I get this question quite a bit.
Because I have been abused by the legal “system” I know what it is and I assume that others should know too.
Most folks do not bother with learning any of this until they have to, and by then it could be too late.
A Brady Cop is one that has been convicted of a crime or been dishonest in their job, or in other areas of their personal or professional lives.
It means they can be impeached as a witness, in other words – they are not credible witnesses because their own character is in question.
I recently did a story about the conviction of George Hatt for the murder of Andrew and I reported that one of the cops that testified against him was a “Brady Cop” an officer who has a history of sexual abuse and harassment, stealing from crime scenes, lying on warrants, and beating handcuffed and shackled defendants.
Now legally Mr Hatt’s attorney, Jason Scwarz, went to an ex-parte hearing that Mr Hatt knew nothing about and agreed to hide Deputy David Fontenot’s criminal history.
The problem lies in the fact that Snohomish County Prosecutor Mark Roe did not disclose Deputy Fontenot’s entire criminal history.
I am not an attorney but this might mean that George Hatt can get his entire case thrown out and walk away scott free if I am understanding the cases I have been reading.
In going through the case records it almost appears that Snohomish County was trying to throw the case anyway.Just the fact that put a known Brady Cop in charge of investigating the murder of Andrew Spencer’s murder shows that they had no concern about the integrity of this case.
Add to that they never bothered to gather some of the evidence. I learned of this after Mr Schwarz went to George Hatt and told him that I had personally went to his house and stolen his laptop computers.
So I put out a call and received 3 hard drives and once I get to my safe computers I will see what is actually on them. If in fact there is any evidence of the murder on anyone of them, I will give it to the family and to the FBI.
I did make some mirror images and sent them to about 20 of my “contacts” so maybe they will get some time and find something interesting. They are the ones who can pull all of the forensic info from the drives so I will probably get more from them anyway
I wouldn’t go up there for any reason because I know I’d never walk out of that area alive, but Mr Schwarz thought he had George Hatt fooled.
They barely did the minimum of presenting this case of preserving evidence as it was and through witnesses at the hearing they seemed to be just as surprised that they won as Mr Hatt was.
This is only from when he was a Clallam County Sheriff, he ran from that agency and joined the UW Police Dept before he could be ruled as a Brady cop, and after all the crap he pulled there he did the same thing and ended up at the Snohomish City Police Dept.
The Snohomish Police Dept contract was taken over by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and they for whatever reason kept him on.
Mark Roe knew about his crimes and brushes with internal investigations in every agency he had worked with, yet even when he was given all of this info, Mark Roe declined to Brady David Fontenot in 2010.
Sadly that is usually what happens in most of the police agencies in this state.
Once a cop is about to be put on the Brady list they simply find another job before the determination is made, they are given references from the last police force they worked at and they are free to continue abusing citizens and co-workers.
The reason for allowing this to continue is simple: If a prosecutor puts them on a Brady List then they could lose many different cases. Especially concerning situations where a cop just beat his wife half to death but is scheduled to testify against a citizen accused of doing the same thing.
Worse yet it is usually the prosecutor who makes the decision that an officer needs to be put on a Brady list, the same prosecutors who usually have that cop as a witness on 10 to 50 cases.
Sadly under Mr Roe’s reign there are many many officers who should be on the Brady List but aren’t.
So what does that mean for the citizen who is being accused of a crime?
Because of the Brady ruling, prosecutors are required to notify defendants and their attorneys whenever a law enforcement official involved in their case has a sustained record for knowingly lying in an official capacity.
So we know about the cops that are on the Brady list but what about the one’s who should be but aren’t?
There are many. I was going to try to create a database of these officers who aren’t on a Brady list but should be. Unfortunately there are so many complaints and issues for each individual deputy that it would cost an exorbitant amount of money and time so we will create a new category and goo through each officer’s acts individually.
