BOSTON (AP) – The administrator of the DNA database at the State Police crime lab has been fired amid allegations that he mishandled evidence in about two dozen sexual assault cases, according to The Boston Globe.

Robert Pino was informed of his firing in a letter sent Friday, three months after he was suspended for failing to report DNA matches to police and prosecutors before the statute of limitations in the cases expired, so the suspects could not be prosecuted.

Pino, a 23-year civilian employee at the lab, is the second laboratory employee to lose his job over the handling of DNA test results. On March 9, Carl Selavka, the civilian director of the lab since July 1998 and one of Pino’s supervisors, resigned under pressure after what Public Safety Secretary Kevin M. Burke described as an unfavorable assessment of his performance.

The problems prompted the state to ask the FBI and a private consulting company to conduct a complete review of the crime lab.

Pino, who was suspended with pay Jan. 11, did not return phone calls from the Globe seeking comment. Shortly before a March 30 administrative hearing, Pino said he did not know what he had done wrong and vowed to fight to get his job back through the union.

The attorney for the union representing Pino, the Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists, called Pino’s firing “a travesty.”

“The department of State Police has destroyed this man’s 23-year impeccable career of outstanding service for violations of policies that never existed and fallacies that have no substance and therefore no consequence,” attorney Ann Looney said.

The union intends to file a grievance challenging Pino’s firing, she said.

A State Police spokesman, Lt. Detective William Powers, declined to comment, except to say that Pino was still listed as an employee.

Pino, who started at the lab as a chemist, allegedly mishandled evidence in the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, the FBI-funded computer system that serves as the registry of 3.1 million DNA samples of convicted criminals and arrested individuals. CODIS matches crime scene DNA to genetic profiles in the database, often leading investigators to suspects.

So far, the internal investigation has found three categories of problems, the Globe reported.

First, it determined that Pino did not tell law enforcement officials about 13 positive DNA matches in unsolved sexual assault cases before the statute of limitations ran out. In another eight cases, the statute expired because the lab took too long to load profiles of crime scene DNA into the database, according to a February affidavit by State Police Detective Captain Gregory J. Foley.

Second, Pino allegedly prepared four reports about near-matches between DNA profiles of convicted felons and crime scene DNA, apparently to alert law enforcement officials that a relative of a convict might have committed the crime, said the affidavit. But Pino allegedly reported two of those near matches incorrectly as perfect matches to law enforcement officials, although no one was wrongly arrested.

Third, the State Police collected DNA profiles of 12 people convicted of misdemeanors, even though state law limits the database to convicted felons. Burke has said it was unclear why the profiles were in the database.

Looney, who defended Pino at his administrative hearing, said Friday that the State Police lacked policies on the matters in which Pino is accused of making mistakes.

AP-ES-04-14-07 1222EDT