News Agencies Lose Bid to Access Police Report

Two news organizations cannot have access to an internal Nassau County Police Department report that had been turned over in discovery in a civil rights damages action that has since been settled, a federal judge in Central Islip has ruled. The 712-page report, prepared by the department’s internal affairs unit, examined the department’s handing of complaints of domestic violence from a woman who was subsequently murdered by her boyfriend. In November, the report was turned over in discovery in a lawsuit, Dorsett v. County of Nassau, 10-cv-1258, brought by the mother of the slain woman.

When the mother’s lawyer, Frederick K. Brewington, announced that he would hold a news conference releasing the contents of the report, the county’s lawyers sought and were granted a protective order barring the public dissemination of the report. Newsday and News 12, a Long Island cable channel, had also opposed the request for a protective order from Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson (NYLJ, Jan. 19). The three filed objections to the protective order with Eastern District Judge Arthur D. Spatt. Since then the case has been settled under confidential terms.