A Southeast D.C. man is expected to admit that he filed a defamation lawsuit falsely accusing a young man he molested of faking the molestation allegations. David Copeland-Jackson briefly won a $3 million defamation judgment against his victim in 2007, based on a civil suit in which he claimed the victim admitted to making up the molestation charges.
The judgment was vacated when his plot was uncovered, and Copeland-Jackson was indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit perjury and obstruction of justice last year.
A plea hearing is scheduled for Friday in federal court in D.C.
To win his defamation case, Copeland-Jackson forged documents, got help from a part-time paralegal who believed he was innocent and duped his molestation victim into signing court documents, according to court records.
Copeland-Jackson was convicted in Ohio in July 2000 of molesting a 13-year-old boy he tutored.
In 2007, he filed a federal suit in D.C. with documents that suggested the victim was recanting those allegations. The victim purportedly said he “willfully lied” in accusing Copeland-Jackson and said he “made a mistake by lying when I told everybody that the plaintiff had sex with me,” according to documents in the case.
But the victim never made those statements, the indictment against Copeland-Jackson alleges.
The indictment says Copeland-Jackson and Peter Brandel, a paralegal who befriended Copeland-Jackson, concocted a bogus lawsuit in Ohio, accusing the victim of burglarizing Brandel’s home, in order to obtain his signature.
Brandel told him he would dismiss that suit if the victim signed papers. Brandel and Copeland-Jackson then copied the signature to forge documents in the defamation suit, authorities say.
Copeland-Jackson also pretended to be a private investigator who found that the victim had family in and had resided in D.C., to explain why the defamation suit was filed in the District, the indictment says.
D.C. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle awarded him the $3 million judgement in 2007, but vacated it a day later when the victim and Ohio prosecutors contacted her about Copeland-Jackson’s past.
The victim wrote a letter to the judge saying he first learned of the suit when he was given a court date. Copeland-Jackson forged the documents saying the victim had been served with the suit, the indictment says.
Brandel pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges last year.
Copeland-Jackson’s attorney could not be reached for comment Thursday.
