The Baltimore City Police Department reassigned two officers to Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy to help locate witnesses after a rash of witnesses failed to show up for court.
The two new witness locators are the first given to the office since this past January when Jessamy asked police to transfer two officers assigned to her after they openly celebrated the acquittal of , 31.
Those officers congratulated Jones and slapped high-fives with him Jan. 23, 2007, the day a city jury returned not-guilty verdicts in a high-profile case in which a young woman accused Jones of rape.
The two positions were left unfilled until this month, when officials saw at the city’s GunStat meeting that in many cases, witnesses — and sometimes victims — were not coming to court, said Margaret Burns, Jessamy’s spokeswoman.
“Mrs. Jessamy has been working with the commissioner to reconstitute the unit,” Burns said.
In 2006, before the transfer, the two officers helped track down witnesses in more than 170 felony cases, she said.
“We’ve had to lean more on our detectives assigned to the case or ask the sheriffs to help,” Burns said.
“It’s especially important given our timelines here at the court to have a team assigned to help with people who are not cooperating or not wanting to come to court. It makes a difference to have someone who can quickly respond.”
Sterling Clifford, spokesman for Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, said the department was “pleased to provide the State’s Attorney’s Office with whatever investigative resources we can.”
The case against Jones, like many other aspects of the investigation into the Southwest Flex Squad, met with defeat in the courts. Before it was disbanded amid allegations of corruption, the Southwest Flex Squad was a highly specialized unit designed to crack down on criminal hot spots as they flared up.
Jones was found not guilty on all counts in the Dec. 27, 2005, alleged rape of a woman in the Southwest police station, causing prosecutors to drop all charges against Jones’ alleged co-conspirators Officers Brian Shaffer and Steven Hatley.
Prosecutors later dropped all charges against Jones in a second, weaker case.
The city paid Jones $60,000 in missed back pay, but fired him from the force after he was found to have a gun in his car while his police powers were suspended.
The Police Department eventually agreed to pay $200,000 and $50,000 to Flex Squad supervisor Sgt. Robert Smith and Detective Vicki Mengel, respectively, to settle a defamation lawsuit filed after a raid of the Flex Squad’s offices.
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