Johnetta Carr v. Louisville Et Al File Stamped Complaint

Case 3:20-mc-99999 Document 1064 Filed 12/08/20 Page 1 of 47 PageID #: 40876
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
LOUISVILLE DIVISION
JOHNETTA CARR, )
)
Plaintiff, )
v. )
)
)
) Case No.
LOUISVILLE JEFFERSON
)
COUNTY METRO GOVERNMENT, )
CITY OF LOUISVILLE, Louisville )
Police Detectives TONY FINCH, ) JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
GARY HUFFMAN, TERRY JONES, )
JIM LAWSON, SHAWN SEABOLT, )
Louisville Police Sergeants TROY )
PITCOCK, JAMES HELLINGER, in )
their individual capacities. )
)
)
)
Defendants.
COMPLAINT
NOW COMES Plaintiff, JOHNETTA CARR, by her attorneys LOEVY &
LOEVY, and complaining of Defendants CITY OF LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY;
Louisville Police Officers TONY FINCH, GARY HUFFMAN, TERRY JONES, JIM
LAWSON, SHAWN SEABOLT, and Sergeants TROY PITCOCK and JAMES
HELLINGER, and other unknown officers from the Louisville Police Department, in
their individual capacities, and alleges as follows:
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Introduction
1. On October 23, 2005, around 9:00 a.m., Mr. Planes Adolphe was found
dead in front of his apartment building in Louisville, Kentucky.
2. Plaintiff, Johnetta Carr, had nothing to do with Mr. Adolphe’s death.
3. Plaintiff has always been an innocent woman accused of a crime she did
not commit.
4. DNA testing on physical evidence recovered from the crime scene
excluded Ms. Carr as a contributor.
5. Because the physical evidence excluded Ms. Carr from having any
involvement in the murder, the Defendants fabricated and coerced false statements
from Ms. Carr’s codefendant, Carla Sowers, and jailhouse informants.
6. With this fabricated and false evidence, Officers arrested Ms. Carr on
January 5, 2006 for Mr. Adolphe’s murder.
7. Based on the fabricated false evidence and the withheld exculpatory
evidence, the Defendants initiated charges against Ms. Carr for first degree murder,
robbery, burglary, and tampering with physical evidence.
8. The Defendants also initiated charges against two other innocent
individuals: Shawndric Williams and Carla Sowers.
9. Due to Defendants’ fabricated and false evidence, on April 14, 2008, Ms.
Carr took an Alford plea to second degree manslaughter, conspiracy to commit
robbery, conspiracy to commit burglary, and tampering with physical evidence and
was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.
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10. Tragically, Plaintiff Johnetta Carr spent more than 12 years imprisoned
and on parole for a crime she did not commit.
11. On December 9, 2019, Kentucky Governor Matthew Bevin pardoned Ms.
Carr because of her actual innocence.
Jurisdiction and Venue
12. Plaintiff brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to redress the
deprivation under color of law of Plaintiff’s rights as secured by the United States
Constitution.
13. This Court has jurisdiction of Plaintiff’s federal claims under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1331 and supplemental jurisdiction of her state law claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
14. Venue is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) and (c). Ms. Carr currently
resides within the judicial district, the events giving rise to the claims asserted in
this action occurred in this district. And, on information and belief, all parties reside
in this judicial district and are subject to personal jurisdiction of the courts of this
judicial district.
The Parties
15. Plaintiff Johnetta Carr is a resident of Louisville, Jefferson County,
Kentucky.
16. At all times relevant to the Complaint, Ms. Carr was a resident of the
Commonwealth of Kentucky and lived in the Western District of Kentucky, Louisville
Division.
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17. Defendant Louisville Jefferson County Metro Government (“Metro
Government”) formed on January 6, 2003, when Jefferson County and the city of
Louisville merged. The Metro Government is a municipality that is a political
subdivision of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and is a municipality of Jefferson
County and the City of Louisville and was the employer of Defendant Officers. Since
January 6, 2003, the Metro Government has been the employer of the aforementioned
officers. Defendant Metro Government is responsible for all policies, practices, and
customs of the former Louisville Police Department, the Jefferson County Police
Department, and the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD).
