Even Atomic Lies Won't Kill A Cop-Roach - When cops fabricate, falsify, and destroy evidence—and one public defender refuses to let it slide.

Here at Another Not Guilty, we appreciate your support. Don't forget to subscribe or follow us. And please visit our website at anothernotguiltypod.com. Without further ado, here's this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

And this probably isn't something that a lot of people may do or would maybe even recommend doing, but I literally call this cop every single name in the book. I said he is a liar. He is a manipulator. He is a piece of garbage.

I mean, without using obscenities and being in contempt of court, I called him every horrendous name I could possibly call him. And I said, because that's what a person who knowingly tries to frame an innocent person for murder, that's what that is.

Welcome to Another Not Guilty. I'm David. I'm Nikhil. We're public defenders.

Here to share the untold stories of the criminal justice system.

Objection. That assumes there's justice in the system, which there ain't. I prefer calling it the American criminal system.

Okay. Stories from the American criminal system from the forbidden point of view. The one that the man doesn't want you to know about.

Also known as the point of view of the defense. These stories are about the many not-guilties we public defenders get on a daily basis in an unjust criminal system with the deck stacked against us.

What's up, everybody? Here for another Not Guilty.

We have, again, this David with MK. Michael, what's up, buddy?

Great to be back here. Great in this nice podcast studio.

Right. And as you guys know, we have an awesome guest today. Her name is Anya, and she's here to tell us about a not-guilty she had recently.

What's up, Anya? Say hi.

Hey, what's going on, you guys? I'm really excited to be here.

Great to have you.

Nice. Thank you.

Anya is a fellow public defender.

That's right. Amazing trial lawyer. I feel like she could be a guest every week. She always gets not guilty.

She's legendary status around her.

My goodness, I'm starting to blush.

I go to her for my, when I have questions, like what should I do on a case?

I hope I've given good advice.

Well, you know, nobody could have won that case, so I'm not holding it against you.

Okay. Well, you didn't come to me from the very beginning, just kind of midway through. You know, you can only do so much with a sinking ship, right?

Yeah, that's true. Okay, so Anya, tell us about your not guilty you got there.

So, I had a case a while back. It was actually my very first murder case that I was ever given, and when I got it, it didn't seem like there was a lot to indicate my client was actually guilty of the crime.

So, the basic story was that on one particular evening, there was a shooting in kind of a gang neighborhood.

The shooting happened where there was a kind of like a duplex type apartment building.

A guy who lives in this apartment building had come home, walked through his courtyard, up the stairs, got to his apartment, started making dinner.

When he heard gunshots, looked out his window, saw a guy hiding in the bushes, another guy firing the gun, and then running away.

And there were gunshots also coming from the opposite side of the street, so it looked like two guys were shooting.

A shootout.

It was like a shootout, exactly.

And this guy's just a witness then.

That's right. He just lived in this apartment and happened to see this go down in his courtyard.

And he didn't film it with any kind of Snapchat or...

No, nothing like that.

He just...

He just...

He saw it. It happened really quickly.

He saw the guy take off.

He ran off.

And that's all they had.

They had a description of the shooter.

And the description was, I saw the guy from behind.

He was wearing a Peruvian knit cap.

He was a young Hispanic, about 20 years old.

And he ran off.

And that's all the cops had to go on.

And you said there was two shooters or one?

So there were two guys in his courtyard.

One was the shooter.

And the other guy was kind of hiding in the bushes.

And there were two bicycles in the courtyard that they seemingly arrived on.

Because when he walked through the courtyard, minutes before, there were no bicycles.

And then two minutes later, there's a shooting, two guys, and two bikes.

And who's the decedent?

The decedent was a known gangbanger.

Ironically, his gang name was Criminal.

So it was kind of funny that Criminal died.

I mean, it's not funny because obviously somebody died.

Right.

But, you know, if you're going to have a gang moniker go down, Criminal's probably a pretty good one.

So how do they get from the knit cap to your client?

Right.

So the guy who was running away, young kid, Hispanic, in his Hispanic neighborhood.

So what the cops did was very little.

They first interviewed this sole eyewitness who was making his dinner in the apartment building.

And that's where they got this description from.

And then they decided to start canvassing the neighborhood.

And after a few weeks of canvassing, they really didn't have many leads.

Wait, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Go ahead.

This guy, this witness sees two people.

One person is shooting.

The other guy's in the bushes.

And they're shooting across the street.

That's right.

And those shots are being fired back.

Correct.

So then there's the person that dies.

Are they across the street then?

Right.

So there.

Yes.

Across the street, there were guys that were firing shots.

Unclear how many.

The decedent had been hit, got loaded up in a car.

And one of his gang buddies drove him to a hospital where they literally just dropped him off.

And there was a video of him getting dropped off at the doors.

And the gang buddies then took off.

So there really wasn't that much.

But the problem in this case is the cops didn't do very much investigation whatsoever.

Came up with a theory early on that this has got to be a gang retaliation thing that happened.

So let's just go find somebody who will fit that bill.

And they really didn't have much to go on.

Part of it was they didn't do a lot of investigation based on the information that the eyewitness gave them.

So the eyewitness told them, you know, one of the guys looked like, you know, a gang banger in the neighborhood named Flacco.

He kind of looked like a guy named Flacco.

Well, they didn't do anything with that.

They didn't investigate that at all.

He also, in his interview to them, told them, you know, the other guy kind of looked like someone.

There was a car accident that had happened at the same intersection maybe a month prior.

And he said, I think that one of the guys looked like somebody who was involved in that car accident.

Cops did nothing with that information.

So instead, they started walking up and down the alleys in the local area, the blocks nearby, and found two homeless crackheads that were sleeping in a tent and decided that they were going to be their star witnesses.

Oh, okay.

Right.

Especially since those people didn't see anything.

Right.

But they needed some more information.

So the cops ended up going to this alley about two to three times a week for about four weeks.

And during those visits, they took the two homeless people out of their tent, threw them up against the wall, handcuffed them, drove them down to the station on multiple times.

Then they released them from the station after hours of being in a cell.

And after about a month of this, one of the two crackheads said, yeah, you know what, now that I think about it, there's this kid who lives nearby who came up to me and after the shooting said, we got them.

Oh.

Well, how do you know this, that they did this for about a month?

That, so the homeless people said so.

They, they were the star witnesses for the police and for the prosecution.

And I made sure that my investigator got on top of it right away.

We had to find them, first of all, because the cops moved them from the area.

But we found them and we had them interviewed as part of our investigation and they, they told us.

So you knew early on in the process about this.

Absolutely.

Coercive behavior.

Yeah, absolutely.

I also had my investigator go and get a statement from the eyewitness right away.

And he confirmed what he had said to the police, which was, I saw the kid from behind.

I could tell he was young.

He had this Peruvian knit cap and then he ran off.

After the shooting, he ran away.

So he, he, the, the police then had all they needed.

They had all the ammo that they needed to arrest my client.

Don't you see this as an open and shut case?

Right.

That's all it was.

You get these homeless guys.

The homeless guy says, after many times of, of picking them up, dropping off the, or arresting

them, taking them to the station, then releasing them.

And roughing them up at the, by their tent.

I mean, they would pull them out of their tent, throw them up against the wall.

You know, they, they were really, really abusive to them.

And yes, they made a statement that a kid in the neighborhood approached them about a week

after the shooting and said, did you hear about criminal?

We got him.

We got him.

I believe any killer would confess to a homeless person in the street.

Right.

Random.

Random.

Somebody who is about 30 years older than you.

And again, the random homeless crackhead that's living in an alley down the street from where

you live.

And the kid is your client, right?

The kid is my client.

And where does he live in relation to the shooting?

He lived about two blocks away.

He lived about, so he was walking distance, but yeah.

Why do you believe the police picked on your client specifically?

