Judge says she is 'concerned' detective may have lied to get Breonna Taylor search warrant
Andrew Wolfson Darcy Costello Tessa Duvall
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Louisville judge who signed a search warrant for Breonna Taylor's home that ultimately led to her death said Thursday she is concerned that the detective may have lied to obtain the warrant.
But Jefferson Circuit Judge Mary Shaw told The Courier Journal that she will defer to the FBI, which has been investigating the search warrant application for Taylor's apartment that led to the fatal raid.
The Courier Journal asked Shaw if she intended to demand that Detective Joshua Jaynes show why he shouldn't be held in contempt for swearing in an affidavit that he "verified through a U.S. Postal Inspector that suspected drug dealer Jamarcus Glover has been receiving packages" at Taylor's home.
Records obtained by The Courier Journal and first reported by WDRB show that Louisville police were told before the March 13 raid that no packages "suspicious or otherwise" had been delivered to Glover at Taylor's residence in the months before she was shot and killed by police executing a no-knock search warrant.
And they indicate that Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who was shot and wounded during the search, had a larger role in verifying information with the postal inspector's office than previously stated.
ICYMI:Judge delays release of Breonna Taylor grand jury recordings to Friday
Mattingly and detectives Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison returned fire after Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a "warning" shot, saying he thought someone was trying to break in.
Taylor was struck six times and died in her apartment hallway.
An investigative report from the department's Public Integrity Unit, which was obtained by The Courier Journal, shows Mattingly asked the Shively Police Department to check with a postal inspector about package deliveries.
That was necessary because LMPD wasn't working with the postal service because of an unspecified dispute a few years earlier, the report states.
On Jan. 17, according to the report, Mattingly asked both Sgt. Timothy Salyer and Detective Mike Kuzma to "find info on packages sent to the below addresses or names," and included Taylor's address.
He added, "Jamarcus Glover is target." Glover, who has been convicted of drug trafficking in Mississippi, was a key suspect in a larger narcotics operation targeted by the Place-Based Investigations Squad on Elliott Avenue.
He and Taylor had previously dated. But Glover told The Courier Journal in an exclusive interview in August that Taylor had no dealings with drugs. He is facing drug trafficking charges after he was arrested on Elliott Avenue during a related search warrant within minutes of the attempted search of Taylor's home.
The investigative file obtained by The Courier Journal raises more questions about whether LMPD was working on unreliable intelligence when it raided Taylor's home.
See also:Courier Journal files suit against LMPD for open records in Taylor case
Summaries in the file show:
In mid-January, Kuzma told Mattingly that Glover had not received packages at Taylor's apartment.
A week later, Kuzma told the same thing to both Detective Mike Nobles, who was later present at the raid at Taylor's apartment, and Detective Kelly Hanna Goodlett, who was on the scene for the Elliott Avenue warrants.
On April 10, about a month after Taylor was fatally shot, Salyer said he received a text from Jaynes again asking whether any packages had gone to Taylor's home. Salyer said he told him that none had in the months before her death — and that her address had been flagged and the postal inspector would have been notified.
On May 18, Salyer told Public Integrity Unit investigators that sometime after Taylor's death, Kuzma asked Mattingly about the affidavit submitted to obtain the search warrant.
"Sgt. Mattingly stated he told Detective Jaynes there was no package history at that address," Salyer told investigators, according to a summary of the interview.
Kuzma also called Nobles, who told him "he remembered there being no packages delivered to the address and was confused about the conflicting information on the affidavit as well," according to the report.
"Sgt. Salyer stated there were no packages of any kind being delivered to the address, suspicious or otherwise," investigators wrote in a summary.
Salyer also told the Public Integrity Unit investigators that packages could have been delivered and received under another name to the address.
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Glover told The Courier Journal in August that he received only shoes and clothing — not drugs — at Taylor's home on Springfield Drive near Iroquois Park.
Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced last week that both Mattingly and Cosgrove acted in self-defense and could not be charged with any crime.
A grand jury indicted Hankison, who fired 10 rounds, with wantonly endangering three residents in an adjoining apartment. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on $15,000 bond.
FBI spokesman Timothy Beam said by email Thursday that his office has the Public Integrity Unit report obtained by The Courier Journal. He would say only that "FBI Louisville is actively investigating all aspects of the death of Breonna Taylor."
The complete investigative file from the Public Integrity Unit, which investigates officers' conduct in Taylor's death, has not been publicly released.
Mayor Greg Fischer, however, has said his office is in the process of redacting it to "protect personal information of witnesses and others" before sharing it. That may happen next week.
Earlier:Why were police at Taylor's home? What an investigative summary says
'False information' in the affidavit?
This is not the first time Jaynes' search warrant application has been questioned.
Postal inspector Tony Gooden told WDRB News in May that his office had been asked by what we now know was Shively police to investigate whether Taylor's apartment had been receiving suspicious mail.
His office, Gooden said, concluded it wasn't: "There's no packages of interest going there," he said.
Jaynes said in his search warrant request that "affiant verified through a US Postal Inspector that Jamarcus Glover has been receiving packages at 3003 Springfield Drive #4."
Jaynes added: "Affiant knows through training and experience that it is not uncommon for drug traffickers to receive mail packages at different locations to avoid detection from law enforcement."
Attorneys for Taylor's family in May accused officers of providing "false information" in the affidavit, saying that Gooden's remarks "directly contradicts what the police stated in the affidavit to secure a no-knock warrant for her home."
Jaynes was placed on administrative reassignment on June 10. Then-interim Chief Robert Schroeder said the move would allow questions to be answered on "how and why the search warrant was approved."
The department has since confirmed Jaynes is one of six officers under a Professional Standards Unit investigation, which examines whether departmental policies were violated.
He also is under investigation by the FBI, according to an attorney for witnesses who have been interviewed in the probe.
Schroeder said Monday, in response to a question about whether Jaynes was under investigation, that "there is currently an investigation by the FBI, a criminal investigation, and as I discussed earlier … once the criminal investigation is done, the administrative investigation will commence."
More coverage: 6 cops under internal investigation for roles in Taylor search
'We didn't do any of the investigation'
In a March 25 interview with LMPD's Public Integrity Unit, Mattingly explained his role in the execution of the warrant at Taylor's apartment.
With multiple warrants being served March 13, it was a "manpower-intensive operation and they just needed bodies," he told police.
"Do you remember the name of the target on the search warrant?" an investigator asked the sergeant.
"Not offhand," Mattingly said. "We didn't write it. We didn't do any of the investigation. We did none of the background."
Investigators also asked Mattingly what he was told in the pre-operational briefing.
"We were told that the target, their main target, the male, had packages sent to this location, her name, she held, possibly held, dope for him, received the packages and held his money," he said.
But a detailed investigative report written more than a month after police fatally shot Taylor suggested that it was Mattingly, not Jaynes, who'd asked the postal service whether Glover was receiving packages at Taylor's apartment.
"I verified through Sgt. J. Mattingly of LMPD, who contacted the postal service, that Jamarcus Glover had been receiving packages at 3003 Springfield Drive #4," Jaynes wrote in the report.
The Public Integrity Unit report obtained by The Courier Journal indicates that Mattingly asked a third agency to contact the postal service, and that he knew Glover's name when he asked Shively police in January.
Kent Wicker, Mattingly's attorney, declined to comment on the report's findings and Mattingly's March statements.
Reach Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson. Darcy Costello: 502-582-4834; dcostello@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @dctello. Tessa Duvall: tduvall@courier-journal.com; 502-582-4059; Twitter: @TessaDuvall.