18. At all times relevant to this Complaint, prior to January 6, 2003, the
City of Louisville was responsible for all policies, practices, and customs of the
Louisville Police Department and Jefferson County was responsible for all policies,
practices, and customs of the Jefferson County Police Department. Since the merger
of the Louisville and Jefferson County governments, the Louisville Police Department
and the Jefferson County Police Department merged, and their successor entity is
the LMPD.1
19. Defendant City of Louisville, until January 6, 2003, was a political
subdivision of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. At all times relevant to this
Complaint until January 6, 2003, it was a city of the first-class with home rule as
enabled, defined, and empowered under KRS 83.410–83.660, as well as KRS Chapter
83A, 91, and 91A. Until January 6, 2003, the City of Louisville was responsible for
1
For simplicity, the Complaint refers to both the Louisville Police Department and its successor entity the Louisville
Metro Police Department as “LMPD.”
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the policies, practices, and customs of the Louisville Police Department. The city of
Louisville’s successor is Metro Government. The City of Louisville is responsible for
the acts of Defendants while employed by the City of Louisville and while acting
under color of law and within the scope of their employment.
20. At all relevant times, Defendants Tony Finch, Gary Huffman, Jim
Lawson, and Shawn Seabolt were police officers or detectives with the Louisville
Police Department, or its successor LMPD, and employed by Defendant City of
Louisville and Metro Government, and acting under color of law and within the scope
of their employment.
21. At all relevant times, Defendant James Helllinger and Troy Pitcock
were police officers or sergeants within the Louisville Police Department, or its
successor LMPD, and employed by Defendant City of Louisville and Metro
Government, and acting under color of law and within the scope of their employment.
22. Defendants Finch, Lawson, and Pitcock are each sued in their individual
capacities.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
Murder of Planes Adolphe
23. Planes Michael Adolphe worked as a cab driver for Green Cab in
Louisville, Kentucky.
24. At the time, Adolphe lived alone in the Americana apartment building
at 142 East Kingston Avenue in Louisville.
25. Mr. Adolphe was from Haiti, and was part of the close-knit Haitian
community in Louisville.
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26. On Saturday, October 22, 2005, Mr. Adolphe and several friends played
dominoes at his apartment.
27. Mr. Adolphe and Ms. Carr had been dating for about two months at that
point, but Ms. Carr never visited his apartment that evening.
28. Later, detectives found a ValuMart grocery store receipt in the front
pocket of Mr. Adolphe’s pants.
29. The receipt was dated October 22, 2005, at 10:47 p.m.
30. Sometime that night after the trip to the grocery store, Mr. Adolphe was
violently murdered.
31. The next morning, Sunday, October 23, 2005, a neighbor called the
Louisville Metro Police Department to report someone laying in front of the
Americana apartment building.
32. At 9:18 a.m., LMPD Officer Tom Goins responded to the scene. He saw
a black male—soon identified as Mr. Adolphe—lying face-up on the ground in front
of the building.
33. Officer Goins called EMS, who pronounced Mr. Adolphe dead at the
scene.
34. At 9:37 a.m., Officer Goins called the LMPD homicide unit. Defendants
Gary Huffman, Terry Jones, and Tony Finch responded.
35. Finch was lead investigator.
36. Sergeant Troy Pitcock was Finch’s supervisor.
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37. According to Defendant Finch’s report, Mr. Adolphe had an electrical
cord around his neck.
38. The cord had been cut with a knife from a fan in the victim’s bedroom.
39. Officers recovered a button and an artificial fingernail from the crime
scene. They also found pieces of packing tape on the ground, which appeared to have
been placed around the victim’s wrists and ankles.
40. Officers discovered that Mr. Adolphe’s wallet, cell phone, and cab—a
green 1999 Ford Crown Victoria—were missing.
41. Officers spoke to several observers at the scene who were friends or
acquaintances of Mr. Adolphe.