Okay.

So why, like I said in the beginning, they had this theory, oh, this has to have been a

revenge shooting.

It could, it's gang retaliatory shooting.

So what they did was, um, uh, they looked back to see if there were any police reports

that had been filed somewhat recently that involved a shooting with no suspect being caught.

And so they decided that if they found a police report like that, obviously the victim was

going to be the one who retaliates.

The problem in all of this was the police report that they found was one where my client

was in fact a victim of a shooting that had happened about three weeks prior.

My client had been walking home late at night after a party.

He was a little intoxicated.

And as he was walking home, a car drove by, it was just a drive by shooting and he was randomly

targeted and just a drive by shooting.

It was just a drive by shooting.

And he was randomly targeted that he has no gang ties or anything like that.

And, um, the, the bullet that hit him severed his Achilles tendon and shattered all of the

bones in his right foot.

So from that date, which was three weeks prior, he literally could not walk.

I mean, he had been in the hospital.

He had surgery.

He had this massive cast boot thing on.

And, uh, I mean, as you know, your Achilles tendons pretty important for the ability to

walk.

Doesn't mean he can't ride a bike though.

And run away from a shooting.

So, so because he's a victim, because he calls the police as a victim.

Now the police use that against him and trying to create a motive to call him a murder.

Exactly.

Cause they had no other lead, seemingly no other leads, at least as far as they were concerned.

And when, when he was a victim and he was shot, did the, at that point in that police

particular police report, was there a known suspect?

No, he had, uh, filed a report or they had interviewed him at the, at the hospital, um,

following the shooting.

And he said, he described the car to the best of his memory.

Uh, and it was with dark, the windows were rolled up.

It was, I don't even recall what kind of a car it was, but you know, whatever four door

colored sedan drove by, they cracked the window, they fired and, uh, he was shot.

And, and what do they have to paint him as a gang member?

Other than being a victim in a shooting.

Okay.

So they don't really have anything, which was interesting.

So they kind of had to create some stuff.

There were no FI cards on him.

At all.

Identification cards.

Cause the police try to keep tracks on the gang members.

So what they do is supposedly they go throughout the communities and try to interview anybody

that's a gang member and tries to get some, gets them to admit they're a gang member, get them to know what their nickname is.

And there's a card that follows that goes into a police file, I guess.

Yeah. And unfortunately it sticks with these people basically for life.

Anytime they get stopped, the, the cops can pull out these previously written cards and use it against them.

So he didn't have as far as to the best of my memory, I don't think he had any of those cards.

Again, the big, big problem in all of this is that it was physically and medically impossible for my client to have been the shooter.

Because he was, uh, not able to walk, run or otherwise move his legs at the time of the shooting.

So you'd think that that would have been enough for the cops to realize, you know, maybe our theory is a little flawed and maybe we should look for somebody else.

But no, they, uh, they put all their eggs into this basket and decided that's enough.

We, uh, we will get these crackheads to spill the beans on this kid and, uh, and then we'll, we'll go forward.

So that's what they had.

And how old is your, your client when he's arrested for this?

I believe he was 20 or 21.

Okay.

Yeah. He was, he was young. He was young.

So you get the case then you read this police report.

You see that there's a shooting, there's a witness that the cops don't follow the lead.

They get these crackheads around the corner to say it's your client.

And that's kind of it, right?

That's it.

Um, and it's your first murder, right?

It's my first murder.

How are you feeling?

You know, it's this young kid who clearly is 100% innocent of, of anything.

And he's facing the rest of his life in prison.

I've never done a murder trial in my life.

And I've got this innocent kid.

His life is in my hands.

That was some pressure.

And that kind of, you know, it kind of stinks.

I don't know.

Did you meet his family and stuff?

I did.

His family was very supportive.

They would always come to, to court.

Um, he had a young child.

I think his daughter was one at the time.

They wouldn't bring the, the baby to court.

And unfortunately this case dragged on for 14 months before.

Before, before trial.

So he missed his daughter's second and third birthdays.

And, um, it was really difficult on the family.

What's, and what's some of the, like the prep work you did on the case then to get ready?

So the prep work was really having a solid investigator.

And it became really important to do that.

Um, you, you start with the beginning.

You've got this one witness that is mentioned who lives there.

So I went to the crime scene to where this guy lives, went to his apartment with my investigator.

We had a conversation with him, verified what was in the police report or if there were mistakes to it.

Now I will point out that the first per, there were kind of two reports.

There was the, the main report.

And then there was this supplemental report.

And the detective on this case added a, uh, you know, a few extra paragraphs, the supplemental, where he indicated that a week after the shooting, the eyewitness who lived in this apartment building called them back, called the police back.

Because he forgot to tell them a crucial bit of information.

And that was that when the shooter took off, he was limping.

Oh, now it's starting to, all the pieces are coming together now.

Yeah.

They needed to be forced a little bit, but yes.

So when I spoke with the, um, eyewitness, it was really important to make sure that I didn't lead him anywhere.

I wanted to just get the, like a pure re-councing.

Organic.

Organic, exactly.

Account of what had happened.

So he said what he said in the original, which was the guy saw the shooting.

I told the cops, I didn't see the guy from the front.

I only saw him from behind.

He had this Peruvian knit cap.

And then he, after the shooting, he, he ran, he took off.

And so I didn't want to take that.

But I asked him, was there anything unusual about him that anything else you could remember?

And I said, let's start from, from the top and work our way down.

Cause I didn't want to focus on, you know, an alleged limp or not.

And he said, no, you know, there's nothing unusual about his face, his body.

He said nothing unusual, even the way he ran, there was nothing unusual.

And so that was my first clue that these cops are doing some super, super shady things.

Um.

Did you didn't, but you didn't say, Hey, did you tell the cops that he ran?

I asked him, did you ever call the cops back?

Because the cops did say in their original report that he said the guy ran off.

And he said, no, I never called.

I never called him back.

And I said, okay.

I asked him if he had multiple phone lines, meaning a landline, a cell phone.

He said he always uses his cell phone.

He gave me a cell phone number.

He said that the detective did give him a card and said, Hey, call me if you think of anything else.

He said he called the detective a few days later, but it was to report, uh, you know, some unusual activity.

Some, I mean, this is really a, a, not a nice part of town where the guy lives.

So there was some, you know, shady criminal activity going on in the South Central neighborhood.

It was, but it had nothing to do with the case.

He just happened to now have a cop's number and he's like, Oh, let me give him a call.

He said he never called him back to say anything in addition to what he had said originally about his observation.

So I knew right then and there, there's some shenanigans that are brewing.

Whew.

So the DA finds out they dismissed the case.

Your client goes home, right?

Oh yes.

That did not happen.

Yeah.

No, not at all.

What's what I found that was interesting about the, the DA in all of this is the DA did very minimal work.

The DA took the police reports, everything that was written as gospel.

That was it.

Of course.

There was zero further investigation done by the DA.

And that was actually a big downfall for him.

In addition to the fact that my client was totally innocent.

But you say that as if like, it's unusual to this case.

It's kind of like every case.

Wouldn't you agree that they never look into the facts of the case or investigate further than what's in the police report?

You know, uh, yeah, they never do.

And I still always find it to be shocking.

And especially when you're talking about a murder case, you'd think you would also look into all of this yourself.

So, um, so once I knew I had concrete information that the cops falsified one of these police reports, at least one.

So for now we're on false police report number one.

Okay.

Um, because there's more.

Woo.

Yeah.

Stay tuned.

Listeners.

I know this may be a two parter.

So, uh, he, the, the investigator and I kind of teamed up and we were like, okay, what we need right now is we need to get the audio tapes.

The actual interview that was given by this guy to the cops that was recorded.

I need to make sure that what the police report says is accurate.

So that was part of the discovery process.

