Giuliani Must Defend Release of Man’s Records

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has been ordered to appear in court to defend himself against allegations he illegally released the criminal record of a man shot to death by police.

Public Advocate Mark Green filed papers Tuesday seeking to discover how Giuliani and his police commissioner, Howard Safir, obtained Patrick Dorismond’s sealed records and whether they broke the law by making them public.

“The only way these records, under the law, can be publicly released is by a court order, not a mayoral fiat,” said Green, who intends to run for mayor in 2001, when Giuliani’s term ends.

State Supreme Court Judge Louise Gruner Gans ordered the mayor or his attorneys to appear in court April 13 for a determination of whether confidentiality laws were violated.

“My goal is that if a court rules that the mayor acted illegally and abused his power, this will stop him from doing this again,” Green said. “No mayor should unilaterally decide to do it because it politically advantages him in a public controversy.”

Told of Green’s attempt to declare the release of the records illegal, Giuliani responded: “I’m willing to defend it anywhere.”

Dorismond, 26, a security guard, was fatally shot in a scuffle with an undercover officer outside a Manhattan bar March 16 during a buy-and-bust operation.

Shortly after the shooting, Dorismond’s criminal record--a robbery arrest at age 13 and adult arrests for gun possession and assault--were given out at a City Hall press conference.

The juvenile case was dismissed and the records sealed; in the other two cases, Dorismond was allowed to plead guilty to disorderly conduct and perform community service.

Giuliani said Tuesday that the records came from the New York Police Department and that the Corporation Counsel, the city’s legal arm, advised him it was legal to release them because privacy rights end with death.

But Giuliani acknowledged that the law does not explicitly authorize the post-mortem release of sealed records. “It is silent on that,” Giuliani said. “So the area is clearly ambiguous.”

The shooting came just two weeks after another undercover officer fatally shot an unarmed man in the Bronx borough and not far from where an unarmed African immigrant was shot and killed last year by four white police officers.