Judge Seeks GOP Protest Cop Notes

Thursday, November 9th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PHILADELPHIA (AP) â€” State police must turn over notes, memos and other investigation information regarding state troopers who posed as protesters during the Republican National Convention, a city judge ruled.

State police have a week to turn the information over to the defense lawyers for about 75 protesters arrested at a Philadelphia warehouse, Municipal Judge James M. DeLeon said Wednesday.

The activists' attorneys said the undercover officers may have overstepped bounds of privacy or legality by participating or encouraging demonstrators who have since been charged with misdemeanor conspiracy to obstruct highways.

Four state troopers pretending to be union carpenters spent a week undercover in the warehouse where activists were making giant puppets for use in street protests, city prosecutors have said in court. The troopers were gathering evidence used to raid the warehouse Aug. 1 and arrest everyone inside.

Defense attorney Bradley S. Bridge said in court that his clients had provided him with information suggesting that the troopers either broke the law themselves or encouraged others to do so.

State police attorney Joanna Reynolds said some of the information revealed by the judge's order might reveal infiltration methods or names of informants, but she said police would comply.