Henry v MOA: Dueling Transcripts - Schmidt, Redick, Vondolteren, Bucher's Taped Deposition

Today was Anchorage's first real snow day, though not much fell, enough to get everyone to drive slowly.  I'm guessing most people have been lulled by the warm weather and don't have their snow tires on yet.

I got to court late, in time to see the closing of questioning of Schmidt, who I'd seen Friday.

Then Darren Redick took the stand at 9am.  Reddick had been at APD  22 years including time at SWAT and SAU where Henry and others in this trial were.  In fact he headed SAU and was moved from there.

Simonian:  Is it your belief you were disciplined for what you told OEO?
Reddick:  Not just disciplined.
S:  How did you learn outcome of OEO investigation?
R:  I learned it was sustained from Capt Fanning.  He told me complaint was sustained, and he wasgoing to issue me a written reprimand and I would be removed to SWAT team.  I asked how I went from reprimand to remove from SWAT team.  He said nothing bad about my performance, it was good, but he felt I had withheld info at OEO, if he could he’d investigate everyone.
S:  Did you talk about JW’s condition did you withhold anything?
R:  No, told them as best as I could.  

This bit of the testimony captures one of the themes today and previous days:  

1.  The Municipality of Anchorage terminated plaintiff Anthony Henry in part for withholding information that one of his officers, Jason Whetsell, had been diagnosed with MS and that he and the SAU (Special Assignments Unit) were covering for Whetsell and endangering the members of the SAU and Whetsell.  

2.  The Plaintiff is presenting evidence that Whetsell was doing fine.  There were several incidents where he had reactions from his medication, but they were rare and most of the time he had no problems.  

3.  At some point Whetsell filed a complaint with the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) and testimony - as in the excerpt above - suggests going to OEO infuriated the Command because it made them look bad.  In this excerpt above Redick is saying winning the OEO claim was why he was relieved of his duty.  Which is consistent with the Plaintiff's claim that his termination was retaliation for Whetsell's and later Henry's own successful OEO and EEOC complaints.  

With each witness, we go over these incidents (and others) one more time from a slightly different view.  Since it's still the plaintiff's show (that should end tomorrow - Tuesday) so the plaintiff's argument looks better so far.  But the MOA's attorney does poke holes here and there in the testimony.  

Another theme the plaintiffs have is that Jack Carson has been the villain - harassing Whetsell with a series of complaints about his performance, and pushing the case against Anthony Henry for a) protecting Whetsell and b) for compromising a big drug and sex investigation at the National Guard by telling General Katkus that the had found one of the Guard members to be using drugs.  There's also been talk that he also told Katkus that this Guard member was an informant.

Each witness has been grilled over these same topics. 

Today we had a lot of reading of transcripts of what the witnesses said at various investigations - OEO, one conducted by Lt Keven Vandegriff for the Command, and for Rick Brown, the investigator brought up to write a report on this - the Brown Report.  

If you believe the plaintiffs, the Brown Report was commissioned to give Chief Mew the evidence he needed to terminate Anthony Henry.  Instead of doing a thorough and fair investigation, he was steered by the MOA - from Attorney Blair Christensen, to Vandegriff, and Carson, as the key players in this plot.

If you believe the defense (MOA) then there were lots of problems - from the coverup of Whetsell's health issues to the scandals the press was covering about the drugs and sex issues on base - that Henry was in the center of and it was necessary to have a serious investigation.  

As I'm watching this unfold, it looks like no one was without some dirt under their nails.  But back to today.  

Both attorneys had the witnesses read parts of the various transcripts that corroborated their argument.  First the plaintiffs, then MOA cross examined.  I think the real trouble was that none of this is black and white.  Sometimes the attorneys seemed to be hanging everything on a word hear of there.  