So the police had audios of their interview with the, the witness at the apartment complex and with the crackheads around the corner.

Yes.

And actually there ended up being additional witnesses later on down the road.

And all of those interviews were recorded.

They were audio recorded, burned onto a CD.

And that discovery was given to me.

And you said additional witnesses that you found out about later or where they were in the original police report.

They ended up in supplemental reports.

Okay.

Cause as the police kept on doing their investigation, they discovered more and more witnesses.

Or as they kept trying to make a stronger fake case against my client, they had to fake more pieces of the puzzle and interview more people to get what they want.

And what were these new witnesses saying?

So the, so the new witnesses were, well, if I, if I can just jump to the first witness, the eyewitness, just to keep it linear.

Um, when I got his, uh, audio, I had it made into a transcript so I could read a lot.

He was a Spanish speaker anyway.

So I needed to have it translated, but I'm reading along the transcript.

And although it's true that he said, I didn't see the guy, this and that, there were so many things that were being said by the lead detective that were shocking and frightening that you wouldn't know about until you actually listened to the interview.

So for example, um, the, the eyewitness says, I didn't see the guy.

I, I couldn't see his face.

I saw him from behind.

He was wearing this cap.

I could tell he was younger, maybe about 18 or 20 and smaller body frame.

I could tell he was Hispanic.

Um, I couldn't see anything else.

And the detective who was a Spanish speaker had a partner with him who was not a Spanish speaker.

And so periodically about, you know, every couple minutes or so, the detective would turn to his partner and kind of give a recap summary of what the guy is saying, translate it for him.

Right.

And so what he was doing was, for example, after this part of, uh, I didn't see the guy, I only saw him from behind a couple minutes later, he turns to his partner and says, yeah, the guy said, uh, he got a really good look at the guy and could positively identify him.

Oh, okay.

That literally made me flip back through the transcript to like, wait a minute.

I could have sworn.

He just said, I did not see the guy.

I could not see his face and I did not get a good look at him.

And what was translated was, yeah, he got a good look at the guy and he could positively identify him.

So you had the, the audio, the Spanish translated into English and then the English was the English.

Exactly.

Okay.

And, uh, that was pretty insane.

And moments like that happened frequently during that interview with him.

So that was a little, you know, that, that made me scared.

Right.

Like if he, if he's saying these things and now I know that one of these police reports is false, you know, where else are we going with this?

So they, uh, I mentioned before that when the victim was dropped off at the hospital, there were some gang buddies of his that dropped him off.

And based on the video from the hospital, they were able to identify, um, one, uh, two, I think of the, the, the gang members.

One had a very identifiable facial tattoo.

And so they did some research and figured who, you know, who, who, who hangs out with criminal.

And there were some others.

And so they interviewed two of the, uh, decedents gang buddies.

So those were supplemental interviews that were done.

And again, those were recorded and the officer prepared a supplemental police report that summarized the content of the interview.

And what, what goes on during these interviews?

Uh, again, I get a copy of those discs and I make sure that I get a transcript made so I could follow along.

Actually, those were in English, so it wasn't a problem to listen to them.

But what I found was the summary that was prepared as part of the police report, the supplemental police report, um, bore very little resemblance to the statements that were recorded.

And I just found this to be like insane.

These officers are recording.

They have like an actual, there's actual evidence of what is being said, but they just, I think they think they're so untouchable and like nothing's going to come back.

They can write and say whatever they want because they just can't.

And the DA only reads the report.

They don't, the DA never listens to the audio or the video.

And that's where I go back.

Exactly.

And that's where I go back to.

I can't believe that the DA never listened to any of these recordings or, uh, and just took the reports as gospel.

Um, so one of the interviews that was done with one of the, the gang member friends, criminal, criminals, friends.

Don't you love that?

Yeah.

Victims, criminal.

So, um, even, even he has friends.

So even he had friends, even he had friends.

And one of those interviews, um, the police again recorded it.

And when you read the supplemental report that had the summary of what was said, the summary was that the, uh, this, this gang friend saw the shooter.

The shooter was a gang member with the rival gang that the shooter had, um, a moniker named insane and that the shooter walked with a limp.

You see that?

Ooh.

That's a juicy little bit.

Cause it goes to explain how my client who had this tremendous injury is now involved in the shooting.

Right.

And that's in the police report.

That's the police report says that the shooter had a limp, had a limp was key fact it is.

Well, plus it, it identifies him as a gang member from the rival gang.

Insane.

With a moniker.

His name's insane.

A lot of good stuff.

Right.

A lot of juicy stuff that they can use against my client.

The problem for the prosecution and the cops.

Go to the tapes.

Let's go to the tapes.

Yeah.

So I listened to the tapes.

And the only thing that the guy said, first he said he never saw the shooter, but he heard it was a tall guy.

Hmm.

How tall is your client?

Well, my client was about, I think five, four.

I mean, in some parts of the world.

To his two year old daughter, I'm sure he was pretty tall.

Well, how tall was the witness then?

Right.

So, but that was it.

So what about FI cards?

Did they have to like make up FI cards now showing that your client's name was insane?

They didn't do that because they just wrote it in their report.

Yeah.

The DA read the report and the testimony of the officer was, hey, this is good enough.

But again, if you listen to the actual interview, the only thing the guy said was, I think it was a tall guy.

So everything in that police report was completely made up.

And absolutely nothing related to walking or running or.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It was a tall guy.

So all that bit about he was a gang member with this moniker and he walks with a limp and all this crap totally made up.

So I'm, I mean, I'm floored at this point.

So what I wanted to do at, at, before the preliminary hearing, I wanted to have the bicycles that were booked into evidence that were in the courtyard tested for DNA.

And I wanted to do that to exclude my client from that.

So got a court order and my investigator came with me.

We went to the police station.

First, I wanted to photograph the bicycles and then we were going to go ahead and move forward with having them DNA tested with our own expert.

Uh, we went down to, to take a look at the bikes.

They were booked into evidence.

I, to this day, I remember it was evidence numbers four and five on the, on the evidence, uh, report showed up.

Cops had destroyed them.

Destroyed the bikes?

Destroyed the bikes.

Literally.

When?

Uh, sometime after they were booked and sometime before the preliminary hearing.

And what documentation do they have to show when and why they did this?

There was a blue card, like an index card, some sort of standard police record keeping, uh, type card.

And I think it had like a stamp on it that said destroyed.

Yeah.

When?

And did you tell the DA this?

Cause I, cause I, cause you have to get the court order to get it.

Is it an ex party?

I mean just you with outside of the presence of the DA asking for.

Right.

So the first part was, uh, an ex parte court order allowing me and my investigator to have access to the bicycles.

And the first step was in order to take photographs of them.

Which I feel like it is ex party, but the DA is going to know you're doing this.

Cause the, cause the, cause the, the cops are going to find out that you want to look at the evidence and the cops are going to tell the DA.

So I always just kind of like put it out there in the open.

Hey, I'm going to look at this.

Right.

And it is becomes a part of the court file, the court record, the, the motion, the order.

So it's not that it was a secret.

I wanted to go see the, the bicycles.

Right.

That was no secret.

I went to go take pictures of them and you can't just show up to the police station saying, Hey, can I take some pictures of some evidence?

You have to have a court order.

I've tried to do that many times.

They won't let me.

They won't, they still won't.

You know, they're going to have your face on a, on a, on a poster.

One of these days.

It's not even my cases.

I just go in there wanting to take pictures.

Are you a budding photographer?

It's a Pinterest thing.

He has posts on Pinterest evidence and stuff.

His evidence boards.

Yeah.

Various evidence boards.

So yeah.

I showed up and the cop said, yeah, they were ordered destroyed.

And of course I'm shocked.

The cop who's the IO or the investigating officer or just a random cop?

