Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday announced nearly $150 million in federal grants for DNA analysis as part of President Bush's five-year plan to solve more crimes, reduce crime lab backlogs and exonerate the innocent through DNA technology.

Speaking at a news conference at the federal courthouse, Downtown, Ashcroft said $3 million of that money will go to three crime labs in Pennsylvania, including the Allegheny County coroner's office.

Ashcroft said the Justice Department is committed to helping states battle violent crime with science.

"Thanks to DNA analysis, forensic scientists are now able to turn seemingly invisible samples of forensic evidence into ironclad cases against the worst offenders," said Ashcroft, who was joined by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht and representatives of the state police and Philadelphia police crime labs.

"Forensic science plays no favorites," Ashcroft said. "It cuts through prejudice. It validates the truth. And it reminds us that by targeting our resources carefully, we can speed the arrest of criminals, cut short the careers of repeat offenders and prevent crime from taking away the liberty of law-abiding citizens."

Wecht welcomed the money and joked that he was going to chase Ashcroft after the conference to get his check. He said his office has a backlog of 250 to 300 cases awaiting DNA analysis, most of them sex assaults.

Wecht's lab will get $84,594 to improve its ability to do DNA work and another $266,917 to cut the backlog, which Wecht said he wants to eliminate in five years. Wecht said at least some of the money will be used for hiring another technician.

"DNA is a unique investigative tool," he said. "There simply is nothing like it. Everything else is subject to interpretation to some extent or another. But if you've got DNA, unless you're challenging the person who did the test, the test is unequivocal, the result. So we're proud to be among the first recipients of these national awards."

In making his announcement, Ashcroft singled out the local case of Lawrence Thornhill, which Wecht's office helped investigate, as an example of how critical DNA testing can be.

Thornhill, of Homewood, terrorized the East End in 1997 and 1998 by breaking into homes, tying up women and raping and sodomizing them. He stole cash and other items from the homes and warned his victims that either he or his friends would come back for revenge if they told police.

DNA evidence left at the crime scenes showed the odds of anyone other than Thornhill being the rapist were 1 in 450 billion.

He is serving 50 to 100 years in prison.

"The case of Lawrence Thornhill is evidence of the value of DNA analysis technology and forensic science in fighting crime," Ashcroft said. "We've seen time and time again the important contribution that DNA analysis can bring to the justice community."

The $150 million in overall grants is being used for a variety of programs, including taking DNA samples of people already in jail to build DNA databases against which samples can be matched, similar to fingerprint databases that have existed for decades.

Ashcroft said databases are important in convicting repeat offenders, but he said collecting DNA samples is also necessary to clear the wrongly convicted. As an example of the latter, the Justice Department cited the case of Bernard Webster, a Maryland man who spent 20 years in prison for a 1982 rape that DNA showed he didn't commit. In 2002, he was released.

Some of the grant money is being used for DNA testing in missing persons cases and criminal investigations that have never been solved.

"DNA analysis helps identify the guilty. It helps vindicate the innocent," Ashcroft said. "And at times it can bring a sense of peace and justice to victims and their families even after a case has seemed to have gone cold and hope is all they have left."

President Bush has said his goal is to eliminate the national backlog of cases within five years. The Justice Department estimates that there are some 542,700 samples of biological evidence either at local police departments or backlogged at crime labs nationwide.

In addition, an estimated 300,000 samples from convicts need to be collected and processed.