For instance, one of the issues in the case is whether there was just one investigation into the National Guard, or two.  This is important because the Plaintiffs are arguing that Carson made up an investigation into the Guard that the police were doing into drugs on the base.  That's why he was obsessed about Henry telling General Katkus about the investigation.  He thought Katkus then told the people at Guard Recruiting to hide the drugs.  Plaintiffs have provided witness after witness who have said:

There was only one investigation - run by the Safe Street Task Force (SSTF) a multi-agency unit coordinated by the FBI.

And there could be only one investigation, because APD only did short term drug busts - one or two days and take them in - while the FBI did longer cases involving larger volumes of drugs.  So, while the SAU (Special Assignments Unit) of the APD did work with the FBI, that was only as part of the Safe Streets Task Force that Carson was not  a part of.  

Furthermore, investigating part of US military was beyond the scope of the APD.  Even the FBI would have to get permission from Headquarters in DC to investigate the Guard without talking to the Adjutant General.  

Therefore, there never could have been more than one investigation, and there only was one, and Carson, if he was investigating drugs at the Guard recruiting office, was running a rogue investigation, which was further tainted by the fact that his wife worked at the Guard recruiting office, and, as Hazelaar testified the other day, was further compromised because Carson thought his 'target' was having an affair with his (Carson's) wife.  

Confused?  That's probably why the attorneys are repeating this stuff over and over.  So the jury finally gets the point.  

And all that background is necessary to understand why MOA's attorney Doug Parker grilled Redick about saying "the Guard Investigation."  He wanted to establish that, although the plaintiff's witnesses have said there was no Guard investigation, and that they said it to Rick Brown, the hired investigator and author of the Brown Report, in fact Redick told Brown there was a "Guard Investigation."

They're going over the transcript of Redick being interviewed by Rick Brown:

Parker:  Brown asked If you knew about the Guard investigation?
Redick:  Yes
P:  Are you aware of investigation into drug dealing with Army NG?  You answered?
R:  Yes, somewhat?
Simonian:  Objection
Judge:  can proceed, you deal on redirect.
P:  Towards the end of interview recall, talking about that topic?  The investigation into National Guard recruiters and drugs?
R:  It came up repeatedly, that’s how they referred to it.
P:  Your statement line 2:  "Like I said, I didn’t have a whole lot of involvement in the Guard investigation, happy to stay out of it.  You called it “Guard investigation”  didn’t you?
R:  Yes
P  As the supervisor you had contact with Carson, …. Hazelaar.   You said ‘Guard Investigation”  R: They referred to it over and over. . . . They did.  [??not sure here exactly??]
P:  line 6 - during the time, for the whole blocked out discussion between Carson and McMillan and You having to disclose confidential info to the Guard.  Did they come to you and say it was wrong.
Simonian:  You cut them off,
R:  but I know there was some contact with the Lt (Henry) and I don’t know if about the confidential informant, but I don’t recall the informant info.
P:  My point from this, the investigator not referring to Guard investigation, but you called it Guard investigation.
R"  Sorry you lost me.
P:  Rick Brown doesn’t call it Guard investigation, but you do.  He’s not using those words “guard investigation”
R"  But that whole interview.
P:  I’m talking about specifically line 6?
R" No he didn’t.???
P:  Pp 8 and 9 you were asked questions  line 13, aware of investigation of drug dealers at Army National Guard?  And you said yes.  

I thought this was a little heavy handed on Parker's part.  It was clear, to me at least, that in this interview, Redick fell into the jargon Brown was using.  Not that he was agreeing that there was a separate SAU investigation.  He even says at near the end of his time on the witness stand 

 R: No, we did not investigate the Guard, we we had a drug investigation.

The only thing - and maybe it's more important than I realize - is that Parker established that at least one person Brown interviewed, used the words "Guard Investigation" which would mean that Brown using that phrase in his report, and believing there was such an investigation, didn't just come from the APD command.  But I could also argue that Redick's use of the term reflects a common problem with interviews:  The person interviewed can start using the words that the interviewer uses, and thus the interviewer biases the interview.  

But this sort of parsing the lines of the various transcripts when on all day.  Each side finding lines that supported their narrative of the case.  