The, it was a random cop who was working the evidence that day, but he actually was somewhat related to the case.

He was part of this case, um, in a minimal capacity, but yeah, he's the one who told us, yeah, we destroyed them.

And so I'm like, wait a minute.

You, you like, you, you destroyed them or did you, did you release them to someone?

Did you donate them?

Donate them.

Did you give them, did you give them?

Yeah.

Cars for kids, bikes for kids, you know?

Or how do you destroy a bike?

You know, like it's a bike.

It's not a piece of paper.

You crumple up and throw away.

Or what do you do to destroy the bike?

Like how do you destroy a bike?

Like how do you destroy a bike?

I didn't ask if they put it in a vat of acid, but it's destroyed.

So it wasn't released to, uh, somebody who wanted to claim it.

It was not sold at auction.

They were not sold.

They were destroyed.

They were destroyed.

And I asked why on earth would you destroy evidence?

Because again, this was not like his personal property, my client's personal property from

being booked in jail, like his, his wallet or t-shirt or whatever.

Miscellaneous stuff.

Miscellaneous.

It, you know, the bikes were booked in evidence right after, you know, blood stain swabs and bullet

fragments.

It, it was important.

So the answer I got was, well, you know, they, we have to do these audits because there's

a lot of space that evidence takes up.

So, you know, we do these audits, haven't you?

Wait, I'm sorry, David, you haven't heard about these audits where you destroy evidence?

Who's auditing the police evidence?

Like that would be the police auditing themselves to get rid of, you know, when you declutter,

spring cleaning, that's in essence, the answer I got.

We, you know, we had to do a little spring cleaning.

We needed a little more room.

They were big.

And this is what they told you face to face.

Right.

With my investigator.

Have you ever heard of a police audit before on evidence?

I had never heard of that before, especially not on an open murder case.

Right.

Right.

You know, what they do with drugs after a case has been settled, resolved, you know, I'm sure

they destroy it.

Well, I don't know.

Let's assume.

Do you know when they destroyed it in relation to when you made the request?

You know, to be honest, I don't remember if I had the exact date.

I may have been.

They may have had the exact date, but it was a pretty short turnaround from the date of

arrest to when I went.

It was within three months that I had gone to the police station.

So it was very early on.

It was, I would say maybe after a month or two, they had destroyed the bicycles.

And again, no notice to defense counsel.

Right.

You know, I never got a friendly.

Or even the prosecutor.

Courteous.

Hey, we're destroying the evidence you may use in a murder case.

That's right.

So.

Or at least hopefully the prosecutor didn't know that.

I don't believe the prosecutor did.

Okay.

I don't think they told anyone.

I think they just destroyed them.

Okay.

So now, you know, that was a bit of a setback because I was hoping to have that exclude

my client as a possible witness in addition to the medical records.

Um, and now I couldn't do that.

So now it was more of an uphill battle.

What did you like, uh, did you tell the prosecutor that the bikes were destroyed?

Did you bring it to his attention or her attention?

Absolutely.

In fact, uh, we had a trombetta hearing about that.

And what's the trombetta motion or hearing?

So when, when evidence gets destroyed, especially if they, the evidence has some sort of exculpatory

value, something that could help your client, um, you can bring a motion and there could

be, if the court, court grants your motion, there, there could be some positive consequences.

Right.

I mean, you might even score a dismissal of the case.

Right.

I think that look, your, look, your honor, like, because this evidence is destroyed by

the prosecution or the police, I can't present a defense.

It prejudices my defense.

Right.

But it's a really high burden.

That's the problem.

And they have to prove it actually was exculpatory, right?

That, that they didn't act in bad faith, that everything was on the up and up and that it had some exculpatory value.

And spring cleaning is good faith, I believe, right?

You know, um, not in my book, but unfortunately we did not win on our trombetta motion.

Did the police officer testify in the motion?

Yes.

So that was another good thing is I had, I had testimony under oath by this officer specifically

about these bikes, this main detective, which in the end, by the way, we turned out he was

actually not a detective.

He was calling himself a detective, but he never passed the test for like detective school

or whatever.

So.

I'm shocked that he didn't pass the test.

I know.

Right.

So, um, the whole time that everybody calls him detective, he actually wasn't a detective.

Did he get the, uh, spring cleaning, uh, audit evidence question wrong or.

He, he answered according to script that, you know, he, yeah, we were doing this audit and

you know, blah, blah, blah.

So I had that testimony and it was under oath.

And when we did the preliminary hearing that the trombetta hearing was after the preliminary

hearing.

So it was important for me to lock his testimony in at the preliminary hearing also about all

the stuff in his police reports, marry him to the report.

So that's when we ask them, is your report accurate?

Is it complete?

Have you changed anything about it?

You want to make sure that, that the officer testifies right from the get go.

Yeah, this is my report and it's 100% a okay.

And you're still not confronting him with the transcript of the interviews.

Absolutely not.

Because I could see that this was heading to trial.

So he, uh, at the preliminary hearing, he, the officer testified that this eyewitness did

call him back two weeks later or a week later and did say all of this.

And I said, now your report is accurate.

Yes.

And you're sure about the date?

Yes, I am.

So he locked into that testimony.

He even said, I know it happened on this date because I was at home and I was, you know,

watching a movie or whatever personal fact he had.

But his memory was so clear that this phone call that I know never happened did happen.

That that's why we can trust his police report is 100% accurate.

Now, what he also didn't know at the time was I had subpoenaed the eyewitnesses phone records.

He had given me a cell phone.

Um, and I was able to check that day where supposedly the, the phone call came with this

extra information that in, that incriminates my client.

And, uh, so I verified with the phone records.

And of course there was never a phone call made to the detective.

So I knew at the preliminary hearing that he was lying and it was really important to make

sure that he locked into that testimony.

Um, that's crazy.

I feel like it's the Trump better motion.

Like, I mean, going back to it though, it just seems like unfair that the law will allow someone,

a defendant to be prejudiced.

If it's negligence, like if they destroyed negligence accidentally, it's okay to prejudice

somebody and they can still be prosecuted for murder.

It's only if it's intentionally destroyed, then the case gets dismissed, but it doesn't matter.

Cause someone's life is still hanging in the balance.

I'm just throwing that out there.

Yeah.

And you know, it's really, really sad is the judges, you know, they, they listen and they

want to believe that the, the witness, the police officers is being truthful.

And so in this case, when the cop says, yeah, you know, we just had this audit.

It was completely, um, an, an unbiased thing.

We were just doing an accounting of all of the evidence and there was not enough space to

store these bikes.

So it was completely innocent.

We, we can get independent evidence of the audit.

Is there independent evidence of an audit?

So it's interesting that you should ask that.

Um, because I knew we were headed for trial.

I needed to make sure that I prove this cop is lying yet again.

I subpoenaed from the police department, all records of any audits happening, you know,

and I gave some crazy window of time, not just the one or two month window when they were

destroyed, but I gave them like a six or nine month window.

Give me any records of any audits happening.

You'll be shocked.

There were none.

What?

Stop it.

Wait.

Yes.

There were none.

So, uh, someone lied to the officer about not it.

Oh, I know.

It's crazy.

Uh, and another officer lied to this.

Police officer about there being an audit.

So actually at trial, that was one of the ways that I impeached the police officer is

I brought in the custodian of records from LAPD property or evidence division who signed

off on the, um, subpoena where he responded that there were no records.

Now, in terms of your client alibi, is there any kind of evidence of where he might be at

this time of the shooting?

Absolutely.

He was at home with his foot in the cast up in the air and his entire family was home

with him.

Um, they lived, the family had a one bedroom apartment where it was mom and dad.

He had a brother, two sisters, his, uh, the mother of his child and his baby.

And pretty much as far as I recall, everybody was home that night.

And you see, you had, you got statements from everybody, right?