42. Jacquelin Louissaint told Defendant Huffman that he had heard
someone had been assaulted, so he came to see if he knew the person.
43. Mr. Louissaint identified the victim, and then became upset and
starting running to his car. He told Defendant Huffman that he was going to his
church to inform the Haitian community what had happened. Louissaint said he
knew the victim, and that the victim had been saving money to buy a plane ticket to
Haiti.
44. Another individual, Maxone Desgranges, informed Defendant Huffman
that he had been playing dominos with Mr. Adolphe until about 10:00 p.m. the night
before. When he left, a woman entered the rear kitchen door and spoke with Mr.
Adolphe.
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45. Also, Defendant Huffman documented that Mr. Aldophe had been
keeping a truck in a storage facility and was trying to sell the truck to fund a trip to
Haiti.
46. Another individual, Kenold Decius, reported to Defendant Huffman
that he discussed purchasing the truck with Mr. Adolphe for $3,800. Money changed
hands, he said, with more money owed to Mr. Adolphe on delivery.
47. Defendant Huffman documented that Mr. Decius was concerned about
the truck purchase because he already had paid some money for it, and wanted to see
what could be done to secure the truck.
48. Defendant Shawn Seabolt interviewed several individuals at the
homicide office. Lico Guerrer and Auguste Isaraque both knew about Mr. Adolphe’s
truck. Mr. Guerrer informed Defendant Seabolt that the victim had told him a few
days before that someone wanted to buy the truck for $3,000, but the victim wanted
$5,000 for it. Mr. Isaraque said that someone had given the victim $2,000 or $3,000
as a deposit, and then had paid the victim $800 to return his deposit.
49. None of the witnesses mentioned or implicated Johnetta Carr, Carla
Sowers, or Shawndric Williams.
50. Around 2:30 p.m. on October 23, 2005, Officer Mike Bishop found Mr.
Adolphe’s cab behind the Jackson Woods Apartments at 1029 South Jackson Street.
51. This apartment building was about six miles away from Mr. Adolphe’s
apartment.
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52. Ms. Carr had no connection to this apartment complex, nor did either of
her co-defendants, Carla Sowers or Shawndric Williams.
53. When officers found the car, the exterior of the car was intact, but the
interior was in disarray: papers were on the floor, the center console had been
knocked over, the stereo was missing, and there were wires hanging out of the
dashboard.
54. Two Jackson Woods Apartments tenants—Shameca Beals and Naisha
Adams—each informed Defendant Hellinger that they had seen the distinctive green
cab parked in the same spot the night before. Ms. Adams saw the car around 10:00
p.m. and Ms. Adams saw the car around 10:30 p.m. on October 22.
Despite the Evidence Against Him, Officers Fail to Meaningfully

Investigate Steve Louis as a Suspect
55. Mr. Louissaint was one of the victim’s best friends and was with him the
evening before the murder.
56. By October 27, 2005, Mr. Louissaint contacted the homicide office saying
he knew who committed the murder.
57. After, Defendant Finch interviewed Mr. Louissaint, who had been at the
crime scene four days before.
58. Mr. Louissaint told Defendant Finch that “Steve” who worked at Wal-
Mart killed Mr. Adolphe.
59. Mr. Louissaint said that he had witnessed Steve and the victim arguing
about a girl, and that Steve had threatened to kill the victim. Steve tried to physically
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attack the victim, but someone pulled Steve away. This incident happened near the
victim’s apartment.
60. Mr. Louissaint heard from Steve’s friend that Steve had continued
threatening to kill the victim.
61. Critically, Mr. Louissaint also learned from Steve’s friend that another
friend confessed to helping Steve kill Mr. Adolphe.
62. Mr. Louissaint did not know the identity of Steve’s friend who had this
information about Steve and someone else committing the murder. But Louissaint
showed Defendant Finch the house where Steve’s friend lived. The address of that
house was 222 Iroquis.
63. Mr. Louissaint and Defendant Finch drove by 222 Iroquis and saw a
black male sitting in the front yard. Mr. Louissaint was sitting very low in the back
seat of Finch’s patrol car, and the man was wearing a hoodie, so Mr. Louissaint could
not be sure it was Steve.
