed in
the Boston lab - came back with a "weak positive" indicating the presence
of fecal matter.Hrones has not decided whether to pursue legal action
against the police, though he finds the department's pursuit of the truth
"refreshing.""Even though (Lacy's) a down-and-out guy, they're really
looking seriously at whether his rights were violated," Hrones said."He's
used to being abused by the police, but this just went too far."Boston
police have handled the investigation as a sexual assault, identifying
neither the victim nor the alleged perpetrators, although Hussey and
department legal counsel Mary Jo Harris confirmed the officers are members
of the drug control unit in Area B-2."We haven't had any allegations like
this against anyone in the five years I have been here," Harris said.
"These allegations came out within days of the Louima verdict."According to
Lacy, he was stopped by the officers and digitally raped on July 14 - two
days after Abner Louima reached an $8.7 million settlement in his lawsuit
against New York over police brutality.

Louima was sodomized with a broomstick in a Brooklyn stationhouse.Lacy's
mother, Barbara, said, "I just hope justice is done. My son doesn't tell
lies - not like this."