NYC reaches $1 million settlement with toxicologist

New York City has agreed to pay $1 million to a toxicologist who says she was forced from her job in 2015 after raising questions about a type of DNA testing.

Marina Stajic advocated for more transparency about “low copy number” DNA testing, used when only tiny amounts of DNA can be collected.

Many prosecutors and forensic experts hailed the method but critics called it unreliable.

Stajic was a longtime director of the office’s Forensic Toxicology Laboratory.

She also served on a state forensic science commission. Her lawsuit said that she voted to require the medical examiner’s office to make public an internal study on the validity of the technique. The vote did not pass.

The city’s Law Department says the settlement was “in the best interest of the city.”