PPOA Says Officers ‘wrongly accused of withholding exculpatory evidence’

Pasadena Police Officers ‘wrongly accused
of withholding exculpatory evidence’ according to PPOA

On February 7, 2013, Corporal William Broghamer and Officer Kevin
Okamoto appeared in court to testify in a homicide case they had investigated in 2007/2008.
During their testimony, both detectives were accused of withholding exculpatory evidence when
they complied with a Discovery order. Although Detective Broghamer testified that the evidence
in question had in fact been presented to Deputy District Attorney Paul Kim back in 2009, DA
Paul Kim stipulated during the hearing that he had not received the missing discovery items
from the Pasadena detectives.
It was reported in several news articles that the two Pasadena detectives were “guilty of
misconduct” and that the judge was declaring a mistrial “not because what the prosecution did
or didn’t do, but because what the police did or didn’t do.”
On April 8, 2013, two Los Angeles Hardcore Deputy District Attorneys located a box that
contained a large grey envelope that had handwriting on the envelope that read “Grigsby
Discovery-Turn Over.” Found inside the Pasadena Police Department envelope was several
recordings and over two-dozen pages of evidence that the Pasadena Detectives had turned
over to DA Paul Kim in 2009. Found inside the box were copies of several other items of
evidence in the homicide case that belonged to DA KIm.
On April 22, 2013, DA Peter Cagney, the Head Deputy of the Hardcore Gang Division,
submitted a Declaration to Judge Larry Fidler regarding the alleged discovery violation on
February 7, 2013. In his declaration, DA Cagney outlines the discovery of the missing files and
explains how the items were mislabeled under a different name. He wrote that the files had
been overlooked by DA Kim when he returned to the Pasadena office to retrieve his Sanford
case file and that the writing on the police envelope was in fact that of DA Paul Kim.
On May 8, 2013, there was an additional court hearing on the Sanford case, but there was no
mention in open court of the resolution to the discovery issue that was raised in the February
7th hearing, where the Pasadena Detectives were accused of misconduct. Attorney Alfonso
Estrada, attorney representing Detective Broghamer and the Pasadena Police Officers
Association, requested to address the court. Mr. Estrada advised the court of the discovery of
the allegedly missing items, while also pointing out that consistent with the testimony of
Detective Broghamer on February 7, 2013, the discovery items had in fact been turned over to
the District Attorney’s Office in the year 2009. Judge Fidler acknowledged on the record that he
was aware of the recovery of the allegedly missing discovery items.

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