Mayor Lucas wants federal prosecutors to review allegations of former KCPD attorney
Hundreds of criminal cases could be reopened if claims prove to be true that the Kansas City Police Department’s legal division purposely withheld public records and suppressed evidence in criminal cases, Mayor Quinton Lucas said Monday.
Former Kansas City Police Department attorney Ryan McCarty laid out a litany of allegations in an eight-page letter written on KCPD letterhead, saying the department’s General Counsel Holly Dodge “consistently, systematically, and unlawfully” closed records that should be made freely available to the public under Missouri’s open records law.
Lucas, who appeared Monday on KCUR’s Up to Date, said the contents of the letter, along with an attachment with hundreds of emails, internal police department documents and correspondence needs to be investigated.
“It is not the sort of thing that can be swept under the rug,” he said.
“If these allegations are true, it suggests that there are very real concerns with how we’re actually doing things administratively.”
Lucas said the letter may require federal authorities, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office, to be brought in to investigate the allegations and whether KCPD has hidden evidence from criminal defendants.
The police board, which meets on Tuesday, should immediately address the concerns contained in the letter, he said.
“What I feel right now is that we’ll be under some other element of it, which could be federal judicial control, like the (Kansas City) school district once was,” Lucas said.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that it has launched an investigation of employment practices at KCPD to determine whether the police force engaged in racial discrimination.
McCarty sent the letter to dozens of individuals including police commissioners, county prosecutors, Gov. Mike Parson, Justice Department officials and criminal defense lawyers.
Accompanying the letter was an attachment that contained hundreds of pages of email correspondence, internal police department documents and correspondence.
In it, McCarty said Dodge closes documents that should be open by claiming they are part of an ongoing investigation.
“Conspicuously, these records happen to be those that would or could present KCPD in an unflattering light,” he wrote. “That is not transparency, but cloaking the proverbial dagger.”
McCarty said Dodge wrongly stepped in to choose which police documents to hand over to prosecutors in response to requests for material in criminal cases that could prove a person’s guilt or impeach the credibility of witnesses - including police officers.
He also said it is the prosecutor’s job, not the general counsel of a police department, to decide what evidence is relevant in such requests, which in legal terms is referred to as Brady and Giglio material.
Interfering with Giglio requests poses a conflict of interest, especially if information casts doubt on an officer in the department, McCarty said.
When he brought those concerns, Dodge shut him out of that process altogether, McCarty said.
KCPD Capt. Leslie Foreman has previously told The Star that “any allegations made have been or will be reviewed and addressed as appropriate.”
McCarty had worked for the police department from June 13 to December 8. Foreman would not say whether he resigned or had been fired.
However, in his letter McCarty said he was terminated.
Lucas said he is concerned about many of the allegations outlined in the letter.
“Claims about the police department hiding evidence, exculpatory evidence of criminal defendants is a huge deal,” he said. “Claims about us grossly violating public records laws consistently — these aren’t we missed an email or anything of that sort — but changing policies to do so.
“And importantly, those items not having been reported to the state board of police commissioners, which is supposed to be the group holding these things accountable, I think creates a real concern.”
