A filing dated Wednesday indicates that the woman at the center of a witness tampering case against three Richmond police officers made another attempt to contact one of the men.
The “notice of filing” was filed Wednesday afternoon with the Madison Circuit Clerk’s office indicating that Richmond Police Department patrolman Brian Hensley received a message and a “friend request” on the social networking site Facebook from April McQueen, the alleged victim in the case.
Hensley and patrolman Garry Murphy are charged with complicity to witness tampering or intimidating a participant in a legal process for allegedly assisting Sgt. James Rogers in making threats toward McQueen in connection with allegations she made to Madison County Sheriff’s Office investigators before recanting.
Madison Circuit Judge William G. Clouse enforced a no contact order between the officers and McQueen at arraignment hearings earlier this month.
The text of the message is included in a copy of an e-mail Hensley received and forwarded to attorney Scott Crosbie, one of the two lawyers representing the officers.
The message reads as follows: “Hey please don’t hate me.....U probably do but I am so sorry for what it is worth about this thing....I promise I did not start this stuff!!!! Mary is trying to help me figure it all out. I wish u the best in life.”
Court documents included in the case file for the officers indicate McQueen has retained Louisville attorney Mary Sharp to represent her.
The “friend request” message appears to be an automatically generated form message from the site, according to a copy of the message filed with the court.
Chief Larry Brock said Friday that the Richmond Police Department does not yet have a policy regarding the use of social networking sites like Facebook by sworn officers, but that a model policy being developed by the Kentucky League of Cities may be implemented “in some form” in the future.
A previous filing in the case documented text messages McQueen had sent to Rogers following his appearance in Madison Circuit Court on Feb. 11.
Crosbie and attorney Jim Deckard filed a notice Feb. 18 detailing the messages, which included a redacted portion as well as the message “U looked so good thurs” to Rogers.
A supplemental filing dated Feb. 19 indicates that because of problems in compiling the messages into one continuous message for court records, the message “hap val day” was not included in the filing. All of the messages were sent on Feb. 14.
McQueen admitted sending the text messages to Rogers during a brief telephone conversation with the Register on Thursday.
Wednesday’s notice follows a 15-page motion filed Monday by Deckard and Crosbie that seeks to expand the no contact order in the case to cover Commonwealth’s Attorney David Smith’s office as well as Madison County Sheriff Nelson O’Donnell and his department.
The motion alleges that Smith, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Jennifer Smith, O’Donnell and several sheriff’s deputies attempted to intimidate McQueen during the grand jury investigation that resulted in the indictments against Rogers, Murphy and Hensley.
Jennifer Smith issued a statement Thursday denying all the allegations, saying, “we do not intimidate witnesses.”
O’Donnell declined to comment Thursday about the allegations, citing the ongoing nature of the case. “I’m not going to say anything that would jeopardize the outcome of the case,” O’Donnell said.
A pretrial conference is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday in Madison Circuit Court, where Clouse is expected to hear the no contact motion. The commonwealth’s attorney’s office is expected to file a written response to the motion in advance of the hearing, Jennifer Smith said Thursday.
Brian Smith may be reached at bsmith@richmondregister.com or at 624-6694. For breaking news, follow Brian at www.twitter.com/RR_BSmith.
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