WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday assigned a Democratic U.S. attorney in New York City to investigate whether two former aides to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, broke laws by raiding computer files of Democrats.

That comes after months of demands by Democrats that the matter be referred to a prosecutor and that criminal charges be pursued.

A probe earlier this year by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle concluded that more than 4,500 files of committee Democrats were accessed by former Hatch aides Manuel Miranda and Jason Lundell. Hatch complained that the pair also accessed about 100 of Hatch's own files without his knowledge or permission.

Miranda has said he broke no laws and has likened finding unprotected files on the committee's jointly used computer system to finding documents left on his desk. Miranda resigned from work in the Senate as the scandal grew, and Lundell left for graduate school last year.

In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking Democrat on the committee, the Justice Department said the matter has been referred for investigation to David Kelley, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Kelley, a Democrat, took over recently for James Corney, who left to accept the No. 2 job at the Justice Department.

"This is a serious matter that deserves and requires careful investigation. The Senate sergeant-at-arms made a good start with his investigation and report," Leahy said. "With the powers available to a federal prosecutor, this matter can now be more thoroughly investigated, so that those who engaged in criminal conduct may be brought to justice."

Hatch's spokesman, Adam Elggren, said, "Sen. Hatch has every faith that the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York will do the right thing here."

The scandal broke last November after several volatile Democratic memos were leaked to the press. Democrats charged that the only way those memos could have been obtained was through theft. When Lundell acknowledged in early committee questioning that he had accessed such files, Hatch sought a full-scale probe by Pickle.

After the Pickle probe, Hatch went along with demands that the matter be referred to the Justice Department — but has angered conservatives by not also pushing for probes of apparent Democratic wrongdoing revealed in the memos.

For example, some memos leaked to the press said that Democrats and liberal groups worked together to block the appeals court nomination of Miguel Estrada specifically because he is Hispanic — and they did not want Bush to score politically with Hispanics.

Other memos said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., was asked by liberal groups to stall the nomination of two 6th Circuit Court of Appeals nominees until after that court heard a key affirmative action case to ensure they did not tilt a perceived favorable court balance.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com