[Robert M. Morgenthau] said in a statement that "Mr. [Clayton Patterson]'s regrettable refusal to obey the subpoena hampers the grand jury's efforts to investigate allegations of illegal police conduct." Gerald McKelvey, a spokesman for Morgenthau, would say only that "our office has prosecuted more than 70 police officers."

Patterson, who sells designer hats from an East Village storefront, voluntarily showed Morgenthau's investigators the videotape Aug. 18. That day, he huddled with Alton H. Maddox Jr., one of the lawyers representing Tawana Brawley, the Dutchess County teen-ager who has refused to tell a grand jury about her claim that she was abducted and raped by a gang of whites.

The next day, Patterson refused to turn over the tape, telling investigators that he had gone to Washington and given a copy to Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of a House subcommittee that once held hearings on police misconduct in New York. Patterson later disassociated himself from Maddox but continued to balk at the subpoena.