ALBANY, NY, Jan. 28 — The appointment of Herman Schwartz as chairman of the State Commission of Correction has been endangered by the recent hiring of an ex-convict associated with mass murderer Charles Manson.

The hiring of Lanier Rayner as an investigator for the commission has shocked some state senators who will conduct hearings on the confirmation of Schwartz, a controversial Buffalo lawyer, to the commission.

Specifically, Rayner is identified by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi as Manson’s teacher while both were serving time at the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Wash.

State Sen. Lloyd Paterson, R-Niagara County, predicted the Rayner hiring would “blow the lid” off the Schwartz hearings, tentalively scheduled for the first week of February.

Paterson is a member of the Senate Crime and Corrections Committee, which will conduct the hearings.

In “Helter Skelter”, an account of the Manson slayings, Bugliosi wrote that Manson became interested in Scientology while at McNeil Island.

“Scientology, an outgrowth of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, was just coming into vogue at this time,” he wrote. “Manson’s teacher, i.e., ‘auditor,’ was another convict, Lanier Rayner. Manson would later claim that while in prison he achieved Scientology’s highest level, ‘beta clear.”‘

Rayner’s hiring was defended by Schwartz, who left a law professorship at the State University of Buffalo to take the Gov. Hugh Carey appointment last August.

“We have been vindicated,” Schwartz said of Rayner’s job performance.

He said Rayner had impressed almost “everyone with whom he has dealt.”

Rayner’s duties, according to Schwartz, include the investigation of prison “problems brought to our attention.” He has been working as a team with a former guard at the Auburn Correctional Facility, according to Schwartz.

“They look into it, find out what the truth is,” he said. The information is then passed on to either the Commission of Correction or to the superintendent of the facility in question.

Other sources indicated that Rayner’s duties included acting as a consultant for Schwartz, who listed as a first priority of his job to visit as many of the state’s prisons as he could.

He also defended the hiring on the grounds that state law “more or less mandated that we have ex-convicts on the staff.”

Rayner was highly recommended, Schwartz said, by Rayner’s parole officer and others, including journalist Jessica Mitford and former Washington Post ombudsman Ben Bagdikian.

By JOE ROLAND