LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For the first time ever, a former Louisville Metro Police Department officer has accepted criminal responsibility for their role in the March 2020 raid that left Breonna Taylor dead in her apartment.
Ex-Detective Kelly Goodlett, 35, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge Tuesday afternoon at the Gene Snyder United States Courthouse in Louisville. In doing so, Goodlett admits she helped falsify the warrant affidavit for Taylor’s apartment and attempted to hide it after the fact.
Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, was present in court as Goodlett admitted her guilt.
A conspiracy conviction carries a sentence of up to five years in federal prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 maximum fine.
District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings will sentence Goodlett at a later date, and she will remain free until then. The contents of Goodlett’s plea agreement were not fully disclosed in court, but it does include a provision that prosecutors will not bring any additional charges based on evidence currently in their possession.
Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced criminal cases were being brought against Goodlett and three other current and former LMPD officers in connection to Taylor’s death.
Officers attempted to execute a search warrant looking for drugs and cash at Taylor’s apartment just before 1 a.m. on March 13, 2020, when they used a battering ram to force open the front door. Taylor’s boyfriend fired one round, prompting officers to return 32 shots, killing Taylor. Outrage over Taylor’s death galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement and sparked months of protests in Louisville and beyond.
In addition to Goodlett, former Officers Brett Hankison, Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany are also facing charges in the Taylor case.
Federal prosecutor Michael J. Songer of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division outlined the evidence against Goodlett in court, noting her role in the conspiracy had two parts: falsifying information on an affidavit to obtain the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment and then conspiring to hide the lies after the fact.
Goodlett and Jaynes, both members of LMPD’s Place-Based Investigations unit, which was investigating Taylor’s ex-boyfriend’s alleged drug sales, knew there was not sufficient probable cause to search Taylor’s apartment, Songer said. There was no evidence that Jamarcus Glover, the ex-boyfriend, was receiving packages at her apartment or that he lived there, Songer said, despite what Goodlett and Jaynes wrote on the warrant.
In fact, Songer said, Goodlett even told Jaynes that some information on the warrant affidavit was too old to be valid, but she still ultimately agreed to go along with it.
After the attempted search of Taylor’s apartment brought scrutiny on the contents of the warrant affidavit, including the lie that a U.S. Postal Inspector had verified Glover was receiving packages at her home, Goodlett and Jaynes conspired to cover their tracks, Songer said. They submitted a false investigative letter and met to concoct a story about getting information from the Postal Inspector through another police officer, he said.
Meany, the supervisor of Jaynes and Goodlett’s unit, is charged with deprivation of rights under the color of law and giving a false statement to federal investigators.
Jaynes and Meany have pleaded not guilty and have trial dates set in October.
Hankison’s federal charges are two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law; one count was for Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, the other for the three neighbors in the adjacent apartment unit.
Hankison also has a trial date in October.
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