Fairfax County Police Watch: Jailed cop Carl Casilli released on bail pending appeal

Nicole Cox

A corrupt WA Police detective who provided his lawyer lover with classified police information has been granted bail, pending an appeal of his sentence.

Casilli was sentenced to nine months in jail and fined $2000 on July 15 after pleading guilty to 17 charges of illegally accessing information on a police computer to pass on to lawyer Kristin Clohessy, with whom he was having an affair at the time.

On Wednesday, Casilli’s lawyer, Chris Miocevich, confirmed his client had been released from custody on bail on Monday but declined to comment further to Fairfax Media or provide the grounds of appeal.

The Corruption and Crime Commission investigation found that Casilli had handed Ms Clohessy sensitive police files including affidavits about telephone and surveillance intercept warrants, police incident reports and personal details about some of her clients. She also obtained a DVD of a police interview with a murder suspect.

He also repeatedly accessed personal information from the police database about Ms Clohessy - a one-time V8 Supercar model who works for Hammond Legal and is now married to outspoken Perth lawyer John Hammond - and her mother.

The offences occurred between 2008 and 2013.

Last week, the CCC defended its decision not to charge Ms Clohessy, saying there was insufficient evidence to pursue a case against her after a five-month investigation into the matter.

"After assessing all of the evidence available, it considered that there was insufficient evidence to sustain a prima facie case against the lawyer,” a CCC spokeswoman said.

The decision comes despite the WA Criminal Code stating that any person who is “party” to an offence can be charged for enabling, aiding or procuring another person to commit the offence.

In addition, the law states that when two or more people form a common intention to commit an unlawful act in conjunction with one another, each is deemed to have committed the offence.

Casilli was once described as a tenacious police officer who had worked on several high-profile homicide investigations including the death of Supreme Court registrar Corryn Rayney.

The detective sergeant quit the WA Police force after being charged with 17 offences, including 15 counts of unlawful use of a restricted-access computer system, unlawful dealing of intercept warrant information and supplying a video record of interview.

In sentencing Casilli, Deputy Chief Magistrate Elizabeth Woods said a term of imprisonment was the only option, noting that while he had not benefited directly from his actions the offences could contribute to “an erosion in public confidence” of the WA police force.

Magistrate Woods said release of the intercept warrant information was particularly serious and while she did not know the content of the affidavit, it was normal to include the names of informants and undercover officers as well as disclose police methodology.

Ms Clohessy declined to comment last week but Mr Hammond defended his wife on 6PR Radio, saying if he believed Ms Clohessy was dishonest or capable of doing anything illegal he would not have married her.

“From what I’ve seen, she’s done absolutely nothing wrong,” Mr Hammond told 6PR.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.