Another turn in case

A swab from Martin Heidgen's mouth at the Nassau jail this week contains the DNA of Heidgen and a second man, prompting a Nassau prosecutor to suggest Friday that the defendant tried to beat the test by ingesting that man's bodily fluid.

Prosecutors sought Heidgen's DNA to overcome a judge's decision earlier this week to throw out blood evidence in the case after State Police admitted mishandling it. Prosecutors want to match Heidgen's DNA to the blood so they can prove he was driving with as many as 14 drinks in his system when he crashed head-on into a limousine on the Meadowbrook Parkway in July 2005, killing two. He's on trial for murder.

But Assistant District Attorney Maureen McCormick told a judge Friday that the saliva swab taken Wednesday night from Heidgen at Nassau County Correctional Center came back with two men's DNA.

Some of it matched what prosecutors say is Heidgen's blood sample, according to testimony outside the jury's presence by Pasquale Buffolino, director of the Nassau County Department of Forensic Genetics.

But in a further complication, most of it belonged to an unidentified man involved in a 2003 statutory rape case, Buffolino said.

The man, who was 17 in 2003, is believed to have had sex with a 13-year-old girl at that time. Though his DNA was recovered from her body, authorities never identified him or charged him with a crime, Buffolino said.

Now, prosecutors believe that man is in the jail after being charged with another crime, and that Heidgen somehow ingested the man's saliva, blood or semen to outwit the DNA test.

"There is no indication that anything in this ... swab was mishandled" by authorities, McCormick said in court. "That is absurd. The inference is that he tried to thwart this test by mixing a sample."

"It's clear that he, at best, swapped spit with another criminal to beat this test, and that's sick," said Neil Flynn, whose daughter, 7-year-old Katie Flynn, was killed in the crash. Also killed was limo driver Stanley Rabinowitz, 59, of Farmingdale.

Heidgen's mother, Margot Aponte of Valley Stream, did not comment on the district attorney's allegations, saying she did not understand exactly the accusations against her son.

Acting State Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof ordered a new DNA sample to be taken from Heidgen Friday night - this one by drawing his blood. Prosecutors expect results of that test by Monday.

Heidgen's lawyer, Stephen LaMagna of Garden City, said he was "ascertaining what exactly happened."

But he added that after State Police botched the original blood sample, he would not be surprised if the DNA test was mishandled as well.

"Every piece of forensic evidence in this case has been mishandled," he said.

LaMagna said he did not think it was possible that Heidgen had been sexually assaulted before the test.

McCormick said the sample had been taken properly. She said all male lab employees had been ruled out as the source of the second DNA sample, and that the person who took the sample was a woman, so it could not have been hers.

She would not speculate about whether Heidgen or his suspected accomplice could be charged with tampering with evidence if the allegations can be proved.

Honorof said the DNA results reflected poorly on Heidgen.

"It seems to me your client comes to this court ... with unclean hands," he told LaMagna.