Judge shuts out media in ex-drug officer’s trial over fake DNA test in Coast paternity case

Chancery Judge Jennifer Schloegel issued an order Thursday to close her courtroom to the media during the remainder of a trial for sanctions against former longtime federal drug agent and ex-Hancock County Narcotics Commander Ben Taylor over allegations of wrongdoing.

Attorney Michael Holleman is asking the judge to sanction Taylor by ordering him to pay all attorneys fees and court costs in a child support case in which Taylor is accused of producing fraudulent DNA tests to deny he fathered a girlfriend’s child.

Holleman represents the child’s mother, Branissa Stroud, a co-petitioner in a state Department of Human Services lawsuit filed against Taylor in 2020. The minor child lives with Stroud.

Taylor was married during the time he was involved with Stroud.

The Sun Herald broke the story on the case and has covered it extensively since last year. That coverage has included attending court hearings in the case.

The judge has since ordered and received the results of DNA tests to confirm the identity of the child’s father.

In earlier testimony, Taylor denied producing the fraudulent documents, instead saying it was Stroud that forged the paperwork. She vehemently denied those claims.

A matter of privacy

In her order , Judge Schloegel said she was taking the “protective measure as the evidence may reveal confidential information of the minor child” and that “the child’s right to privacy and emotional well-being outweigh the public’s interest in this matter.”

The judge also issued a gag order in the April 13 ruling that prevents all parties and their attorneys and witnesses from speaking further about the case until the litigation is concluded.

“Based on ongoing testimony, the court has developed significant privacy concerns for the minor child,” ‘the order said.

“It’s not in her best interest to have defamatory allegations published for public dissemination and commentary,” the order said. “Once printed, the information remains in perpetuity for easy access and distribution via the Internet.

“It, therefore, poses a potential danger to the child’s mental and emotional well-being for the rest of her life through no fault of her own,” the order said.

A call for sanctions

In his request for sanctions against Taylor, Holleman outlined various allegations to support sanctions against Taylor.

Here’s a look at them:

• The judge issued the child support order against Taylor in August 2021, and Taylor ignored the order until the state seized thousands of dollars in income from him eight months later.

• Taylor allegedly intercepted, ignored and disposed of an Aug. 10, 2020, court order sent to his federal employer to withhold the monthly child support payments from Taylor’s pay. Taylor was allegedly able to intercept the order because, at the time, he worked as a federal supervisory agent in Homeland Security Investigations within the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs.

• Taylor lied in court records about Stroud “voluntarily” submitting a DNA sample for herself and the child to support the fraudulent DNA test results. Stroud never gave Taylor a DNA sample for herself or her daughter.

• Federal investigator Donald Smith in the inspector general’s office for HSI called Holleman and Stroud on June 29, 2021, to tell them he was investigating Taylor for producing fraudulent DNA test results and other matters. Smith said his investigation “confirmed the document was a forgery.”

• Federal investigator Smith told Holleman and Stroud that Taylor had failed a lie detector test administered by federal authorities about the alleged fraud and other matters.

• Smith said he 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.

• 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 set of regulations known as the Brady Disclosures requires prosecutors to disclose such material on officers to defense attorneys to help them exonerate their clients in court.
  
  

• The fake DNA test results are on letterhead in the name of Hunt’s Genetics and contain “a fraudulent and forged signature of a non-existent laboratory director,” along with a fraudulent notary stamp and forged signature in the name of Dayton, Ohio, notary Donnell Garry. The Sun Herald interviewed Garry, and he confirmed the fraud.

Taylor has had various attorneys in the case.

Attorney acknowledges fraud

Attorney Cassidy Anderson represented the ex-law enforcement officer but then got permission from the judge to step down after reports on the fraudulent DNA test results were submitted to the court.

Taylor had given the attorney the fraudulent test results that the attorney used as exhibits in a motion requesting the judge to dismiss her August 2020 order adjudicating Taylor the father of the child and ordering him to pay $1,076 in monthly support and $7,760 in back child support.

MDHS didn’t collect any funds from Taylor until the agency intercepted and seized $11,811 from Taylor for child support in early April 2021.

After that seizure, Taylor allegedly produced the fraudulent documents.

In one of Anderson’s last filings for Taylor, he asked the judge to dismiss his request for her to remove the child support order against Taylor, noting that the DNA test results that had been submitted “falsely bears the notarial seal and signature” of a notary.