A high-ranking prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office was arrested this week on charges that she used an illegal wiretap to spy on a police detective and one of her colleagues in what a law-enforcement official described as a love triangle gone wrong.

The prosecutor, Tara Lenich, was taken into custody on Monday and fired after investigators in the district attorney’s office learned over Thanksgiving weekend that she had conducted the illicit surveillance because of “a personal entanglement between her and the detective,” according to the law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the case.

The authorities did not release the name of the detective, a man, or Ms. Lenich’s colleague, a female assistant district attorney.

Ms. Lenich was arraigned on Monday night and released on $25,000 bail.

Before her arrest, Ms. Lenich, 41, was a deputy chief of the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau in the district attorney’s office; it specializes in using tactics like wiretaps to combat criminal gangs and drug organizations.

Most wiretaps are valid for 30 days before they need to be renewed by a judge. But the law enforcement official said that Ms. Lenich repeatedly forged judges’ signatures to keep the eavesdropping scheme running for about a year. She also tried to avoid suspicion by telling fellow prosecutors that she had undertaken a secret investigation on behalf of the New York Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau and was the only person who could have access to the wiretap, the official said.

Wilson A. LaFaurie, a criminal defense lawyer who works in Brooklyn, said on Tuesday that he was concerned by the accusations against Ms. Lenich, which he said exposed a potential vulnerability in the system’s reliance on signatures.

“The public should have a tangible fear of this,” Mr. LaFaurie said. If prosecutors were willing to forge a judge’s signature, he said, they could also potentially manipulate evidence for other cases by forging the signatures of witnesses, crime victims or police detectives.

“At least one can track or call a judge,” he said. “The victims are people that none of us really know.”

Mr. LaFaurie said he planned to look over his cases that were connected to Ms. Lenich.

A spokesman for the district attorney’s office said the office had “ordered a comprehensive review of our protocols and procedures to make sure that this abuse of authority never happens again.”

“We have no reason to believe at this time that any of our investigations have been compromised as all of her cases went through an appropriate supervisory process and judicial authorization, but we have nevertheless commenced an internal review,” the spokesman continued.

Gary Farrell, Ms. Lenich’s lawyer, said he did not believe there was “any merit to the claims that these charges somehow impugn wiretaps for other cases.”

“These charges relate totally to a personal matter,” Mr. Farrell said.

The law enforcement official said the investigation started after another staff member in the office alerted superiors about the wiretaps.

Ms. Lenich joined the office in 2005 under District Attorney Charles J. Hynes and often worked on long-term investigations that included the prosecution of a drug gang operating out of a public housing complex in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. In October 2014, Mr. Hynes’s successor, Ken Thompson, put Ms. Lenich in charge of special investigations for the criminal unit, where she served until her arrest.

The law enforcement official said the district attorney’s office would not prosecute the case, citing the potential conflict of interest. The official said the office was talking with federal authorities in Brooklyn about taking the case.

Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, declined to comment on Tuesday. If a criminal case moved forward at the state level, the district attorney’s office would seek the appointment of a special prosecutor to handle it.

Mr. Farrell said Ms. Lenich was well known and well liked in Brooklyn legal circles and had a reputation for fairness and professionalism.

“She absolutely enjoys the respect of the defense bar and is noted as a tough-but-fair adversary,” he said. “She’s the real deal. She’s a model prosecutor. That’s what makes these charges so disturbing.”

Source: nytimes.com

Date Posted: Wednesday, November 30th, 2016 , Total Page Views: 1736