Judge slaps Secret Service in racism case. The Secret Service scoffed at a federal court ruling that it turn over documents to the plaintiffs who are suing the agency for alleged racial discrimination in the eight-year-old case. Ignoring the decree, the judge said, undermined the ability of the African-American agents to put on their case. For its defiance, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, has barred the Secret Service from introducing rebuttal evidence during the civil trial. The penalty is just short of awarding victory to the Black agents, who say they were denied promotions because of their race. “No reasonable search for the documents responsive to plaintiff’s requests … was ever conducted” despite federal rules requiring it, nine separate court orders by Robinson demanding it and three previous penalties imposed by Robinson. The agency’s “substantial and prejudicial” stubbornness “virtually mandates a finding that defendant’s noncompliance … was willful,” Robinson wrote. Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said that the matter is “far from over,” adding that he will appeal the decision. Robinson’s punishment doesn’t equal a guilty ruling, but the agency says she might as well have found it guilty since it prevents the Secret Service “from presenting evidence that particular promotion decisions were made for nondiscriminatory reasons and from presenting statistical evidence to rebut claims that bias affected an entire class of employees,” The Associated Press reports.