A new twist to the Freddie Gray case. Can you say perjury............

 Freddie Gray: Sheriff Who Swore Charges Against Officers Says He Never Investigated

Well, well, well.  It looks like the civil suits filed against State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby (who brought the prosecution againt the officers) and Baltimore Assistant Sheriff Cogen (who swore out the charges against the officers) is beginning to bear strategic fruit, just as I’d predicted was their true immediate purpose.Today the Baltimore Sun reports that Cogen now claims in an affidavit that he had “no involvement in the investigation whatsoever.”

Instead, he was simply presented with purported evidence by the prosecution and told what the prosecutors had already themselves determined to be the facts of the case.

 Cogen affidavit states:
I was also presented with a narrative that formed the basis of the application for statement of charges that I completed by the State’s Attorney’s Office.  The facts, information and legal conclusions contained within … as well as the charges lodged against plaintiff came entirely from members of the State’s Attorney’s Office.
 Normally, prosecutors such as Mosby and law enforcement such as Cogen have legal immunity from civil suit for conduct undertaken in the performance of their offices.

 Such immunity does not, however, apply where such personnel commit perjury or otherwise act with actual malice.  The officers suing Mosby and Cogen are necessarily claiming exactly such circumstances in order to avoid dismissal of their suit on immunity grounds.Today’s affidavit from Cogen would appear to be sacrificing the State’s Attorney’s office generally, and Mosby in particular, in an effort to preserve his own immunity, by claiming that he reasonably relied upon the prosecutors’ representations, and that his role in the charges against the officers was sufficient minuscule as to excuse him from any liability that might exist.


In his affidavit Cogen states:
My involvement was limited to a review of the fruits of the investigations done by the Police Department and State’s Attorney’s Office. [I was shown a chart identifying] the charges to be brought, the evidence supporting those charges, and the related legal analysis [explained by Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Schatzow and prosecutor Bledsoe].
Cogen goes on to explain that he was also given a narrative that formed the basis of the information entered on the warrant.

Tomorrow (Thursday) around 10AM we expect to hear Judge Williams verdict in the trial of van driver Officer Caesar Goodson, who is charged (based on the sworn statement of Cogen) with murder, multiple counts of manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. If convicted Officer Goodson, an officer with an unblemised record, faces up to 30 years in prison.