My investigators did.

Of course, the police never bothered to interview any of my client's alibi witnesses.

Now, is there anything other than their word that verifies that he was there?

Or is this just, you got to trust the people who, who are closest to him that he was there?

Well, in this case, you kind of have to just trust all of the family that was with him.

But at trial, I did call his doctor, the doctor who treated him and who, his orthopedic surgeon,

who, uh, you know, tried to put his blown up foot back together again.

And he also testified, and he was, again, this was not a paid expert witness.

This was, uh, a doctor who had to report to court for a subpoena

because he was a, a percipient witness to my client's, uh, foot condition.

So he testified, yeah, there's, yeah, this, this kid can't walk, run, hop, jump.

He, he needed to rest.

Uh, any other pre-trial or investigation going on?

I wanted to speak to the gang buddies that, um, were recorded by the cops,

which that proved to be a little bit more challenging.

Um, and enter, you know, the next phase of police officer shadiness.

Uh, the one that made this statement, allegedly made the statement of, uh,

my client being this known gang member with the moniker, with the limp and all of this,

he was a really important person I needed to talk to because I knew he didn't say all of this stuff.

So my investigate, I had my investigator try to find him.

And we found him in a federal prison in New Mexico.

Uh, good for him.

You know, at least it's not a state prison.

It's a club club fed club fed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It turns out he was put into club fed by these same detectives right after he gave his statement.

And it was, I think, done with the hopes to expedite him being deported.

Get him out of here.

So he can't call us out on our life.

Exactly.

Which.

Do you think they had, they gained an advantage at trial if he's deported then?

Or like maybe they can be like an unavailable witness and they can bring in his, the cops

version of his statement or.

I mean, honestly, I don't know what was going through their mind, but when we found this,

this, um, this person, you know, that was, that was the first part of a very difficult next set of, uh, things that need to happen.

How the heck am I supposed to get this guy from a federal prison in New Mexico over to our, our, you know, California to, to, to court.

So that became a really complicated process, but we ended up getting the court to sign off on it.

There had to be a lot of cooperation between New Mexico, um, police authorities, correctional authorities, federal government.

It became a big, uh, who's going to transport him.

And, you know, New Mexico said, well, we'll take him as far as the California border, but then you guys got to pick him up.

So it was not easy, but we finally got him to local county jail.

And, um, that was.

Because you wanted him as a witness.

Well, I wanted to talk to him.

You know, I, I want, I always want to talk to all of the witnesses as well and, and get an idea of what's going on.

I just said, but why don't you just go out to New Mexico and talk to him?

Why did you have to do this whole process of bringing them to you?

Well, I had my investigator.

I mean, who are you?

I know.

Right.

I remember you announcing me as this, this public defender that seems to get a lot of not guilty.

The world just comes to you, huh?

That's how it works.

That's how I roll.

No, I had my investigator go out and my investigator got the statement from him originally.

Um, he, he didn't really want to cooperate too much from what I remember.

Um, he denied making any statements that talked about insane or the shooter, which I know that that's true.

He was being truthful with our investigators.

So once my investigators confirmed that he never said all of this stuff, confirmed the recording.

At this point, I knew I needed him for trial because he was going to be an impeachment witness.

Well, he was actually going to be the witness, but I wanted to make sure I talked to him.

So we got him over to California.

He was in local custody.

And, uh, I went out to, to speak with him.

And he, I, I remember he had a really interesting moniker.

Um, termite.

Hmm.

Oh.

Yeah.

I had to go.

I went to go meet termite.

The other, uh, gang friend of his was shorty.

The other one.

More conventional.

That was a little more conventional.

Termite, I thought was, that was, that was interesting.

So he, uh, I went and, and met with him and, and he at first was a little standoffish.

And he said, you know, I don't know why I'm here.

And I said, I'm sure you don't.

And I said, I represent, you know, my client who, who was being charged with this murder.

And he's, you know, immediately is saying, well, I don't know anything about it.

And I said, well, actually I, I know, I, I believe you.

Um, I know you have no idea about this case.

And I said, but the reason why I'm here is because you gave a statement to the police.

And he said, well, yeah, but I didn't tell them anything.

And I said, again, I know.

Cause I listened to your statement, but that's not what they wrote in their police report.

Um, and he, he looked pissed, you know, he, I'm sure he's not a fan of the local enforcement.

I'm sure.

And he doesn't want to be known as the guy who ratted out other people.

Especially since he never did, you know?

So, um, he, he was pretty pissed when I told him.

And I said, I asked him, do you want to know what they said?

And he said, he, he did not want to read the police report.

Um, which is fine.

I didn't think that that was necessary.

I did tell them, well, you know, they did mention in their report,

they wrote that you out somebody and that this and that.

So I asked him, do you know somebody named insane?

And he said he did.

He said it's, uh, some gang member that he's known for a long time.

An older man who's been, I believe at Pelican Bay for the last 20 years.

So that doesn't match my client.

So again, it was just another lie that the police wrote in their report

without doing any fact checking or anything, just, you know, to sell a story.

They've painted my client as he's this, uh, he's this criminal kid.

We can't give him the moniker criminal though.

Cause that's taken, right?

Right.

He's, uh, no, but he's, he's out for revenge.

Cause he just got shot and, and let's give him a moniker.

Let's call him insane.

And he's so insane.

He has no gang tattoo.

Right.

Any, any record of being a gang member.

Yeah.

That's, that is insane.

Yeah, exactly.

So, um, the termite became a very helpful, great witness.

And we ended that conversation by him telling me, uh, well, you, you know what?

I'm on your side.

You got me on this, which was great because at first he did not want to be involved at

all.

He didn't want to come to court.

He didn't want to testify, but he was so upset to find out the police were writing

false reports about him basically snitching people out that, you know, he said, no way.

I'm not, I'm not.

Yeah.

You're like, Hey, you can go in front of a court in front of 12 people, swear to tell the truth

and tell everybody what a piece of shit.

Why are this cop is?

How does that sound?

Yeah.

Any gang member would jump on that.

He liked it.

It was also interesting is I asked him, I said, by the way, do you, do you know?

I, do you know my client?

And he said, well, I know of him, but I know he's not.

He's not a gang member.

And I go, well, I know that too.

How do you know that?

And he said, because I know who the rival gang members are in that gang and he's not

in a gang.

So now I had the decedent's own friend confirming my client is not a gang member, which was great.

Um, I then took a trip to county jail where Shorty happened to be and, uh, spoke with him.

Shorty was another friend, right?

Shorty was another friend of criminals.

Okay.

Shorty was one of the people that dropped off criminal at the hospital and he was identified

by a tattoo on his face.

That said Shorty?

It didn't.

It just said the name of his gang, but it took up a lot of real estate on the face.

So it was pretty identifiable.

Yeah.

And I, same thing.

I introduced myself as being my client's attorney, let him know, Hey, I'm here just because you

gave a statement to the police.

I wanted to, you know, verify whether this is true or not.

And what was interesting about Shorty, he, he didn't really have much to offer one way

or in another.

Um, there was nothing in his statement that helped or hurt my client, but I asked him if

he knew my client and he said he knew my client very well.

And I said, Oh, how do you know him?

And he said that they grew up in the same neighborhood and they were friends growing up.

And I said, Oh, well, so, you know, my client is not a gang member.

And he said, that's right.

And the way he knows that is because after they reached a certain point as teenagers,

uh, the local gangs wanted to recruit them.

And Shorty did get recruited by one of the gangs in the neighborhood.

And he said, I know your client is not a gang member because I joined a gang and he never joined

the rival gang, which is why I'm still cool with him.

You know, they're not necessarily friendly and hanging out and partying, but he also doesn't

have anything against him because my client never joined.

Oh, and then there was the other bit and that was the homeless people.

