No Federal Investigation of Penn Case Planned : FBI Spokesman Says Earlier Response About an Inquiry Was Hypothetical

The U.S. Justice Department does not have plans to conduct an assessment of the Sagon Penn case that could lead to an investigation of possible civil rights violations, FBI and Justice Department spokesmen said Friday.

James Bolenbach, spokesman for the FBI’s San Diego office, said he was misunderstood when The Times quoted him Friday as saying that Judge J. Morgan Lester’s criticisms of the Police Department “will be thoroughly analyzed” by the department’s civil rights division.

“The FBI has no investigation ongoing or planned at this time regarding any phase of the Sagon Penn situation,” Bolenbach said Friday.

The case also is not under investigation by the Justice Department’s civil rights division, according to Deborah Burstion-Wade, a department spokeswoman in Washington.

A day earlier, Bolenbach said in an interview that he expected Lester’s comments would provoke a Justice Department review.

“I can tell you his comments, and particularly his written report, will be thoroughly analyzed,” Bolenbach told The Times on Thursday. (Lester has stated no plans to issue a written report of his critique of police conduct.) “This goes straight to the Justice Department. Whether or not a San Diego office of the FBI existed, that is going to go to headquarters. And headquarters may tell us on their own whether they want us to look at it.”

Later in the interview, Bolenbach added: “If there is a potential civil rights violation here, I imagine the Justice Department would look at it. . . . Justice is certainly going to eventually review that. They’re going to be made aware of it.”

Bolenbach said Friday that his comments were meant to explain how the Justice Department would react, hypothetically, to the lodging of a formal civil rights complaint in connection with the Penn case.

Some minority leaders in San Diego have been critical of federal law enforcement agencies for failing to act against what they consider a pattern of police misconduct.

Misconduct Charge

“Because of their inactivity, police misconduct has been on the increase in San Diego, because of the lack of action by the (Justice) Department,” said Daniel Weber, president of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

“If they understood the Department of Justice was going to vigorously enforce the laws, one could reasonably conclude that police officers--as well as the police chief and the mayor and the City Council--would have been more responsive to the complaints of the community.”

U.S. Atty. Peter K. Nunez, the highest-ranking federal law enforcement official in San Diego, said Friday that Weber’s claim was “absurd” and that there was no evidence of a pattern of racially motivated misconduct by the San Diego Police Department.

He said neither Weber nor any other black leader had ever contacted his office to complain of inaction in the civil rights arena by federal law enforcement agencies.

Weber acknowledged that the NAACP had not lodged a complaint concerning the Penn case or sought to meet with Nunez on related issues.

According to Nunez, plans for an investigation by the state attorney general’s office of alleged police misconduct in the Penn affair eliminate any need for federal involvement.

“The simple bottom line is there is no reason at this point for the federal government to intrude when there’s going to be another review of the matter by an independent entity, the attorney general,” he said.