Rhino and city attempt to keep Sanders tapes under wraps

Author Jerry Bledsoe, lawyer Seth Cohen and Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer leave a Guilford County courtroom on Tuesday.

Judge Edgar Gregory of Wilkes County said yesterday he will take about three weeks to decide whether to grant a motion to compel filed by two black Greensboro police officers seeking to obtain recordings, transcripts and other documents made by Officer Scott Sanders over a seven-year period.

Capt. Brian James and Officer Julius Fulmore are seeking the documents as part of a defamation lawsuit against author Jerry Bledsoe and The Rhinoceros Times.

The hearing yesterday in Guilford County Court was notable in that it featured lawyers for The Rhinoceros Times and the city arguing on the same side. Bledsoe’s “Cops In Black and White” series, whose publication in the weekly newspaper began more than three years ago, has taken a critical stance against city administration.

The newspaper and the city have found themselves making common cause in that the city is also a defendant in separate lawsuits filed by James and Fulmore related to Sanders’ activities as an investigator in special intelligence during the administration of former Chief David Wray. Arguing for the city on Tuesday were Assistant City Attorney Jim Clark and outside counsel Alan Duncan.

Bledsoe and The Rhinoceros Times are represented by lawyer Seth Cohen, who also represented Sanders during a criminal trial earlier this year that resulted in his acquittal.

Sanders listened to the proceedings from the gallery, and conferred with Cohen, Bledsoe and Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer during a break from the hearing.

“Mr. Sanders is the investigator who at the behest of Wray and [former Deputy Chief Randall] Brady, targeted my clients by following them, recording them, and secretly getting into a computer,” plaintiff lawyer Amiel Rossabi told Judge Gregory.

James and Fulmore subpoenaed the city in March 2008 for all recordings and transcriptions made by Sanders from 2003 to the present, including any that include statements made by or about the plaintiffs. They also asked for all recordings made by Sanders that were seized from the Guilford Building in downtown Greensboro.

On Monday, the city filed an affidavit by Officer David Stewart, a detective who is assigned to internal affairs. Stewart’s affidavit states that the department reviewed and transcribed more than 144 hours of recordings that could be relevant to the subpoena.” The city handed over an accordion file of documents to Rossabi on Tuesday. Stewart stated that the documents produced by the department did not include personnel records or records containing criminal intelligence.

To appreciate the morass of documents in the police department’s possession, consider that Sgt. Nathaniel Davis, one of the internal affairs officers responsible for the administrative investigation, reported to his commander in October 2008 that the criminal investigations division advised that it has a terabyte of data on a computer, 55 boxes, five 3” binders and 5 2” inch binders accumulated in the department’s criminal investigation of Sanders’ activities during the Wray administration. The professional standards division, which holds administrative documents from the investigation, has 111 gigabytes and 4,668 pages of documentation relevant to the request.

The city contends it has no documents responsive to one aspect of the request.

An affidavit by Sgt. Davis, states that he was one of the officers who entered the Guilford Building, and that no recordings, documents or other information were seized from that location.

In September, the city requested a protective order, asking the courts to limit what it was required to release, arguing that some of the documents include protected personnel information, and material from criminal investigations and criminal intelligence activities.

“I can tell you that confidential informants are identified,” Clark argued before Judge Gregory. “There’s also an overarching federal concern. A lot of the criminal matters have to do with OCDETF [organized crime drug enforcement task force] matters. I don’t even want to get anywhere near releasing that. I have no desire to spend any time in federal prison.”

Rossabi recapped the central themes of his argument for Judge Gregory’s benefit.

“Bledsoe says, ‘The reason I wrote these article is to restore Wray’s reputation, get [former City Manager] Mitch Johnson fired and to show that political correctness is the order of the day in Guilford County,” Rossabi said, adding that he believes the author’s motive was something other than to get to the truth.

Rossabi told the judge that in contrast to a claim by the city that it would take a year to transcribe the relevant tapes, he believes the city had been working on them “for quite awhile” before receiving the subpoena. He further argued that the city was trying to get around releasing the documents to avoid embarrassment, considering that it had commissioned an outside agency to conduct an investigation into allegations of discrimination, which was sustained by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and provided the basis for lawsuits against the city by both clients.

“The city is trying to do as much damage control as possible, and they’re doing it on the backs of my clients,” Rossabi said.

James and Fulmore had previously attempted to obtain Bledsoe’s reporting notes. Earlier this year, the NC Court of Appeals upheld a trial court ruling by Judge Brad Long that the reporting notes were privileged documents that were protected.

“I have to prove actual malice,” Rossabi said. “I have to prove knowledge that the statements were false or reckless disregard of the truth in these published statements. Judge Long said, ‘You’ve got other places where you can get this information.’ I went to other places to get the information.”

Cohen argued that the plaintiffs were taking a “backdoor” approach to obtain the same material Judge Bradford Long told them they couldn’t have.

