Ex-Louisville detective, accused of lying on Breonna Taylor search warrant, to plead guilty
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Former Louisville Metro Police Detective Kelly Goodlett will plead guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Breonna Taylor for helping falsify an affidavit for the search of her apartment in March 2020, her attorney said.
Goodlett will appear Aug. 22 before U.S. District Judge David Hall to enter her plea, her lawyer, Brandon Marshall, announced in court Friday.
Magistrate Judge Regina Edwards ordered Goodlett to surrender her passport and have no contact with her codefendants ― Sgt. Kyle Meany and former detectives Joshua Jaynes and Brett Hankison.
Goodlett was expected to plead guilty ― and testify against her colleagues ― because she was charged by information rather than indicted.
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She faces a sentence of no more than five years in prison.
The charging document says Goodlett falsely claimed a postal inspector had verified Taylor was receiving packages for her ex-boyfriend, convicted drug dealer Jamarcus Glover, at her apartment before the raid.
Goodlett, a detective in the now-disbanded Place-Based Investigations, also is charged with knowingly conspiring with Jaynes and others to falsify the search warrant affidavit.
She is also accused of falsely telling investigators with the Kentucky Attorney General’s office that Sgt. John Mattingly “in passing" had told Goodlett and Jaynes that three months before Taylor’s death that Glover was getting mail or Amazon package at her apartment.
And she is accused of meeting with Jaynes in his garage after local TV station WDRB reported the claim about the postal inspector was bogus so she and Jayne could “get on the same page.”
Jayne and Meany also face civil rights charges for the search that ended in Taylor's death while Hankison is charged with violating the civil rights of Taylor; her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker; and three of Taylor’s neighbors; by blindly firing shots into her apartment.
Taylor was killed during a police raid on her Louisville apartment when Walker, thinking an intruder was breaking in, fired one shot that hit Mattingly in the leg. He and Cosgrove returned fire, killing Taylor.
She was 26, and her death set off protests that lasted for months in Louisville and across the country.
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This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: In Breonna Taylor case, former officer Kelly Goodlett to plead guilty
