Former Hamilton Twp. Lt. Det. Jeff Braley testifies in the murder trial of Ryan Widmer, who last lived in Mason and was convicted in his third trial. Braley, who resigned from the department, is now embroiled in a non-related civil suit. File photo
Janice Morse reports:
A federal court jury is about to begin deliberating in the case of Warren County residents who accuse police of unlawfully raiding an adult birthday party, falsely arresting two partygoers and maliciously prosecuting them.
As of 1:30 p.m., Judge Susan J. Dlott was still providing jurors with detailed instructions as to how to decide the case under both state and federal laws. The trial began Monday in U.S. District Court, Cincinnati, over a party that happened four and a half years ago.
In their civil lawsuit, Hamilton Township residents Ted and Mary Pritchard and two young men who attended their 2007 party — Kevin Clark and Zach Christman — allege police conspired to raid the Pritchards’ party under false pretenses, then tried to cover-up their alleged wrongdoing. Judge Dlott has already ruled that Christman’s right against false arrest was violated under federal law, but the jury must decide whether his right against false arrest was violated under state law.
Wilson Weisenfelder, a lawyer defending Hamilton Township police, asked the jury to grant little or no monetary damages for Christman. Weisenfelder also argued that there was no evidence of a conspiracy or cover-up. He again repeated what he had told the jury in opening statements — that the case was about police trying to do their jobs.
Konrad Kircher, who represents the Pritchards, Clark and Christman, said that, for jurors to believe that, they would have to “ignore a mountain of contrary evidence.”
He said the Pritchards have a constitutional right to be free from unlawful intrusion of police on their premises — and that police concocted a scenario to try to justify going onto the Pritchards’ property. That included a bogus telephone report of loud noise coming from the property, which is located on an acre of land largely isolated from other homes, Kircher said.
A Hamilton Township officer’s wife, Gail Gilbert, who was then living in Butler County, miles away from the party location, called a dispatcher in Warren County and reported: “I hear a lot of yelling and screaming from the 10,000 block of Schlotmann (Road)…I’d rather remain anonymous…it sounds like a big-ol’ party or somethin’ goin’ on.”
Kircher told the jury that Mrs. Gilbert made the call after her husband’s supervisor, Lt. Phil Johnson, asked Officer Roger Gilbert to request the call be made. Kircher played a recording of call for the jury to hear and said, “I want you to ask yourselves: Is this a reluctant wallflower who doesn’t want to cooperate?” Kircher suggested Mrs. Gilbert was an enthusiastic participant in the alleged conspiracy, which could have helped advance her husband’s career if everything had gone as planned.
Weisenfelder, however, countered that Kircher’s arguments were “creative, perhaps the basis for a fictional novel.” Raising his voice, he said, “those claims are not supported from the evidence that’s been presented in this courtroom.” He maintains officers did nothing wrong.
Weisenfelder also said it didn’t matter that Mrs. Gilbert didn’t actually hear the noises she had claimed to hear. He said she was relaying accurate information that police had given her about the party. “The only thing false about it, if you want to call if false, was that she wasn’t witnessing it,” he said.
Kircher rejected that notion. He said that if his clients had made a similar call about someone else they’d be facing prosecution for making a false report.
Defendants in the case include both Gilberts, Johnson, Jeff Braley (then a detective lietuenant) and the estate of Frank Richardson (now deceased but then the police chief of Hamilton Township). Braley denies an allegation that he harassed Mary Pritchard during the alleged outdoor raid, although several witnesses testified they saw his spit showering her in the light cast through a picture window, Kircher said. Braley raised his voice only so she could hear him above the party din, Weisenfelder said.
Braley also denied putting together any sort of plan to raid the Pritchard home to appease Roger McHugh, a township resident who was running for trustee at the time. McHugh was running against Eugene Duvelius, who was on bad terms with Braley, Kircher said. That was because Braley’s investigation of Duvelius helped lead to Duvelius being fired from his position as township police chief, Kircher said. So Duvelius’ political candidacy “was a bad moon rising, as far as Jeff Braley was concerned,” Kircher said. Braley therefore had an interest in complying with McHugh’s wishes and strengthening his alliance with McHugh, Kircher said.
McHugh had alerted Braley to the planned party and characterized it as an underage-drinking bash in the making, Kircher said, but that was inaccurate and Braley did nothing to investigate that claim.
The party was being thrown to celebrate Ted Pritchard’s 52nd birthday and his son’s 21st birthday — and the bulk of the partygoers were Ted Pritchard’s older peers, Kircher said. Christman was 18 at the time and was drinking in the presence of his father, which is legal in Ohio, Kircher said. Weisenfelder said Christman ran when police arrived, and that’s what escalated the whole situation from a routine, non-emergency noise complaint to an officer-safety crisis.
Braley testified that he wanted to protect young people from the dangers of underage drinking so he was just keeping an eye on the situation, as his chief told him to. But Kircher said if that were true, Braley and other officers could have pre-empted the party. “The plan isn’t to try to nip it in the bud even before it gets started…the plan was a bust — because that was the vengeance that Roger McHugh demanded,” Kircher said.
No specific amount of monetary damages is sought, Kircher said, because he is relying on jurors to decide what they think is “fair and just compensation” for the alleged wrongs. But he did say he also wants the jury to award punitive damages to “send a message to the wrongdoer, that we’re not going to tolerate this…and we’re going to make sure the defendants in this case get the message.”
Posted in: News, Widmer Trial |