“They have to do something to get over the ‘privilege hump,’” Cohen said. “It’s the same request in a different outfit.”

Arguing for the city, Duncan said, “As to the plaintiffs’ claims that Wray and Brady are quoted extensively in these articles, depose them. That’s your alternative.”

Rossabi acknowledged that the materials sought by his client would probably be too cumbersome and time-consuming for a superior court judge to review to determine what documents might be relevant to his clients’ lawsuit, so he suggested that he could do it himself.

“I’ll listen to these tapes,” he said. “I’ll go through these folders and binders. I’m an officer of the court.”
Rossabi also suggested that the city is being disingenuous in its claim that the materials include protected information about criminal investigations.

“Scott Sanders, who’s in court today, he’s one of two defendants who were indicted,” Rossabi said. “A jury acquitted him of one of the charges, and the other was dismissed by the state…. His criminal charges are gone.”

Rossabi also countered the city’s argument that the documents contain protected personnel information, noting that some of the other black officers investigated by Sanders are plaintiffs in a discrimination lawsuit involving 39 or 40 plaintiffs against the city. John Bloss, a lawyer for the 39 or 40 black officers handed Rossabi a note at one point, after which Rossabi announced that the officers had agreed to waive their confidentiality.

Rossabi said he believes the Sanders recordings will show that Bledsoe’s reporting was inaccurate.

“The strange thing is that Mr. Cohen, because of his defense of Mr. Sanders, already has this,” Rossabi said. “And he’s also representing Mr. Bledsoe and The Rhino Times…. When the defendants’ lawyer has it and it’s able to get in the hands of a weekly newspaper, then they can publish it all over again, and I can’t have it.”

Cohen responded by denying that he has provided any privileged material from Sanders’ criminal trial to Bledsoe and The Rhinoceros Times.

In a preview of his arguments if the case goes to trial, Rossabi showed Judge Gregory a transcript of a recorded conversation between Sanders and Brady as an example of the kind of material the city might have and its relevance to the black officers’ complaint.

“The recordings shows that Chief Wray had trouble with a neighbor,” Rossabi said. “Chief Brady tells Scott Sanders to do something about it. Brady says Chief Wray knows about it, but if anyone asks, don’t implicate Wray.” Rossabi went on to read some of the allegedly defamatory statements in Bledsoe’s series, and then to contend that the author would likely tell the court that Wray and Brady were his primary sources for much of the material. Relying on such sources, Rossabi contended, could be considered a reckless disregard for the truth.

“Mr. Rossabi has made unsubstantiated allegations that Mr. Bledsoe must have known that everything he wrote was a lie, that John Hammer knew that what he was publishing was a lie,” Cohen retorted. “He has everything in his possession that Mr. Bledsoe relied on to write his articles. He has to show actual malice. He thinks he’s going to listen to all these recordings, and then say, ‘Oh, here it is, judge. Here’s what I’ve been looking for.’ This is a quintessential fishing expedition.”

Jerry Bledsoe interviews Mitchell Johnson

Audio of Rhinoceros Times chronicler Jerry Bledsoe's April 2006 interview with Greensboro City Manager Mitchell Johnson and City Attorney Linda Miles can be downloaded here and here. Consider yourself warned: It's almost three hours long.

I've used the audio as material in a two-part series ("Reckless disregard" and "Sensational omissions") detailing how Bledsoe's sympathetic account of former Chief David Wray's fall from grace has unfairly tarnished the reputations of black police officers and other city employees, and how the stories have distorted the facts and mislead the public.

At least one person, blogger Samuel Spagnola, has expressed interest in hearing the recording to assess my reporting that Bledsoe misquoted Johnson by representing a description of how command staff in former police Chief Robert White's administration allegedly condoned a practice of officers using police identity cards to gain free admittance to strip clubs as Johnson's own opinion.

We're big on transparency.

Response to heat generated by 'Reckless disregard'

I'm gratified by the flurry of discussion in response to my article about Jerry Bledsoe's reporting of the Wray/GPD story. Considering the raw emotion raised by this subject, I have been surprised to find that most of the criticisms of my story have been reasoned and cool. I certainly did not expect to win any popularity contests by choosing this subject.

I thank Ben Holder for initiating the conversation. His
statement that “I think it is fair to say that God is writing ‘Cops in Black and White’; Bledsoe is just holding the pen” strikes me as emblematic of the unquestioning faith with which many readers have treated Jerry Bledsoe's articles in particular and The Rhinoceros Times' coverage in general.

Holder, along with Brenda Bowers objects to my use of the term “retraction” to describe the post-script provided by lawyer Walt Jones and published by The Rhinoceros Times concerning Officer Stacy Morton’s disciplinary case. This is a matter of semantics. I leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions about the truth of Morton’s case by examining Bledsoe’s initial account juxtaposed with the information that was subsequently provided to him.

