The FBI laboratory, the nation's premier facility for the examination of forensic evidence, lost a critical hair sample collected from the charred debris of an arson fire at the home of a high-ranking Edison police official two years ago, documents show.

The sample was one of two hairs found among the remains of a makeshift incendiary device set ablaze on Capt. Mark Anderko's front porch on May 20, 2013. An Edison officer, Michael Dotro, was subsequently charged with aggravated arson and five counts of attempted murder for allegedly setting the fire.

DNA analysis conducted on the second hair showed it did not come from Dotro, 37, or his wife, according to the FBI's lab report, a copy of which was obtained by NJ Advance Media. Dotro's lawyer, Robert Norton, confirmed the report's findings.

Taken together, the lost hair and the sample that excluded Dotro could make it more difficult for the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office to prove the officer started the fire.

In a court hearing shortly after Dotro's arrest, prosecutors outlined some of the evidence they said linked him to the blaze. Additional evidence highlighted in court filings suggests Dotro and his wife, Alycia, lied to investigators about his whereabouts the night of the fire and that a woman who admitted to having an affair with him said he told her he once set fire to a neighbor's property after a dispute with the man.

Nearly two years after the blaze at Anderko's house, the lab report and court documents provide the clearest portrait yet of the evidence against Dotro, a 14-year veteran with a long disciplinary history.

Edison police officer Michael Dotro was charged in May 20013 with setting his boss' house on fire. He is seen here at his first court appearance.

In an interview late last week, Norton argued it was because of the exclusion of DNA and other evidence that the prosecutor's office brought a spate of additional counts against Dotro in the months after his arrest.

Beyond the arson, the Manalapan resident is charged with buying marijuana while in uniform, conspiring to sell the drug, illegally accessing the department's records database for personal use and slashing the tires on the car owned by the former mistress, a clerk in the department's records bureau.

He also is accused of enlisting three other Edison officers in a plot to retaliate against a North Brunswick police officer for citing someone close to Dotro with driving under the influence. All four have pleaded not guilty.

"We don't think there's sufficient evidence to tie Mr. Dotro to the arson, and it is our belief that because of the lack of evidence, they've brought additional indictments which would not normally be prosecuted but for the fact it is the Edison Police Department and Mr. Dotro," Norton said, adding that he hadn't seen a similar barrage of counts in the many years he has represented police officers.

Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey declined to comment, saying it would be "completely inappropriate" to discuss evidence ahead of Dotro's trial, which has yet to be scheduled.

A spokeswoman for the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., did not respond to a request for comment.

The device used to set the fire included two gasoline-filled, one-gallon water jugs, with shop rags used as wicks. The jugs, along with a bath towel, had been placed in a gym bag.

Deputy Chief Mark Anderko, authorities say, was targeted by Dotro because he had transferred him and ordered him to undergo a psychological exam.

The lab report shows that mitochondrial DNA analysis of a human hair found inside the partially burned gym bag did not match either of the Dotros. In addition, dog and cat hairs found at the fire scene were found to be microscopically dissimilar to Dotro's dog and two cats. The human hair that was lost had been embedded in the bath towel.

Authorities have said Dotro was angry at Anderko, now a deputy chief, because he and Chief Thomas Bryan had transferred the officer from the night shift to the day shift and ordered him to undergo a psychological evaluation following his 11th excessive force complaint in a decade.

The fire caused extensive damage to Anderko's Monroe Township home, though he and his family escaped unharmed. Dotro remains free on $2 million bail. He has been suspended without pay since his arrest.

Superior Court Judge Bradley Ferencz last month denied motions by the officer's attorney to dismiss the indictment and to suppress evidence found at Dotro's home. Norton says he is appealing the decision.

The Case Against Dotro

Outlining their case against Dotro in hearings and court documents, authorities said a gasoline-soaked rag similar to the ones that were used as wicks was found beneath the front seat of his pickup truck and that other rags of the same kind were found in his home. A bath towel similar to the one found at the fire scene also was found in the home.

Dotro's lawyer has argued the rags and the towel are so common that they prove nothing.

Inside Dotro's garage, investigators found Poland Springs water jugs and Quick Chek jugs that smelled of gasoline. One of the jugs at the fire scene had a Poland Springs label. The other came from Quick Chek, court papers show.

On the night of the fire, authorities said, Dotro's pickup was recorded by a Quick Chek surveillance camera in Englishtown at 3:41 a.m., headed in the direction of Anderko's home. The same vehicle, investigators maintain, was recorded by the surveillance camera again 15 minutes later, at 3:56 a.m., as it returned from the direction of Anderko's residence.

Norton contends the images are so dark and of such poor quality that the kind of vehicle cannot be determined. In addition, he said, a Middlesex County investigator misrepresented the vehicle's route on the purported return trip, saying it turned right onto the road leading toward Dotro's house when, in fact, it traveled through the intersection toward Old Bridge.

Alycia Dotro appears in Middlesex County Superior Court on Nov. 7, 2014 (Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

When questioned by police, court records show, both Dotro and his wife said they were home alone the night of the fire and fell asleep after watching TV. But authorities said they recovered a text message — sent by Alycia Dotro to her husband shortly before the fire started — in which she asked where he was.

The couple later discussed that text message in a recorded phone conversation when Dotro was lodged in the Middlesex County jail, investigators said. Alycia Dotro has been charged with giving false information to police and with helping her husband slash the tires of the woman with whom he had been having an affair. The wife is free on $75,000 bail.

It is from the former mistress that some of the most inflammatory evidence could emerge — if it is permitted at trial.

Court documents show the woman told investigators that in 2012, Dotro admitted to her he once had a dispute with a neighbor and that he "lit something of that neighbor's on fire."

The neighbor's camper and shed were destroyed by a fire in 2008. A county arson investigator could not determine a cause of the fire. The neighbor, Dennis Sassa, has said the tires on his car were slashed shortly afterward.

A second woman — the wife of a Woodbridge police officer and a friend of Dotro's — gave authorities a "similar version" of the girlfriend's account, court papers say.

At another point, the girlfriend told investigators, Dotro offered to help her retaliate against a former boyfriend who was harassing her by setting the man's car on fire.

"Dotro asked if she wanted to get back at the man, and suggested that they set his car on fire by putting a gasoline-filled container with a lighted fabric wick under the man's car," according to court records.

Norton, the defense attorney, argued in his motion to dismiss the indictment that the girlfriend's testimony before the grand jury should not have been allowed because it was irrelevant and prejudicial.

"Because the state's case against Dotro is circumstantial, and the evidence is far from overwhelming, the improper injection of bad-act evidence had the capacity to taint the grand jury's decision to return the indictment," Norton wrote in his motion to dismiss the indictment. "The grand jury's function is not only to bring the guilty to trial, but also to protect the innocent."

Mark Mueller may be reached at mmueller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkJMueller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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