We were going back to the crackheads.

Right.

They're their star witnesses, right?

True.

So how do you get your star witnesses to make sure that they come to court to testify in the

way you want them to?

Any guesses?

Money.

Oh, wow.

You've been doing this for a while.

Right.

Um, not crack.

It's not the eighties.

It's not the actual.

It's not the crack.

It's actually only I, I, I refer to both of them as crack heads, but in reality only one

of them was a self admitted crack head.

The other one did not admit to using crack.

So yeah, so the police use, uh, money to get the, uh, homeless crack people to come to court,

right?

How do they do that?

What exactly do they do?

So I find out probably a day before trial or the day of trial, um, that the police, in

addition to having removed them from the alley and housing them somewhere, that that entire

time from the preliminary hearing to trial, they had been paying them.

How'd you find out that out?

The DA handed over two pages, two single sheets of paper that had an accounting, a summary accounting

of what was given to the homeless people.

Now, mind you, I had requested everything from the DA.

Give me all the paperwork you have.

And in the end I was given these two sheets of paper, which totaled, are you ready?

Drum roll.

$9,250.

They paid these guys 9,000 bucks?

Over $9,000.

Yep.

And this was sanctioned by the police department.

Yes, it was.

So taxpayer is taxpayers dollars.

That's right.

I paid them and you paid them.

We all paid.

We all paid the homeless people.

And you're going to be a dirty cop.

Why are you going to leave a paper trail?

That's that's the part.

If you're going to.

Well, and that's that's where I get back to not a very bright cop because he left a paper

trail from the very beginning.

Is anybody auditing this?

Wouldn't you love it?

No, no.

How does the like justify that payment?

They have to they have to write that up the chain.

I do.

Do you get that paperwork of of what they said to justify the payment?

All I was given was these two single pieces of paper that had a summary of the accounting

that was given.

And I was told that that's all they have.

Now, I found out much later in a deposition that I was that I had to give that there were

hundreds of documents that were never turned over.

Every time these homeless people got money from the cops, they had to sign a paper that said,

I agree to still cooperate with the cops.

I understand that if I stop cooperating, I'm going to lose my money.

All I mean, this would be prime impeachment.

Right paperwork.

This would be great for trial.

None of it was turned over.

It must have been at least two, three hundred pages.

It was almost like a ream of paper.

So you just get like a little itemized statement saying on this date, they got this much money.

On this date, they got this much money.

I didn't even get that.

I got like a little chart breakdown that said housing, food, miscellaneous.

And it had amounts.

And if you had all those amounts up, it was over nine thousand dollars.

So you so they went from being arrested and harassed by the police weekly to then giving the police the facts that they want.

And now the police are giving them all the food and money and the housing.

Yes.

So they put them up.

And of course, I was never told where they were.

Luckily, my investigator and I had found them before all of this went down.

But, yeah, they were put up in some hotel.

The cops would pay the the rent for the hotel.

And the officer even testified to this at trial.

He would show up weekly and just give them cash.

Crack heads paradise.

Hey, you know, I don't know how much cracks going for these days, but I have a feeling could buy a lot.

Buy a lot for nine grand.

Shocking.

That's shocking.

So, yeah, this is what they bring to the table now at trial.

They have the eyewitness with the fake story that was never told.

The homeless people.

First eyewitness with the supplemental phone call.

Oh, I forgot the kid was limping.

I forgot.

I totally forgot to tell you about the limp.

So we knew that was bullshit.

Then you have the homeless people who they harassed multiple times a week for four weeks.

Right.

And after they get them to say something, they pay them almost, you know, short of 10 grand.

Over a year, I guess.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah.

A thousand a month.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For almost a year.

And then they built their bullshit case with the gang friends of criminal who supposedly, you know, identify the shooter as being this gang member, this and that, which we know is complete nonsense because we have the actual recordings.

The destroyed bicycles, which they lied about how, you know, why they did that.

And I had the witness to testify that there was never an audit that that's a lie.

So this is their case.

Anything else?

This is their case.

You know, that's all the big stuff.

What about the murder weapon they found on your client?

Oh, yeah.

No murder weapon.

What about the DNA?

Right.

There was none.

Ballistics.

None.

No.

OK.

So then what's the before trial?

What's the posture like?

What's the what's it like with the D.A. then?

Hey, this D.A. has a solid case, man.

He's got an eyewitness that sees my client limping away from the scene.

OK.

He's got the gang guys involved in this who saw my client, this tough gang member known as insane, who they know has a limp.

They know there's no DNA that'll exclude my client because they got rid of that.

But the D.A. has these homeless people who they have no motive to lie.

No.

My client just randomly walked up to two homeless people in a tent and confessed, kind of, to commit a murder.

And they have to pay them because your client's gang friends are going to kill them.

Of course.

The D.A. is going to believe the trustworthy homeless people over, I guess, your client's family, right?

Right.

And science.

And science.

Let's not forget science.

And termite.

And termite.

But again, the D.A. never bothered to listen to any of these recordings before trial.

I'm convinced because had he done so, he would have known that termite wasn't going to say what was in the police report.

You know what?

Now that I think about it, there was more.

Ah, yes.

OK.

There's more.

I thought so.

I knew you were hiding something from us.

There is always more.

At preliminary hearing, they had to somehow convince the judge that this was a gang crime and that my client was a gang member.

So we had the gang enhancement then.

They did.

And we have a problem because my client is not a gang member.

And there's no.

FI cards.

There's nothing.

There's nothing to show that he's a gang member.

So when in doubt.

Lie.

Lie.

Call a police officer that will lie.

So the evidence that they presented that my client was a gang member, because again, we don't actually have facts, evidence or paperwork to support this.

No admissions, prior admissions or anything like that.

All they had was, at preliminary hearing, they called their gang expert cop, who happened to be one of the cops that arrested my client, that when they came to get him at his home, while he was in a cast, unable to walk.

And this officer put him in the cop car.

He testified that he waited until, well, I don't know if he waited, but he waited until no other cops were around, no other witnesses were around.

So it's just him and my client who's in the back of a cop car.

And he says, he asked my client, are you a gang member?

And my client.

Very proud.

Nodded.

Mmm.

One time, one head shake up and down.

There you go.

Self-admitted.

Wow.

Self-admitted.

Now I asked him, did you document this in any way?

Because now this is really key.

Now we've got the very first bit of evidence, actual evidence that my client is a gang member.

So you documented this, right?

No.

You FI card him, right?

No.

You certainly told the lead detective, because I mean, this is his case, right?

This is his baby.

And you finally got, this is a key part of the evidence.

You told him that my client just admitted to being a gang member, right?

No.

It was his dirty little secret.

He just wanted to share it with the preliminary hearing court.

Oh.

So the first time that that came out was at the prelim and testimony.

There was no prior report.

That's right.

You didn't even know that was going to happen.

That's right.

There was, I was wondering the entire prelim, how they were going to prove my client was a gang member.

Well, didn't, was the DA shocked too then?

Well, again, we have to go back to, I think DA's, the DA's just believe everything that police officers say.

Now the DA didn't have any information before this officer testified.

So.

How did they know to put this person up and what this person would say?

Well, he, I guess he was their gang expert cop.

I don't know.

I'm at a loss.

I literally was waiting with bated breath to hear what evidence they have that my client is a gang member.

So how many cops are on the sly now?

You got the, the investigating cops, the two cops, Dave, I don't feel comfortable implying a conspiracy here.

So wait.

Oh, okay.

All right.

This is all unrelated.

Okay.

Coincidental lying.

Coincidentally to perfect storm of lies.

Yes.

We've got the two partners unrelated and not conspiring, but yet both agreeing to all these facts is true.

Uh, the officer involved in the destruction of the bicycles, the gang officer who lied about my client nodding his head up and down one time.

