New FBI Papers May Aid Kaczynski’s Case

Defense attorneys for Unabomber suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski hope to use newly acquired FBI crime lab documents to show that forensic evidence examined by the bureau is far more flawed than government inspectors indicated earlier this year.

The documents, which The Times has also obtained, show that an FBI supervisor considered much of the early scientific work on the Unabomber case “sloppy.” And, they show, the official also expressed serious reservations about whether the evidence would hold up at trial.

The internal working papers and interview transcripts are from the Justice Department inspector general’s investigation that earlier this year found significant errors in the FBI’s lab work on a number of high-profile cases.

The information specifically raises doubts about the lab analysis on one of the four bombings for which Kaczynski is to stand trial in Sacramento next month--the December 1985 slaying of computer store owner Hugh Scrutton in the state capital.

Whether a defense strategy to attack the FBI crime lab will succeed is an open question. The judge has not ruled yet on how much of the lab evidence will be allowed at trial.

In the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh, the defense was armed with the inspector general’s broad conclusions about poor lab work, but the judge permitted McVeigh’s attorneys to cite only findings directly related to the evidence against him.

The inspector general’s final report recommended that former lab examiner Terry Rudolph, who did many of the bomb residue examinations in the Unabomber case, should never again be employed by the government and that all of his work should be reevaluated.

Prosecutors have said that they will not rely on Rudolph as one of their expert witnesses in Kaczynski’s trial. But they do plan to call FBI Agent Stephen Burmeister, a highly respected lab supervisor who leveled the most stinging criticism of Rudolph’s scientific findings in the Unabomber investigation that were found to be faulty.

Burmeister was especially upset about conclusions by Rudolph that were incorporated in a 1994 article in the journal Crime Lab Digest as a blueprint for identifying the bomber.

In one particularly caustic interview, Burmeister sharply chastised Rudolph’s performance in the Unabomber investigation.

“Well,” Burmeister told the inspector general’s office, “I do have a concern that, if in fact this stuff goes to trial . . . and Terry has to go and testify to the work that he performed, I’d just love to hide my head underneath a rock for the days that he’s on the stand.

“Because I don’t know how he’s going to--if you have a good defense attorney who knows what he’s looking for, it’s going to tear it to bits.

“He has nothing to take and show [to a jury]. I mean, he could have done the work properly, but he has no way to support that he’s done it properly,” Burmeister told investigators.

Rudolph could not be reached for comment. Burmeister, one of the government’s major expert witnesses in the McVeigh trial, follows the FBI policy of not discussing cases in which he will testify.

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The Kaczynski trial is set to begin with jury selection Nov. 12 in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. The defendant is charged with killing two people and seriously injuring two others in four bombings. He also faces a separate murder trial in federal court in New Jersey.

The 55-year-old former mathematician is believed responsible for killing three people and injuring 23 others by crafting homemade bombs and sending them to unsuspecting victims. He has pleaded not guilty.

The series of 16 bombings nationwide began in 1978. For years the FBI was stymied in its hunt for the killer.

Kaczynski was arrested in April 1996 in his remote cabin in central Montana--his capture not the work of sophisticated FBI forensic experts but the result of a tip from his family.

While the prosecution has produced tens of thousands of pages of documents purportedly tying Kaczynski to the bombings, some aspects of the defense strategy are just beginning to emerge.

On Tuesday, court papers revealed that defense lawyers believe Kaczynski suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. The defense team also is analyzing the inspector general’s internal documents, which show FBI problems in building its case.

The 1994 Crime Lab Digest article was put together by FBI lab experts in the hope that publication of their conclusions might flush out the identity of one of the most wanted people in American criminal history.

The article, written by lab examiner Thomas Mohnal from work by Rudolph, described bombs attributed to the Unabomber.

One of the explosive devices that Rudolph examined was from the 1985 Scrutton slaying. According to the inspector general, Rudolph did not properly document his conclusions and failed to mention the presence of sulfates in the bomb residue.

In addition, according to the new documents, Rudolph misidentified ammonium nitrate as one of the elements in the bomb and produced “chromatography charts that were not labeled; so they could not be matched with specimens.” Chromatography is a process that separates different elements of a mixture.

In the final report, the inspector general said, “Rudolph’s work on Unabom displays the same problems of inadequate documentation and conclusions not supported by sufficient data” as in other cases he was assigned.

“Moreover,” the inspector general’s report said, “the lack of documentation is unacceptable and is consistent with the pattern that we have seen in Rudolph’s cases.”

Burmeister, in his interviews with the inspector general, was even harsher on Rudolph.

“I have no reason to suspect that he deliberately fabricated” his data, Burmeister said. “He was--and I’d say it to his face--he was a sloppy chemist. And it’s sad, because he was a PhD. He should have known better. And to see that kind of work that was put out was, I think, very poor.”

Burmeister also explained how he went through the Crime Lab Digest article and attempted to corroborate the findings. In many instances, he said, he was unable to do so.

“I knew which ones that Terry Rudolph actually worked on and made comments as to where I thought that there were inconsistencies or problems,” he said.

He said that in some cases there were no testing standards run and that in other cases the files did not include proper documentation, sufficient data or charts that were correctly labeled. Sometimes the charts were not labeled at all, he said, and in still other cases there were no confirmation tests to ensure the accuracy of lab findings.

In addition, there were no companion test results included from the U.S. Postal Service and other government agencies, he said.

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At one point, Burmeister described his frustrations this way: “There was nothing in there. There was no data to review.”

Defense attorneys declined this week to discuss how they might deal with FBI lab results. Quin Denvir, the federal public defender in Sacramento, said Wednesday: “I’m not in a position to talk about how any lab problems might affect our case.”

In April, when the inspector general’s report was released, Judy Clarke, one of Kaczynski’s lawyers, commented in her role as president of the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

“The prevailing culture of the [FBI] lab,” she said, “suggests that thousands of prosecutions may have been tainted.”

And at a court hearing last month in the Kaczynski case, the federal magistrate indicated that the defense should have the right to review all the internal documents produced by the inspector general.

“They’re going to use the inference process by drawing from another examination or another case, and try to apply it here,” said Magistrate Gregory G. Hollows. But, he added, “I’m not sure whether it will work or not.”

According to court papers, federal prosecutors began turning over the documents Sept. 29.

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Serrano reported from Washington and Gladstone reported from Sacramento.