The chairman of Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N. Y., a House panel probing Toyota's safety record, alleges the automaker illegally withheld records from U. S. courts.

Towns, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, after reviewing records obtained under subpoena, said the Japanese automaker "deliberately withheld records that it was legally required to produce in response to discovery orders in litigation."

Towns said in a press release, "Many" of the cases of withheld records concerned cases involving "rollover" accidents, "Including cases where victims were paralyzed."

The statement said that evidence of the withheld records was discovered through an examination of documents provided by the former Toyota Motor Sales USA managing counsel in product liability, Dimitrios Biller, who represented the company between April 2003 and September 2007 in "some of the largest tort cases filed against Toyota."

Towns further said that through some of the tort cases, Toyota feared the plaintiff's counsel would discover what was referred to as the "Book of Knowledge" that included design and testing data. (With Input From Agencies)