That was not ever documented.

So at trial, before trial, I subpoenaed all the police officers in this case.

And it was really interesting because I got a call like the night before trial or maybe two nights before trial from one of the officers who was listed in a police report who got the subpoena.

And he said, hey, I'm just calling because I'm a little curious why you're subpoenaing me.

I didn't have anything to do with this case.

And I said, oh, okay, well, you know, what, what, what involvement did you have?

You know, he said, well, honestly, me and my partner were they were there the day of the arrest.

And our only responsibility was to be in the alleyway and make sure that nobody takes off kind of secure any back perimeter.

So nobody's hopping fences and taken off.

And I said, okay, well, did you write a report or anything?

No, no, we were literally there as backup just to make sure nobody took off.

And I said, okay, who was your partner?

And I said, wait, did you have any involvement with any of the witnesses?

Anybody?

My client, the defendant, nobody.

He said, no, we were just, that's why he was so shocked that he was getting a subpoena to come to court.

And I asked him, well, who was your partner?

Your partner, you said you and your partner were back there because I wanted to eliminate unnecessary witnesses.

Do you want to take a guess who his partner was?

The head nodder?

The head nodder.

Oh.

The cop who said that he took my client aside with no other witnesses asked him if he was the gang expert.

Oh.

Who asked, is my client a gang member?

And my client nodded in the affirmative one time and it was not documented.

Um, yeah, this cop said, yeah, me and that guy, we never talked to anybody.

We were in the alley just making sure nobody took off.

So I now had a cop who would impeach their own cop on the stand about what happened.

So now it's like getting hard to keep all these secrets and make sure nobody gets wind of anything.

Cause now I'm afraid that if dirty gang expert cop finds out I'm talking to his partner.

Right.

His partner is going to out him either that or they have so much confidence that they can say and do whatever they want that who cares who I talk to.

But I really was nervous that one cop was going to out the other is being a big old liar.

It's all too good.

This is like everything's set up.

It's so crazy.

So with all of this still, there's no offer.

And we go to trial.

Yeah.

So what are you going?

Like, what are you saying to the DA?

Like, are you asking for an offer?

Did you make an offer?

Did you make a counter offer?

The only offer we would take is a dismissal.

Cause my client is a hundred percent innocent.

You told the DA.

I said that.

I said, you need to dismiss this case.

My client did not do this.

He could not have done it.

But certainly you had to point out certain aspects of the evidence.

Was it just your, the family and his foot?

Are you also pointing out the fact that if you were to listen to the audio recordings,

you'd see their line?

Or are you just going with your alibi defense?

I'm just going with the alibi.

Science.

And again, science.

I didn't want to show my full, you know, hand of cards at this point because I can see

it wasn't going anywhere.

The response.

You're pretty far off between we want life and we want dismissal.

Exactly.

And again, just the interaction that you're having, you know, you speak to the DA, you

see how they are.

You kind of, you know, some have reputations, some are good, some are bad.

And just talking to him, I, I could get the sense that he was pretty cocky.

He was pretty arrogant.

He thought he had a great case and he's like, no, sorry, it's not going to happen.

So at this point it was like, fine, bring it.

So, so what kind of jury are you looking for here?

You know, you want, you definitely want somebody in this case that has just good old common

sense.

You know, anybody who knows anything about your body mechanics and how important an Achilles

tendon is would know there is no way somebody is running from a crime scene after with a severed

tendon.

Um, you know, people who usually I actually typically stay away from nurses.

I, I always kick nurses.

That's kind of my go to thing.

Anyone who's a nurse, I automatically boot them off.

Why is that?

They tend to be very prosecution friendly.

I find, um, they're, they're pretty anti criminal defense from the get go.

Um, I don't know.

It's just kind of this rule of thumb that's worked for me.

So sorry to, to nurses out there everywhere, but you're getting booted off my cases usually.

Right.

But in this case, I felt like somebody who had some medical knowledge, even a nurse who's

normally my, my, uh, non go to person.

Uh, I, I, I would keep them because they would understand that there's physically no way.

I mean, no one wants to convict an innocent person.

And I think in this situation, it's not, it's not like your client is a gang member and is

wrongly charged.

It's, um, hold on to your phone.

It's okay.

Okay.

Let me turn it off.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Anya's a very busy, uh, hardworking woman guys, you know, and we're just glad that she

was able to take some time out and, uh, share her story with us all today.

So, oh, there stood it.

All right.

So, um, yeah, also let's see.

So I, I, in this case, I didn't mind somebody who has some knowledge, medical knowledge.

Um, what about your anti-police people?

I'm sure you gotta have anti-police people in this case because there's always people that

believe that cops would never do this.

And of course the DA has always come back with why would a police officer risk his job

and risk their badge and their livelihood, blah, blah, blah.

And people buy into that argument.

Right.

Well, you can't, actually, I think you're, you're not allowed to argue that in closing.

That's actually prosecutorial misconduct to argue that a police officer wouldn't lie

because they would lose their job and they wouldn't risk it.

No, but what they do is they ask the officer on the stand.

I'd be like, did you, did you lie and make this up?

And you know, would you risk your job?

And they, they get it in, in some way through the cop and then they, then they'll argue it.

But I would say there's no risk.

That's the thing.

There's, we assume there's a risk.

There's no risk.

There's no committee or arm of the, of the DA's office or cops that really go after police

officers that commit crimes, that lie, that perjure.

There's no oversight committee that evaluates a police officer's testimony after a jury trial

to see whether or not this person is lying.

And if there is one, it's just a cover up.

They just, they'll, there's no risk.

I don't see anything happening to these officers.

In my case, I had, I had concrete evidence.

I had this officer's testimony under oath.

He perjured himself multiple times at the preliminary hearing, at the trombetta hearing.

And then at trial, he stuck to his lies and, you know, no amount of witnesses that said that

is not true.

No amount of records, physical records, like the cell phone records that clearly showed

there was never a second phone call on that day.

No amount of, hey, look, this actual recorded interview is different than what you wrote in your report.

They'll come up with a story for all of it.

And there was no consequences for the, for the cop.

He perjured himself multiple times.

I'm actually curious about opening statements here,

because this is a case that you've been holding a lot of information close to the chest.

Yes.

How much are you actually divulging with respect to these transcripts and what you actually know?

Are you, are you putting it all out there during opening statement?

All of it.

I put it all out there.

I, I, my opening statement was longer than probably all of my openings combined.

I put it all out there.

I wanted the jury to know from the beginning what to look out for.

And so that they, from the get go, were on alert that everything that the cop is going to say is going to be a lie.

I literally do not trust anything that comes out of his mouth.

Even the fact that he's a detective because he admitted under oath that he actually never passed detective school or whatever it is.

So that means, I mean, in voir dire there, in voir dire then jury selection, you were hammering cop credibility.

Yes.

Saying cops, they can lie, they will lie.

Are you open to that jurors?

Yes.

You, they say yes.

And then your opening statement, you continue with that theme.

Yes.

Now they're going to lie to you.

Yes.

Normally, what do you do in the opening statement then?

Oh, it's case by case.

Okay.

You know, it depends.

I've actually reserved opening statements in trial before.

I've thought about doing that.

You know, the one time I did it, it was another not guilty.

Not guilty.

Nice.

So it, it just depends.

It just depends on, on the case.

Okay.

So then how did the evidence, the impeachment roll out in trial then?

Anything that, anything that you remember of note that was like exciting, like exciting, or they just look like a huge liar.

And how did the cop respond?

It all just, it all just came out.

It all came out.

The cop looked like a liar.

When I confronted the cop about the recordings that were clearly different than his bullshit police report where he made up things, he started to backpedal.

Oh, well, when term I, okay, when he made that statement, see what happened was I, I went in and he told me all this stuff.