MOA got some traction on the issue of retirement from Redick.  Henry had said his life had been destroyed when he was terminated and that he couldn't get another job anywhere close to what he made at APD.  And the economist mentioned his salary now, if he'd stayed in APD, with recent big raises, would be around $170K a year.  Redick said he'd been able to retire after 22 years and immediately got a job as a campus police officer at UAA, which included tuition waivers for his two daughters.  Making Parker's point that there is life after APD.

Witness Mark Thelan, 27 years at APD, was on after Redick.

He'd done an investigation of SGT Schmidt and Jason Whetsell's tested photo exchange that some had said was inappropriate.  Thelan saw the photos on the two phones and the comments.  There was nothing pornographic, he said, but it was inappropriate for a SGT to be having this sort exchange with one of his subordinates.  Before Thelan was finished with his investigation he was called in by his superior and asks what he'd found.  He said he wasn't quite finished, but he was sustaining the charge against SGT Schmidt - because as the superior, he should have never gotten involve in this with a subordinate - and he still had question about what to do with Whetsell.  (Whetsell, if you don't remember, is the guy with the MS diagnosis.)

They found out about this because Whetsell had shown the pictures to Derek Hsieh - the union president - to demonstrate that his language in a reply to Schmidt that was overheard by others, wasn't out of line.  They talked to each other like that all the time in the texts.  

 Thelan:  Plummer didn’t like my sustaining complaint against Schmidt, that it was tit for tat.  I said I needed to talk to Hsieh.
Thelan:  Day after talked to Plummer.  He stopped the investigation via email.  Said it was ‘bigger’.
Ray Brown:Do you understand why?
Thelan:  Another email next day, my feeling was they didn’t like  that I’d just sustained the complaint against Schmidt.
RB:  What does  this email depict and your interpretation?
Thelan:  Asked whether any violation by Whetsell.
RB:  Were you removed from investigation?
Thelan:  I was.
RB:  Replaced by?
T:  Vandegriff.
RB: Who behind all this?
T:  Hebee. 

This is how long it takes me to relate one tiny incident, and while I gave some context, there's still a lot left out.  The point here, I think, is to show that Command was out to get Whetsell.  When Thelan's investigation didn't give them what they wanted, he was replaced by Vandegriff who did what they wanted, in this and other investigations.  

But that's how this case has been going.  Picking little bits here and there and trying to build a case from these details.  

Witness Mikell Vondolteren, still in APD I think and wasn't there long.  My notes were getting hazier, but he was asked about sex and drugs and alcohol on base and the plaintiff's attorney, Meg Simonian got him to say, that while Carson made accusations, there wasn't enough to book anyone.  

But the MOA made a few points off Vondolteren.  There wasn't enough to charge anyone, but:

Parker:  15-6 (kind of Guard investigation) sex reports.  Nothing that rose to the level of a crime, felony?
Vondolteren:  Don’t recall anything that level.  Could be an issue in the Military.
P:  You thought what you saw was unspeakable?
V:  Yes I did those were my words.

Simonian got another shot at Vondolteren:

S:  Were there any crimes?
V:  No,
S:  What was there?
V:  Affairs, sexual conduct, things against the military code, it is punishable in the military,
S:  Are excessive drinking, sexual conduct, affairs crimes?
V:  No
S:  No further questions

Finally there was an hour video of Capt Bucher's deposition, but I just have to leave that for now. 

Vandegriff will be the witness starting tomorrow and from what I understood after that the defense begins its case in the afternoon.

It's late, and I have to get up early again tomorrow.  So excuse my typos.  My quotes are based on my notes which I typed as fast as I could in court.  The one thing that was confirmed today is that my typing skills are going downhill.  I tend to leave out unnecessary words.  For these quotes I tried to add in key missing words so it was more readable.  Don't stake any money on the accuracy of my notes.  But they give you a sense of what happened.

You can get to an index of all posts on this trial at the Henry v MOA tab under the blog header at top.  Or click here.