Disgraced MS federal agent committed fraud with bogus child paternity test, judge rules

Former federal agent and longtime Mississippi law enforcement officer Benjamin “Ben” Taylor lied in trial testimony and “committed fraud” by “creating, procuring, and submitting” a fraudulent DNA test in a child support case to deny he fathered a girlfriend’s child, Chancery Judge Jennifer Schloegel has ruled.

Taylor had the fraudulent DNA test results submitted in a Hancock County Chancery Court case involving himself and his former longtime girlfriend and the mother of the child, Branissa Stroud. Taylor, who was married at the time, is going through a divorce.

“Taylor’s conduct in procuring and filing the fake DNA report was an unconscionable plan or scheme which (was) designed to improperly influence the court in its decision,” Schloegel said in her January ruling.

The judge reviewed 40 exhibits and heard testimony from Taylor, Stroud and others before issuing the ruling.

In the trial, Stroud’s attorney, Michael Holleman, successfully argued for the judge to sanction Taylor by ordering him to pay all court costs and attorney fees in the child support case.

In the order for sanctions, the judge applauded Holleman for his work on the case, saying “this litigation was novel and difficult in that it sought to prove essentially criminal wrongdoing by a high-ranking federal law enforcement officer.”

Despite the judge finding that Taylor committed wrongdoing, an independent investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation into the criminal allegations has resulted in no action against Taylor.

The Sun Herald started looking into the allegations of wrongdoing against Taylor when they first surfaced, conducting interviews, attending court hearings and reviewing records, pictures and videos of Stroud and Taylor’s interactions.

Taylor, who served as a longtime supervisory agent at the Homeland Security Investigations office in Gulfport, went to work as commander of narcotics at the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department after he was forced out of his job at HSI. He was abruptly relieved of his duties in Hancock County after the Sun Herald reported on the alleged wrongdoing.

As part of that report, the Sun Herald reviewed the DNA test results and interviewed Dayton, Ohio, notary Donnell Garry, who confirmed the notary seal and signature of his name on the test results were a fraud.

The allegations of wrongdoing surfaced against Taylor after the state Department of Human Services filed a child support lawsuit against Taylor in April 2020. Stroud was a co-petitioner in the suit because the girl lives with her.

Taylor was ruled the child’s father without a paternity test in August 2020 based on other evidence submitted to the court at the time. Taylor didn’t go to that hearing to deny the child was his.

After the 2020 ruling and a later order to withhold Taylor’s pay as then-supervisory agent for HSI, Taylor had his then-attorney file court papers asking the judge to vacate the earlier child support order. As part of that request, Taylor produced the fraudulent DNA test results.

A subsequent court-ordered paternity test showed Taylor was the girl’s father.

At the trial, the judge found that Taylor ”repeatedly and consistently” lied under oath and falsely accused Stroud of wrongdoing.

The judge also found evidence that Taylor intercepted a withholding order for child support sent by the MDHS to the HSI office while Taylor was supervisory agent in charge there.

Taylor’s wife, who is in the midst of divorcing him, said in a sworn affidavit submitted in Stroud’s case that she found the original envelope containing the withholding order sent by MDHS to the HSI office at the Diamondhead home she shared with Taylor before their separation.

Obstruction of justice?

Taylor’s actions in creating fraudulent documents and other matters became the subject of an investigation by federal investigator Donald Smith in the inspector general’s office for HSI in 2021.

At the time, Smith called Stroud’s attorney, Holleman, and Stroud, to tell them he was investigating Taylor for producing fraudulent DNA test results and other matters. He made the call on June 29, 2021, and told the pair that he had “confirmed the document was a forgery.”

Federal investigator Smith also told them Taylor had failed a lie detector test administered by federal authorities about the alleged fraud and other matters.

Stroud then told Taylor that the federal investigator wanted to meet with her in a text exchange between the two, during which Taylor told Stroud not to meet with Smith, the records show.

In one exchange, for example, Stroud said, “I just got a call from a Donnie Smith who says he is an investigator and I have to meet with him in New Orleans for interviews. I’m a witness to an open investigation.”

Taylor told Stroud she didn’t have to meet with the investigator, that she didn’t have to call him back and that “he (Smith) can’t do anything to you,” as a result.

Judge Schloegel addressed Taylor’s directions to Stroud regarding the federal investigation by Smith.

“Telling Ms. Stroud not to speak with a Homeland Security investigator, who is investigating whether Taylor committed fraud, may have been attempted obstruction of justice,” Schloegel said. “Regardless, it is certainly evidence of consciousness of guilt.”

In 2021, Smith asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office to seek a criminal indictment against Taylor for the crime, but the federal prosecutor’s office declined to do so.

At the time of Smith’s investigation, Holleman said, Smith created a Brady file on Taylor about the fraud in the officer’s HSI employment record for disclosure to defense attorneys in cases Taylor investigated. A Brady disclosure requires prosecutors to disclose material evidence favorable to the defendant.

It’s unclear whether those disclosures were made in cases investigated by Taylor.

After news of Smith’s investigation came to light, The Sun Herald obtained a copy of an internal complaint Taylor filed against Smith with HSI, in which he said, in part, that Smith had talked to Sun Herald reporter about the case involving Stroud.

The Sun Herald did reach out to Smith, but he declined to comment.

Ridiculed and harassed

Since Schloegel’s ruling, Stroud said she feels vindicated.

“In April of 2021, Mr. Taylor, the father of our child, filed this fake DNA test report in the court attempting to disown our child,” Stroud said. “When the fake DNA test was exposed as a fraud, he falsely alleged that I was responsible. I am a working mother of four wonderful children.

“Mr. Taylor was a high-ranking federal law enforcement officer,” she said. “Imagine being falsely accused by a federal law enforcement officer who actually committed the fraud. I did not have the means to fight him. “

After being forced out of two jobs in law enforcement, Taylor has since opened a security business, Securitran, that transports marijuana to local dispensaries

“Anyone who attempts to defraud the court or who testifies falsely on matters affecting our children under the court’s charge should be sanctioned to the fullest extent of the law,” Holleman said of the ruling.

“That a high-ranking federal law enforcement officer attempted this fraud and lied repeatedly under oath about it is especially disturbing,” he said. “People have been sent to jail based on this man’s credibility. Taylor made a mockery of the administration of justice in this case. He never even showed a hint of remorse for what he did.”

Meanwhile, Holleman said, Stroud “has been harassed and ridiculed since this became public.”

“She has had to endure two years of emotional trauma caused by Taylor,” he said. “Being ordered to pay Ms. Stroud’s attorney fees for proving his fraudulent conduct and lies is all this court had the power to do, but it hardly seems just.”

Holleman still questions why criminal charges have not been filed against Taylor.

Stroud applauded Holleman for his work on this case as well as attorney, Herb Wilson, who represented her in a defamation suit Taylor filed against her over allegations that he defrauded the court in this case and more. Taylor dismissed the defamation suit just before the judge issued the ruling.

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