And then I realized that the microphone and the recorder weren't on.

So I told him to wait.

And then I left and I turned on the recorder.

And when I came back, he then didn't say any of that.

Of course, the cop doesn't, you know, I mean, if that were true, it's obviously bullshit.

But had that been true, the cop would have been like, wait a minute.

That's not what you just said.

You just told me about, you know.

Or you put it in the police report too, that, hey, I didn't turn the recorder on.

Originally he said this.

When I turned the recorder on, he only said this.

Right.

And of course, you know, the witness testified.

Termite.

Termite testified.

And what was great.

Do you call him Mr. Termite?

How do you go about that?

We actually used his legal name.

But I'll never forget Termite because that was the most unique street name I had ever heard.

But what was so funny about that is the DA is the one who called Termite.

The DA called Shorty because again, all they are going on is the police reports, which are a bunch of lies.

So the DA calls him and has no idea what he's about to hear, which was just great for me because I'm sitting there going, oh, hey, Termite.

I know you.

You know me.

I know what you're going to say.

DA has no clue.

And the DA actually wanted to start treating his own witnesses as hostile witnesses, which is not at all proper because they weren't.

They were actually telling the truth.

They were answering the questions.

They were answering the questions honestly.

He just wasn't getting the answers he wanted.

Exactly.

I then in turn called both of them as my expert witnesses in gang.

Oh, your gang expert.

They were my gang experts.

I did not have a gang expert that I called at trial like a one, you know, that you would pay and professional.

Figured who better to talk about expertise of these gangs, but the gang members themselves, especially ones that have personal knowledge that my client is not a gang member.

They know the neighborhood.

They know how they grew up.

Yeah, they know the members of the opposite gang.

So that was a nice little twist.

And how's the the DA responding to like the impeachment?

Like when you impeached officer with the recorded statement or the interviews, like what's his response?

I mean, he was frustrated, clearly, but there's only so much he can say or do.

The evidence is what it is.

And I had concrete proof that everything coming out of this detective, fake detectives mouth was a complete lie.

So I know he's frustrated in my closing argument, which I know they they say not to go on for too long.

Like 30, 40 minutes.

Right.

Three hours.

Three hours.

It was a three hour closing.

It did.

It did get broken up by lunch.

OK, so it was a three hour closing.

And because you cared that much about your case.

Yeah.

And you have so much.

And there was just so much stuff to talk about.

I mean, and and this probably isn't something that a lot of people may do or would maybe even recommend doing.

But I literally call this cop every single name in the book.

Now, do you think in your closing argument?

Oh, in my closing.

I said he is a liar.

He is a manipulator.

He is a piece of garbage.

He is.

I mean, without using obscenities and being in contempt of court, I called him every horrendous name I could possibly call him.

And I said, because that's what a person who knowingly tries to, you know, frame an innocent person for murder.

That's what that is.

Do you think the the D.A. by the end of all the evidence before closing arguments, do you think he still believes what the cop fed him?

This particular D.A., I think he did.

There was there was a part of him that just wouldn't let it go.

After the verdict, he stormed off like he stomped angrily.

He stomped off like like a child that's like having a tantrum and walked right past me as the the jurors are hugging me and my client's family in the hallway.

And he just storms off.

And does he try to explain?

No.

Anything?

No, no, no.

He acted like like a little child.

And and so that behavior makes me think that he did believe the police or he just wanted to win or a combination of both.

But it certainly wasn't about what happened.

Justice.

Justice.

The truth.

So you talked to the jurors in the hallway then?

I did.

What were they saying?

They could not believe that this case was brought against my client when it was clear that he had nothing to do with this.

They they were shocked.

They were shocked.

And it's sad because there was a follow up internal affairs investigation that nothing came of it.

And I feel like.

Is that the the later on you found out when you testified?

Yeah.

Well, no, it was there was an internal affairs investigation that was done just like in house.

And.

About the perjury or the the framing.

The conduct.

I think all of it.

Yeah.

For all.

How many cops were involved in this?

Like for three of the officers?

There was two because there were two detectives that were partners that were the lead detectives.

Well, not detectives.

I'm sorry.

Investigators.

Plus one.

We had one detective and his plus one.

The plus one was the one who took the reins as being, you know, I'm the lead guy.

And I mean, I mean, it probably helps the other one that he literally lied to him about the translation in front of him.

He may not even known.

Right.

Going on.

Right.

But that's what I'm saying, though.

You know, you're saying there was an internal affairs investigation because of these cops conduct in this case.

Right.

And nothing happened.

Correct.

So that's when they're still on.

They're still out there when the day says you wouldn't risk your job and lie.

Well, there is no risk because even internal affairs won't do shit.

Right.

It's a joke.

And, you know, over the years I've had other attorneys reach out to me saying, hey, I've got this cop on my case and I just found out that he paid a witness some cash.

And didn't you have a case like this?

I'm hearing that he's still doing the same shit.

And I get it.

In some cases they do have legitimate maybe relocation, you know, needs that they have to relocate a witness who's in fear for their life.

But the these homeless people testified that they were not scared.

You know, they didn't they didn't want to relocate.

They like their little tent area.

So the cop is up to the same shady behavior.

Maybe this time he's passed by now he's passed his little cop test and became a big boy detective.

I don't know.

But he's up to the same shenanigans.

What about your client?

How how did he take this victory?

He was really happy, you know, and we still keep in touch.

Just he was he was overcome with emotion.

Very grateful.

He cried afterwards.

I got a really nice bouquet of flowers.

Oh, it was very sweet.

His family was very sweet.

They is his mother.

She called me an angel.

Oh, she's a liar.

So no, the family was was very grateful.

And and I was happy that it had a happy ending.

But to go through all of that and just to see all of the layers of.

Of bullshit and lies and shady, shady behavior that, you know, you think the cops are out there to gather the facts because they want to find the appropriate person responsible for the crime and bring them to have them brought to justice.

And and in this case, there is somebody who killed criminal out there and he never he never had to to face the charges.

Well, you you did a great job.

Well, you you did a great job at this case.

Yes.

You were truly his angel.

Thank you.

The prep work was amazing to get just to get out there onto the scene and get to meet the witnesses.

Look at the location and get a feel for the case in the beginning was crucial.

Yeah, it's really important to do that right away and get a feel for the the like you said, the location meet with the witnesses while still information still fresh in their mind.

Always bring an investigator or another person with you so that you don't become a witness, the buddy system.

Well, yeah, you don't want to be the only witness in the case because then they'll have to find another lawyer.

Yeah.

So, Anya, we always close with this.

OK.

You're a public defender.

Yes.

And we want to know.

Tell our audience, why did you want to be a public defender?

I want to have a job that I can uphold the Constitution and that protects everybody.

I also have.

Wait, no, this is not your interview for why you want to.

No, no, no.

This is like a hand response, you know, as cheesy as it sounds to you.

You know, it's how I feel.

I I've never had a fondness for police.

I didn't want to be on the side that supports cops and has to, you know, sit next to them and buy their bullshit, which obviously there's a lot of that happening.

And I just I just think it's really important that the system is kept in check.

And I think that's what criminal defense attorneys do.

They make sure that they hold people.

This the prosecution and cops accountable for what they're alleging and charging and what they're doing.

And you're protecting your client.

Yeah, I think that's the coolest thing ever.

You're pretty badass.

Thanks, man.

Thanks for for being on our show.

And Michael, thanks for co-hosting today.

Thanks for having me.

Pleasure being here with you.

Thank you so much for for having me.

And, you know, come back again whenever you get another not guilty.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we'll do.

All right.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of another not guilty.

Shout out to Daniel Mark, creator of A&G's original theme music and our audio engineer, Chris Adams.

And guess what?

We have another not guilty story coming your way next week because we public defenders fight injustice every single day in the American criminal system.