The New York State Police's oversight of a crime laboratory was so poor that it overlooked evidence that shoddy forensics work was pervasive, allowing an analyst to go undetected for 15 years as he falsified test results that compromised nearly one-third of his 322 cases, an investigation by the state's inspector general has found.
The analyst's training was so substandard that at one point last year, investigators discovered he was unfamiliar with how to operate a microscope essential to performing his job, a report released Thursday by the inspector general said.



And when the State Police became aware of the analyst's misconduct, an internal review by superiors in the lab deliberately excluded information implicating other analysts and suggesting systemic problems with the way evidence was handled, the report said. Instead, the review focused blame mostly on the analyst, Garry Veeder, who committed suicide in May 2008 during the internal inquiry.


"Cutting corners in a crime lab is serious and intolerable," said the state's inspector general, Joseph Fisch. "Forensic laboratories must adhere to the highest standards of competence, independence and integrity. Anything less undermines public confidence in our criminal justice system."


The State Police, according to the inspector general's report, should "review the conduct of those who conducted the investigation and take appropriate action."
The State Police superintendent, Harry J. Corbitt, said in a letter to the inspector general included as part of the report that the concerns raised by the findings were alarming and that an outside consultant would be hired to ensure that the agency's forensic labs were meeting proper standards.


"We will move quickly to address the issues raised your report and ensure that there are no similar problems with any other units within the State Police Crime Laboratory System," said Mr. Corbitt, who was named to his post by Gov. David A. Paterson last year to help revamp an agency that has been plagued by scandal.


The State Police were not immediately available to comment on whether any action would be taken against lab supervisors as a result of the inspector general's report.
Mr. Veeder worked in the crime lab analyzing so-called trace evidence, such as fibers, hair, impressions and other physical material found at crime scenes, including homicides.
Although the inspector general's findings showed that Mr. Veeder was essentially unqualified to carry out many of his responsibilities, Mr. Fisch's office is not aware of any instances in which any of Mr. Veeder's compromised tests resulted in wrongful convictions.



After Mr. Veeder's wrongdoing was uncovered last year, the State Police notified district attorneys across the state that evidence in criminal cases examined by Mr. Veeder may have been compromised.



During an internal inquiry, Mr. Veeder's supervisors discovered that Mr. Veeder had routinely skipped a required fiber analysis and then created data "to give the appearance of having conducted an analysis not actually performed," the inspector general's report stated.


The report said Mr. Veeder used a "crib sheet" provided to him by a former supervisor to falsify the test results. At one point Mr. Veeder told investigators, "They told me from the past, you go to this and plug it in," the report said. "This is how I was trained to, how we've always done it."



But Mr. Veeder's allegations involving other lab workers never made it into the final internal report given to the State Police's internal affairs division.


Despite Mr. Veeder's claims that he had been taught how to falsify test results and had been given inadequate training poorly, State Police investigators and the lab's management "minimized and precipitously discarded the seriousness and extent of problems" of fiber analysis at the lab.


The report said that one State Police investigator, Keith Coonrod, mischaracterized Mr. Veeder's responses that implicated other scientists in the laboratory and skewed what Mr. Veeder said to give the impression that it was the analyst's incompetence — not widespread misconduct — that led to the problems.But the inspector general said that despite Mr. Coonrod's omissions, top managers at the lab had enough evidence to suspect that evidence mishandling was widespread.


"There exists no doubt that laboratory management possessed sufficient information that Veeder's individual misconduct implicated potentially broader systemic issues, but failed to take appropriate action," the report said.


The report named a number of lab supervisors at the time — including the director, Gerald Zeosky, and assistant director Richard Nuzzo — and describes them as unfazed by the inquiry and dismissive of Mr. Veeder's broader claims.



Problem with Mr. Veeder's work were first detected in 2008 during an accreditation review by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board. The State Police then started an internal investigation based on the accreditation board's findings.



The report said the inspector general began its review after the State Police internal investigation was already under way and asked that the agency halt its investigation.
Mr. Veeder notified the State Police of his intention to retire on May 7, 2008. On May 23 he hanged himself in the garage of his home outside Albany.