Charlottesville Prosecutor Drops Case Against MichieHamlett Client

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — On the eve of trial, Charlottesville prosecutors voluntarily dismissed sexual assault charges against our client, conceding they could no longer prove their case.

Though our client was relieved, police waited months before disclosing evidence that proved out client’s innocence. Attorney Rhonda Quagliana with our firm fought to hold police and prosecutors accountable – to ensure an innocent man would not go to jail.

The case began on January 12. A woman was jogging along the Rivanna River. Suddenly, a man jumped out and forcefully groped her buttocks.

The woman said her attacker was wearing a white, puffy jacket. She gave police her texts and data from Strava to establish the time and place of the attack. In a twist, members of a local running group looked through grainy, online photographs from social media, playing “amateur detective,” and suggested our client was the culprit. Police never conducted a standard photo lineup. Instead, six days later, our client was arrested.

Client Hired MichieHamlett Partner Rhonda Quagliana

Our client was a 37-year-old technology executive with no record who recently moved to Charlottesville with his fiancée. He was jogging along the Rivanna River that day, too.

He did not know the woman. He had no idea there was an attack. When police confronted him, he had no idea why he was arrested. There must had been a mistake. But faced with a criminal charge, he was terrified. At perhaps the scariest moment of his life, he called MichieHamlett and decided to hire firm partner Rhonda Quagliana, one of Virginia’s leading criminal defense lawyers.

Rhonda is fearless. She doggedly pursues the truth in every case. She is a member of the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law, the Advisory Committee of the Rules of Court for the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Criminal Justice Act Advisory Committee for the Western District of Virginia, and past president of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association. Groups routinely invite Rhonda to speak as an authority on false accusations, mistaken identity, and electronic evidence.

When our client called, Rhonda and her team got to work.

“The police never conducted a line up or photo identification that complied with best practices,” Rhonda later said. “Confirmation bias polluted the case.”

Rhonda filed a motion for discovery compelling the Commonwealth’s Attorney to produce evidence.

Prosecutors have a duty under Virginia law and federal law to produce all evidence, even if it helps the defendant. They cannot just turn over items that help their case. As a matter of fairness, justice, and due process, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered in Brady v. Maryland that prosecutors throughout the country must disclose without delay any evidence that tends to exonerate the defendant – otherwise, we risk sending innocent people to prison.

Prosecutors are also responsible for evidence in the custody of police. They have a duty to contact police to ensure all evidence is turned over.

Preparing a Defense to the Charges: Mistaken Identification

After filing a motion for discovery – and awaiting the prosecutor’s disclosures – Rhonda started reviewing the results of a search warrant from our client’s apartment. Our client didn’t own a “white, puffy jacket.” In fact, on the day he was running along the Rivanna River, he was wearing a dark hoody.

Next, she looked at our client’s cell phone. Police downloaded it when he was arrested. GPS from the phone proved our client in his apartment by the time the woman said she was groped. Rhonda also checked key fob data from our client’s apartment complex. That, too, proved our client swiped into his apartment well before the woman said she was assaulted.

Armed with strong evidence of mistaken identity (no white, puffy jacket) and factual impossibility (GPS data and key fob records), Rhonda did not stop. She kept pursuing the truth.

Rhonda continuously contacted the prosecutor: was there any video of the attack? Perhaps there was surveillance video from nearby buildings alongside the trail?

Late-Disclosed Evidence Proved Innocence

For months, Charlottesville police held onto surveillance video they they failed to turn over to prosecutors. An unnamed investigator had allegedly reviewed the surveillance video around the time of the attack, and claimed to a case agent that nothing of value was contained on it.

On April 9, prosecutors state they obtained the surveillance video that police had gathered months earlier. Prosecutors made a copy of the video and turned it over to Rhonda. The video contained a bombshell.

In surveillance footage from Cosner Brothers Body Shop, adjacent to the Rivanna Trail, three videos show our client and the victim passing one another uneventfully about three minutes before the attack. That timing is consistent with the woman’s text messages and her Strava running app. The video proved what Rhonda had been pushing all along: our client was home in his apartment when the woman was assaulted.

Even worse? The video showed another man wearing a white, puffy jacket, walking from the direction of the attack minutes later. That man is seen on other surveillance footage lingering along the trail and talking with people outside Cosne Brothers Body Shop for about 15 minutes.

Police had yet to identify or arrest this man, who remains at large. Not only was justice delayed for our client, but justice has been denied for the woman who was allegedly attacked due to the actions of police. In fact, a second woman had reported being groped later that day on the trail.

Rhonda immediately moved to dismiss.

“The videos do not simply create reasonable doubt,” Rhonda wrote in her motion. “They demonstrate without question what [our client] maintained all along — he was innocent.”

In her motion, she cited “months of stonewalling and resistance” from the police and prosecutors. Her efforts were instrumental in revealing that the police had delayed the release of the video evidence which supported the client’s claims of innocence.

Lessons for Future Cases

The prosecutor acknowledged the new evidence led to dropping the charges, although it did not prompt an apology from the authorities, leaving a significant emotional and reputational toll on the client.

“That’s really outrageous,” said Rhonda. “There really is no justification for how this case developed.”

This case serves as a poignant reminder that meticulous investigation plays a pivotal role in determining the outcome in our justice system. MichieHamlett’s defense not only cleared our client’s name but also highlighted the firm’s commitment to justice and due diligence. It also raised important questions about the procedures followed by law enforcement and the need for transparency and accountability in the prosecution of criminal charges.

As a firm, MichieHamlett remains strongly committed to protecting the rights of our clients, pursuing the truth, and defending the wrongfully accused, ensuring that justice prevails for all.