An evidentiary hearing is under way to find if prosecutors improperly withheld exculpatory evidence from defense
The lead prosecutor in the “Fat Leonard” Navy bribery trial was immediately informed of conversations that investigators had with a prostitute linked to the case but expressed uncertainty if the information should be officially documented, according to testimony delivered during a special evidentiary hearing Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino’s ruling on the issue could significantly alter the course of the high-profile prosecution. Kelley said she and the agent did not ask any substantive questions during their brief exchanges with her — via text message and over the phone — because the point was not to interview her but to convince her to come to San Diego to testify.Ynah told the agents that she did not want to come to the U.S. and then — without being prompted — offered her brief side of the story.
Kelley said she and her partner immediately briefed the lead prosecutor on the team, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Pletcher, on their contact with Ynah on March 4 and 8, and then asked how the encounter should be documented. The other agent works for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which apparently has different internal guidelines on when to generate reports on witnesses, Kelley said.
In a motion filed last week, prosecutors acknowledged the report should have been created in the first place but denied that it was a Brady violation. They argued that the information was too vague to be exculpatory, and that Ynah had told them upfront that she had already told the same thing — in even more detail — to a private investigator for the defense a couple weeks earlier.
“DOJ is paying for her travel to the states,” a DCIS agent wrote another regarding the only other prostitute they were able to track down, named Febby. “ would like to provide the witness with reward money for her testimony.”DeLaPena then sent Kelley an email that simply said: “$$ enroute.”
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