As to Bledsoe’s preoccupation with Nelson Johnson and the Nov. 3, 1979 shootings, I’ll let my reporting speak for itself, except to say that I believe it was healthy to explore allegations by both blacks and whites that racial tension and distrust has been passed down through the ranks of the Greensboro Police Department over the years. I invite people to read my articles, and judge them on their merits. In a relatively concise, two-part story, I’m not going to take on myself as an additional subject.

Holder correctly points out that I have reported about black leaders’ concerns about secret taping by an employee of the police department. Holder is in a position to know that I also reported the true motive for the tapings in a subsequent article when the information became available to me.

I have written a lot about truth and reconciliation, and about the police controversy. I might have recycled any number of stories, but I’m not sure how black leaders' perceptions that they were targeted for surveillance and how actually the taping was done to gather intelligence about a suspicious task force member are central to the story at hand. The taping story has already been told. My focus here is David Wray, and Jerry Bledsoe and The Rhinoceros Times, along with the three black police officers who are at the heart of the contention between the city and its former police chief.

Holder misconstrues my statement that “one [premise], unproven, is that Miles thrust herself into the middle of the Project Homestead investigation.” If this is a genuine misunderstanding, then I am happy to clarify my reporting.

As the next paragraph states, “Then-Capt. Gary Hastings came to Wray several times to complain that Miles had intruded on meetings between auditors and detectives, Bledsoe wrote in the fifth installment in his series, ‘and once told a woman being interviewed by [Detective] Ken Rickard and [city internal audit director] Len Lucas that she would make the detective leave if the woman felt uncomfortable in his presence, Wray recalled.”

This allegation, contradicted by three separate sources, entirely rests on David Wray’s say-so. I leave it to readers to determine for themselves who is most credible.

By providing a link to his own article, Holder simply recycles the canard that City Attorney Linda Miles tried to interfere in the police department’s Project Homestead investigation, citing her legal decision to release public records to the media as his support. The reasons for Miles’ decision to release the records are well documented and I do not need to repeat them here. Whether this disagreement led to a “fight” or “personal grudge” is largely irrelevant. By calling attention to Miles’ presumed personal feelings, Wray’s supporters are distracting attention from the former chief’s exercise of judgment in this incident.

Holder notes that I omit reference to a reported proposed hit against Bledsoe because of his reporting. I neither deny the truth of this account nor have I done the reporting to corroborate it, but from my understanding, the hit targeted not Bledsoe but Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer. As will be detailed next week, my story concerns the unsustained allegation that Officer Julius Fulmore was criminally involved with a local drug dealer, Bledsoe’s handling of this material, and other contextual information that presents this episode in a different light. I challenge Holder to show how the reported hit against Hammer supports allegations against Fulmore, absolves Wray of wrongdoing or calls into question City Manager Mitchell Johnson’s handling of the controversy.

A handful of commenters on Ed Cone's blog have attempted to poke holes in my reporting and questioned by ability to handle this story with independence and fairness.

In response to my reporting that Bledsoe misquoted Mitchell Johnson by writing that the city manager found allegations that police officers under former Chief Robert White used their police identification cards to gain free admission to a strip club to be "no big deal" when in fact Johnson told him that command staff had allegedly said that the practice was "not that big of a deal," Fred Gregory accuses Johnson of tacit approval.

Johnson told me that the allegations were brought to him after White left Greensboro for a job with the Louisville Metro Police Department, and that because of the dearth of evidence to back up the claims Johnson treated them as rumor.

Later in his conversation with Bledsoe, Johnson says, “I think a lot of what I was hearing was this cultural difference between what some officers in our department felt like were appropriate standards of behavior and maybe what Robert thought were appropriate standards of behavior from a different environment.”

One might conclude that the behavior to which Johnson was alluding is badging into strip clubs. Sources frequently make ambiguous statements. If that's the case, reporters have the opportunity and indeed the responsibility to seek clarification. We’ve made plans to post the audio of the Bledsoe/Johnson/Miles interview, so you can decide for yourself the context of Johnson’s statement.

As to Samuel Spagnola's question about why a reporter such as myself with a perceived liberal bias would report favorably on civil authority and Ian McDowell's suggestion that I might be friends with News & Record reporter Lorraine Ahearn, others have answered those questions as eloquently as I could have. Spagnola asks why I don’t apply the same scrutiny to the News & Record that I do to The Rhinoceros Times. I would respond that Bledsoe has already taken a crack at that one, and I don’t find that he’s made a compelling case.

And finally, Joe Guarino posts an interesting analysis of how my perceived journalistic slant dovetails with what might be considered the liberal pathology of Greensboro. I don’t pretend to have any particular gift for polemics, so I simply refer interested readers to his argument and redirect Guarino to the facts in my articles.