Caroline Commonwealth’s Attorney John Mahoney: “I am confident that the matter is concluded and from the perspective of the Commonwealth’s Attorney office, the investigator is cleared.” (CP photo by Jessica Crombie)
For months the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office worked under a cloud caused by allegations of wrongdoing made very public by former Commonwealth’s Attorney Tony Spencer against a top investigator.
The investigator maintained his innocence and was backed up by Sheriff Tony Lippa and new Commonwealth’s Attorney John Mahoney. However the fact that he, the investigator, was himself being investigated created personal and professional difficulties for him and had possible repercussions on current and past cases.
That cloud lifted Jan. 20, five months to the day after it appeared.
On Aug. 20, 2015, Spencer submitted a 43-page report to the state Attorney General claiming probable cause for criminal charges against the investigator and requesting further investigation.
Spencer copied and mailed the allegations to numerous defense attorneys, claiming that the state Bar Association told him that was what he should do. Spencer’s action was reported statewide in Virginia Lawyers Weekly, the same publication which also reported Spencer’s courtroom altercation with a local attorney over an out-of-date DUI manual. Both stories were picked up by media outlets around the country.
Spencer’s allegations harkened back to the Cooper vs. Lippa lawsuit that was finally settled out of court last year for $185,000.
The Attorney General assigned the investigation to the Virginia State Police and independent investigators received the mission. The VSP conducted a thorough investigation and turned the results over to the Attorney General. The AG then requested that a Special Prosecutor from outside the county be assigned to review the work of the State Police. Circuit Court Judge Patricia Kelly made the assignment.
One consequence of those allegations was that it called into question numerous court verdicts over the years, albeit temporarily, in which the investigator in question gave key testimony.
Joe Morrisey, a high-profile Richmond defense attorney, jumped on that opportunity to revive the case against gang member Jaymonie Wallace, 19, of Lake Land’Or.
Wallace had been convicted on April 23 of the Sept. 25, 2014 shooting of McArthur “M.J.” Stevens, the leader of a rival gang. On Aug. 20, the Judge confirmed the jury’s 25-year sentence.
Mahoney said that same day Spencer sent the accusations of “probable cause” on the investigator to the Attorney General. The next day, claiming that it was “exculpatory information,” (information favorable to defendants), Spencer sent copies to numerous defense attorneys.
About the same time, Wallace’s original attorney, Tameka Casey, filed a motion for a retrial because of “possible misconduct of the lead investigator in this case.”
While all of this was going on, Spencer apparently reconsidered his earlier decision not to run for re-election and quietly launched a write-in campaign against Mahoney, the eventual winner by a healthy margin.
In December, near the end of Spencer’s term, Morrissey filed a motion to set aside the Wallace case. The motion was handled by another attorney, James Maloney.
The Wallace motion for a new trial was heard in Circuit Court Dec 16. Spencer’s 43-page accusation against the investigator was made part of the motion.
Most of what that investigator testified to at the trial was a recorded confession. That recording was available to the defense during trial.
Rather than argue against the new trial motion, Spencer conceded, Mahoney said. That left the judge no choice but to grant the motion. Judge Kelly scheduled the case for the next Grand Jury day, Jan. 6, to be set for a new trial. Wallace remained in jail, held without bond. The defense contacted the court, worked out an April trial date and submitted a letter confirming the new trial date.
Mahoney said he took action on his first day as Commonwealth’s Attorney, preparing a motion to set aside the granting of the new trial, citing the state Supreme Court Rules of Court, which allows a judge 21 days to correct an error. Mahoney had the motion set to be heard Jan. 13, within the 21-day period.
According to Mahoney, when Maloney learned of that motion the two were able to hammer out an agreement. Mahoney said he was aware that Wallace, before the earlier jury trial, had turned down an eight-year offer.
Mahoney said he was also aware that many of the witnesses were affiliated with gangs and had received the benefit of bargains in return for their testimony. “Such bargains are not unusual or inappropriate,” Mahoney said. “It is the nature of the business that such bargains sometimes must be made… to bring the most guilty and dangerous to justice. It is the nature of the beast.”
Mahoney said investigators also expressed concerns about the difficulty in being able to relocate several witnesses to serve them with subpoenas in advance of an April trial. “I was told ‘lots of those guys are in the wind,’” Mahoney said.
Wallace and his lawyers agreed to a plea agreement to all charges and received a 25-year prison sentence with 14 years suspended, leaving 11 years to serve.
Morrisey told the media his client was “very satisfied” with the settlement and that they had anticipated a plea deal because of the difficulties of retrying the case.
“The Virginia Sentencing Guidelines recommend an active prison sentence between five years, 11 months and 13 years, three months. The 11-year active sentence was consistent with the recommendations of the Virginia Sentencing Commission,” Mahoney said.
“The judge could have denied my motion,” Mahoney said. “When all factors were carefully considered, encouraging the guilty plea was the way to go. The matter is concluded. The defendant gave up his right to appeal.”
Mahoney pointed out that Wallace, now 19, will still be a relatively young man when he is released from prison. If he violates the conditions of good behavior during the next 25 years he can be brought back to court and made to serve the 14 years that were suspended.
Mahoney added that he is proud of the way the investigator continued to perform his duties during those stressful months. Mahoney said that, as a defense attorney, he had tried many cases involving the investigator and never found a reason to question his integrity.
Mahoney said he found the action by Spencer against the investigator in question “strange, because it seemed that he had always been, up until Aug. 20, obviously the CA’s ‘go to guy.’ Caroline County is fortunate to have this investigator.”
The Special Prosecutor determined that there was no probable cause to believe that the investigator had violated any state law. “The investigation could not have been more independent,” Mahoney explained. “There are some semantics involved. Such investigations never use the words cleared or innocent. The official term is ‘no probable cause,’ which is commonly interpreted to mean cleared.
“Turns out that there is a federal component to this mess,” Mahoney added. “The feds are even less forthcoming than state officials. The federal language is ‘neither confirm nor deny.’ Based on my conversation with the federal authority, I am confident that the matter is concluded and from the perspective of the Commonwealth’s Attorney office, the investigator is cleared.”
Editor’s note: Because the CCSO investigator mentioned in this story has not been charged with any crime and has essentially been cleared of the allegations at this point, the Caroline Progress has decided not to publish his name.
-CP Contributing Editor Greg Glassner
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