DATE: Tuesday, July 29, 1997                TAG: 9707290290

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   81 lines

PETA SPY SAYS SHE DIDN'T KNOW PAPERS WERE CONFIDENTIAL

An animal-rights investigator who spied on a New Jersey laboratory and came away with hours of videotape and 8,000 pages of stolen documents testified Monday that she never even knew what she was stealing.

Michele Rokke, an undercover investigator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, based in Norfolk, said she took whatever documents she could find lying around at Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Rokke testified about taking documents from co-workers' desks, copying documents from Huntingdon's computers and secretly videotaping employees with a tiny camera hidden in her glasses.

The 30-year-old investigator said she had no idea she was stealing anything confidential. She said no one warned her that the lab's work was strictly secret - even though a Huntingdon official testified that Rokke signed a confidentiality agreement when she started work in September 1996.

At times, Rokke's unapologetic testimony drew wide-eyed stares and exclamations from a federal judge.

``If you worked at my office,'' Judge Robert G. Doumar asked Rokke, ``you wouldn't hesitate to take something out of my desk?''

``I would never take anything from your desk,'' Rokke replied.

Rokke's testimony capped an all-day hearing in Norfolk's federal court, prompted by Huntingdon's lawsuit against PETA.

Rokke worked from September to May as an associate technician at Huntingdon's lab in East Millstone, N.J., mainly cleaning animal cages.

But Rokke also was a paid undercover investigator for PETA. Her job was to investigate animal cruelty at the lab, where Huntingdon tests the safety and effectiveness of pharmaceuticals on animals for client companies.

At Huntingdon, Rokke secretly filmed incidents with animals that PETA claims were abused. Rokke also copied thousands of pages of confidential documents. After quitting in May, Rokke and PETA made the videotape and documents public, prompting a backlash against the lab.

On June 16, Huntingdon sued PETA and Rokke, claiming they stole ``trade secrets'' and were trying to put the company out of business. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a court injunction to stop PETA from using the videotapes and documents. Huntingdon also wants PETA to return everything it took.

Federal Judge Rebecca Beach Smith signed a restraining order June 17 that bars PETA from using the tapes and documents. That order will expire Friday, and Huntingdon seeks an injunction to extend the PETA ban until trial in November.

On Monday, Huntingdon President Alan Staple testified that publicity from the PETA incident has badly hurt his company, which has about 200 workers at the New Jersey lab.

Staple also said he has gotten 10 to 15 death threats since May and said the company's stock has plummeted 70 to 80 percent. The company depends on absolute confidentiality to attract and maintain corporate customers, Staple said.

``The future of the business in its current form hangs in the balance,'' he testified.

But the hearing's star witness was Rokke, who detailed how she stole documents and information from Huntingdon.

Rokke testified that she grabbed any document she found that had anything to do with animals. Often she did not know what the documents said or what they were about.

She said lab procedures, which are considered secret, were left lying around the lab, so she took them. She said she lifted other documents off people's desks, including the company's confidential client list. PETA used that list to mail damaging letters to about 200 of Huntingdon's clients.

``I didn't take anything with any purpose,'' Rokke testified. ``I had no idea the majority of things I took.''

Rokke argued that Huntingdon has no real trade secrets.

``The only trade secret they're trying to hide is the mistreatment of animals,'' Rokke testified.

Later, as the hearing ended, Judge Doumar remarked, ``The question before me today is not whether there was or was not animal abuse,'' and he declined to see a PETA videotape that allegedly shows animal abuse at the lab.

The lawyers will return at 11 this morning for closing arguments and the judge's ruling. The full trial is set for Nov. 17. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Michele Rokke said she took lab documents from co-workers and

secretly videotaped them with a camera in her glasses. Huntingdon

Life Sciences, a New Jersey laboratory, seeks an injunction to

extend a ban stopping PETA from using the documents.

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