Cops Frame Innocent Man, Take His Children, Award him 1 Dollar for Destroying his Life

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Cops Frame Innocent Man, Take His Children, Award him 1 Dollar for Destroying his Life

The abuse inflicted upon Boise resident Brian J. McNelis by the Ada County Sheriff’s Office is infuriatingly commonplace in post-constitutional America. The legal vindication he won last May, following a five-year legal ordeal, was very much out of the ordinary. Following a four-day federal civil trial in which McNelis represented himself, a jury ruled that former Ada County Sheriff’s Deputy Stephen Craig had perjured himself in order to obtain the warrant that led to a January 6, 2010 raid on McNelis’s home.

On the basis of alleged evidence that was never properly booked by the Sheriff’s Office or proven to exist, McNelis was arrested and charged with drug trafficking. Two days later, as he prepared for an emergency shelter care hearing for his high school-age daughter Andromeda, McNelis was confronted by a deputy (identified as “Officer Rodarte” in court documents), who demanded that he surrender custody of the girl. If he proceeded with the hearing, McNelis was told, he would be arrested for “child endangerment” and “felony injury to a child.”

Forced to accede to this extortion demand, McNelis relinquished custody of Andromeda, whom he hasn’t seen since – and who was alienated from him as a result of the spurious and unsubstantiated charges against him. In addition to being ostracized by other family members, McNelis, a commercial painter, lost several very profitable contracts as a result of the felony charges.

In his affidavit requesting a search warrant, Deputy Craig claimed to have received an anonymous tip that there were “a half-dozen” marijuana plants growing outside McNelis’s home. In December 29, 2009, Craig reportedly conducted a “trash pull” outside the residence that yielded no evidence of a crime. A second “pull” allegedly carried out after midnight on the morning of January 6 supposedly turned up an unspecified amount of material he identified as “marijuana trimmings” on the basis of a field test.

“How much stuff was there?” Craig was subsequently asked by internal affairs investigator John Lewis.

“I really don’t know,” Craig replied.
“Did you take any pictures of any of this stuff?” Lewis inquired.
“No, I did not,” Craig admitted.
“You didn’t send it to the ISP [Idaho State Police] forensic lab, correct?” persisted Lewis.
“That’s correct,” Craig responded, explaining that “I felt that there was no need to. It was a small quantity, field test was positive.” For the same reason, Craig continued, he didn’t bother to tell his patrol supervisor about his discovery at the time.
Not only did Craig not bother to document his alleged discovery, he didn’t confirm that the trash through which he had rummaged had actually belonged to McNelis. Among the items he claimed to have found was an unremarkable “white envelope” addressed to Brian McNelis.
“I don’t know if it was junk mail or a bill,” Craig explained to the internal affairs officer. “I didn’t look at it.”

Implausibilities, misrepresentations, and errors abounded in Craig’s affidavit. In describing the trash pull, Craig incorrectly listed BFI as the trash removal company, rather than Allied Waste, and listed the wrong day for garbage removal. He gave the wrong street as McNelis’s address. He misreported the time of the second trash pull, offering a chronology that would have had him working a 20-hour shift…..More Here

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