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Friday, January 25, 2008

Secret Service inspector testifies in discrimination lawsuit

By Rebecca Carr | Friday, January 25, 2008, 07:03 PM

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A veteran U.S. Secret Service agent testified today that the agency has conducted a thorough search of records in its effort to comply with an order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson to produce records in a long-running lawsuit alleging systemic discrimination against African Americans in the service.

Arthur L. Kuhn, a Secret Service inspector with more than two decades with the service, told the court that he sent an e-mail to 182 current high ranking officials on Nov. 5, 2007, seeking files relevant to the promotion of African American agents in the service.

The plaintiffs, backed up nearly 60 sworn affidavits from other black agents, allege in court documents that they were forced to work in a “racially hostile” atmosphere where they were routinely bypassed for promotion by white agents who scored lower on promotional exams.

The hearing was set by Robinson to decide whether to issue additional sanctions for failing to turn over documents and introducing “uncredible” testimony.

The merits of the 8-year-old case have never been heard in large part because there was no action on the case for the first four years. And there have been contentious battles over key documents requested by the plaintiffs, according to interviews and court records.

But Kuhn testified that he and other agents worked “around the clock” to track down 291 former top officials in the position to promote agents from 1991 to 2005.

Kuhn said he sent them registered letters authored by the service’s legal counsel to see if they had any e-mails or records that would respond to the the plaintiffs request.

In early January with a deadline looming, Kuhn said he “assembled a group of people who could work around the clock.”

One of the biggest challenges was compiling a master list of former top officials. The agency had several lists, including one hand-written one. The names on the various lists were not organized in alphabetical order and many had missing addresses. Kuhn said he used investigators to track down the officials.

As of Thursday, Kuhn said, the agency had received responses from 264 out of the 291 former officials in the position to decide promotions.

But under cross-examination, by E. Desmond Hogan and Deborah Boardman, two Hogan & Hartson lawyers that are working with Relman & Dane to represent the plaintiffs, Kuhn admitted that the majority of the current employees did not search their files for pertinent records. He also said the average search time was just one hour.

“Did it concern you at all that the average search time was one hour given the scope of the search?” Asked Boardman.

“No,” said Kuhn, because many of the respondents did not have anything to search.

But Boardman and Hogan used that answer to support their contention that the service did not search its records in compliance with Robinson’s order.

Robinson continued the hearing to Feb. 1 when another Secret Service agent is expected to testify about the extent of the agency’s search.

In earlier testimony, Kuhn testified that he did not ask a whole subset of officials with knowledge about promotions-deputy special agents in charge or assistant special agents in charge-to look for responsive documents even though they are often the ones who make recommendations on promotions.

In addition, Kuhn testified that there was regular e-mail correspondence about hiring and promotions. Yet to date, the plaintiffs have yet to receive those e-mails. He told the court he did not know how the officials conducted their search or even if they had searched offices where they used to work.

The Secret Service contends that statistics do not support the allegations in the lawsuit.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs also hired a statistical expert to analyze promotion trends at the agency.

“It is in stark contrast to defendants statements,” said Jennifer I. Klar, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. “Our expert found over a period of a decade that the Secret Service promotions process had an adverse impact on African American agents.”

The Secret Service has provided over 300,000 documents in response to numerous requests from plaintiffs’ attorneys and has produced numerous current and former employees for depositions over the past eight years.

But those documents have been unresponsive, according to plaintiffs attorneys.

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