Prosecutors scrambled
Tuesday to salvage more than 100 criminal cases investigated by a Louisville
Metro Police officer who has beenindicted on charges of bilking taxpayers for
more than $10,000 in phony overtime.
Christopher Thurman, a
37-year-old officer who specialized in DUI enforcement, including cases that
resulted in murder and manslaughter charges, is accused of official misconduct
and theft by deception. He is facing up to a decade in prison on the felony
theft charge and another year on the misdemeanor corruption count.
Thurman will be arraigned
Monday. The police department said he will remain on paid administrative
re-assignment until an internal investigation can be completed.
His defense attorney, Steve
Schroering, has told the county attorney’s office that if Thurman is called to
testify against the alleged drunk drivers he arrested, the officer will assert
his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Even if Thurman was willing
to cooperate with prosecutors, defense attorneys could use the accusations of
theft and fraud to disparage his credibility — a risk prosecutors might be
hesitant to take before a jury.
Paul Richwalsky, who leads
the county attorney’s DUI unit, said they have not counted all of the cases
Thurman was involved in, though he estimated it to be more than 100.
Thurman was prolific — he
routinely won awards and commendations for the number of drunk drivers he arrested.
Now a team of three prosecuting attorneys will analyze each, Richwalsky said,
to determine which can be saved by testimony from other officers and lay
witnesses or with physical evidence.
Some of the charges will
inevitably be dropped without Thurman’s cooperation, he acknowledged. An
officer patrolling alone, for example, who spots a driver swerving, stops them
for a field sobriety test and takes them to jail typically must testify in
support of their actions. In those cases, without the officer to put on the
stand, the case become nearly impossible to prove to a jury.
Because Thurman’s attorney
already told them he will refuse to testify, Richwalsky said they won’t waste
time trying to subpoena him.
“We don’t like to dismiss
them,” Richwalsky said of the now-weakened DUI cases. “It hurts. It hurts bad.”
Pending Cases
Thurman also has at least
three pending manslaughter and murder cases pending in Jefferson Circuit Court
that involve drunk-driving accidents, according to court records.
Jefferson Commonwealth’s
Attorney Spokesman Leland Hulbert said his office is also analyzing each of
Thurman’s cases to determine if they can be prosecuted without him.
Thurman is listed as a
complaining witness against Joshua Mendez, who was charged with murder, wanton
endangerment, assault, driving under the influence and a series of traffic
violations when he flipped his car while speeding on Newburg Road in December
2012. One passenger, 24-year-old Alfredo Zepeda-Rodriguez, was killed, and
another passenger was injured.
Thurman was also involved
in the investigation of Anthony Smiley, charged with murder and driving under
the influence when he crashed head-on into another car on Manslick Road last
June, killing the driver, 57-year-old Robin Jent.
But his highest-profile
case is the pending manslaughter and drunk driving charges against Christopher
Purcell, an Iroquois High School teacher accused of crashing his Jeep into a
motorcycle in August 2012, killing 31-year-old Tracey Blevins.
Hulbert said it’s too early
to tell which of Thurman’s cases can continue.
“Each case will depend on
his level of involvement,” he said.
It’s not the first time
county prosecutors have had to deal with the aftermath of criminal charges
against police officers.
In 2003, two narcotics
detectives, Mark Watson and Christie Robinson, were convicted in the most
sweeping case of police corruption in the city’s history: forging judges’
signatures, collecting overtime not earned, illegal invasions of private homes,
and pocketing money meant for investigations.
Watson pleaded guilty to
299 felonies and was sentenced to 20 years in jail. He was paroled in 2007.
Robinson was convicted of 20 felonies and sentenced to probation.
The allegations against
them upended the cases they investigated, with charges dismissed and
convictions overturned for more than 50 defendants.
Both the county attorney
and commonwealth attorney said they have already alerted defense attorneys
representing the clients Thurman arrested.
Money he didn't earn
The theft indictment
against Thurman, secured Monday by the Jefferson County Commonwealth’s
Attorney’s office, alleges that in less than two years, between January 2011
and September 2013, Thurman duped the Louisville Metro Government into paying
him more than $10,000 he did not earn.
“Officer Thurman maintains
he is innocent of these charges against him,” Schroering said Tuesday.
Thurman, an officer since
1999, made a base salary of $49,753 in 2011, according to city records.
But he submitted overtime
claims worth $27,894. Added to other incentives and allowances, like uniform
and training stipends, Thurman was paid more than $91,000 that year. The
following year, he submitted overtime claims again worth more than $27,000,
which lifted his total compensation to more than $92,000.
His overtime pay for 2011
and 2012, divided by the time-and-a-half hourly overtime wage, breaks down to
an average of more than 14 hours of overtime each and every week.
In 2013, he got a raise to
$52,166. He submitted claims that year for overtime worth more than $21,000.
The police department
requires that an officer get approval to work overtime from their commanding
officer before the hours are worked, according to the department’s standard
operating procedures.
Officer Carey Klain, a
spokeswoman for the department, said they could not provide specifics on
Thurman’s case because the criminal investigation is pending.
The overtime policy was
last updated in January 2012, and does not appear to have been revised since
the allegation against Thurman arose last fall. He was reassigned to desk duty
in October.
His salary this year
remains at $52,166, according to city records. He has not submitted any claims
for overtime in 2014.
