HAMMOND | Federal jurors may have to decide in a case of alleged police brutality who is more credible -- a former Gary deputy police chief or an FBI special agent.

That question is poised to become a part of the federal criminal case against Gary Detective Thomas Branson, who is accused of lying to FBI Special Agent Daniel Glavach to cover up civil rights abuses of four burglary suspects in 2007. Branson was deputy chief of the Gary department at the time of the alleged incident.

At the heart of the dispute is a set of handwritten notes from an Oct. 22 FBI interview with Branson. Those notes form the basis of a charge of making a false statement to a federal agent.

Specifically, FBI agents allege Branson told them a house at 2925 W. 21st Ave. was not searched, that none of the four people arrested was punched in the process of the arrests, and that two of the men were not taken to the back of the home and physically abused.

Defense attorney Scott King, Gary's former mayor, is trying to force the government to release the original notes from the interview. Prosecutors argue that a typed summary of the notes is sufficient.

Branson was one of three top-ranking Gary police officials indicted in March on charges of violating the civil rights of four suspects who were arrested after a break-in at former Police Chief Thomas Houston's home in June 2007.

Houston was charged with six crimes, Branson with three and Sgt. Thomas Decanter with one. Houston retired after the charges were filed, while Branson and Decanter were placed in the homicide division's cold case squad.

All have pleaded not guilty, and Branson specifically denies making the false statements attributed to him by Glavach's notes.

King said the FBI, unlike many police agencies, has a policy of not tape-recording its interviews. That means that the only records of interviews with suspects are the notes that agents write themselves and later transcribe into reports.

"It's been a bone of contention for a long, long time with the FBI," said King, a former federal prosecutor. "It's a policy of theirs I've never agreed with."

FBI spokeswoman Wendy Osborne and lawyers from the Civil Rights Division declined to comment.