64. Mr. Louissaint ultimately identified Steve J. Louis from a photograph.
65. Next, Defendant Finch relied on a confidential informant to provide him
with Steve Louis’s location.
66. On November 3, 2005, the informant provided Defendant Finch with
Louis’s location. Defendant Finch followed Louis’s car and stopped him for failing to
stop at a stop sign.
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67. During the stop, Mr. Louis said his name was Steve John Louis and
that he went by the name “John.” But Defendant Finch knew that Louis’s middle
name actually was Jocelyn, and that he did not go by John.
68. According to Defendant Finch’s report, Mr. Louis was “nervous and
deceptive” about his identity.
69. Appropriately suspicious, Defendant Finch arrested Mr. Louis for not
having his driver’s license with him. Defendant Finch took Mr. Louis to the homicide
office and Mr. Louis waived his rights and agreed to speak about the homicide around
8:30 p.m.
70. During the interview, Louis admitted that he knew the victim.
71. Louis agreed to take a polygraph examination. Detective Ingram
administered a polygraph at 11:30 p.m.. Mr. Louis failed three times.
72. Louis could not provide Defendant Finch his whereabouts the week
before or after the murder, except that he was at his friend Darrell Taylor’s house at
222 Iroquis a week after the murder.
73. Louis maintained that he learned about Mr. Adolphe’s murder from his
mother. Louis admitted that even his own mother and brother (Renold Louis) kept
accusing him of the murder.
74. Desperate to save himself, Mr. Louis falsely informed Defendant Finch
that he thought that Ms. Carr had something to do with the murder.
75. Defendant Finch knew that Mr. Louis was lying when he denied
involvement and implicated Ms. Carr.
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76. But, unable to crack Steve Louis, Defendant Finch ended the
interrogation around 7:00 a.m. the next morning, when Defendant Seabolt
transported Louis to the Louisville Metropolitan Department of Corrections for a
minor traffic violation.
77. Instead of conducting a legitimate investigation into Steve Louis, the
obvious suspect, Defendant Finch decided to manufacture false and fabricated
evidence to frame Ms. Carr and her co-defendants.
Defendant Finch Learns that Louis Threatened

to Kill Witnesses for Speaking to Police
78. A few days later, on November 30, 2005, another witness—Jean
Batelot—informed Defendant Finch that Steve Louis and his mother threatened to
kill Louissaint and another witness because they believed they were talking to police
about the murder.
79. Despite knowing that Mr. Louissaint and Darrell Taylor knew Steve
Louis and an unidentified friend had committed the murder, the Defendant Officers
withheld all their investigative efforts into Mr. Louis.
80. They never disclosed that Darrell Taylor had direct knowledge about
who committed the murder.
81. And despite Steve Louis’s deceptive behavior and admissions that his
mother and brother believed he committed the murder, the Defendant Officers never
documented their investigation into him as a suspect in the murder outside of what’s
discussed above.
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82. The Defendant Officers failure to apprehend Steve Louis had a tragic
consequence beyond three wrongful convictions in this case: Darrell Taylor shot and
killed Steve Louis in 2012.
Defendants Huffman and Finch Disregard Key Phone Record

Evidence
83. The Defendants continued ignoring key exculpatory evidence in their
effort to falsely pin the murder on Ms. Carr.
84. As explained above, the perpetrator(s) stole Mr. Adolphe’s cell phone,
and the Defendant Officers never recovered it.
85. Defendants Finch and Huffman subpoenaed Mr. Adolphe’s phone
records, and learned that the perpetrator had continued using the cell phone after
Mr. Adolphe’s death.
86. Someone used the phone to make numerous calls after Mr. Adolphe’s
death, including calls to Los Angeles and Florida.
87. Defendants Huffman and Finch knew that Ms. Carr and her
codefendants—who were just teenagers—had no reason to make these calls.
88. Defendants knew this evidence—i.e., that someone continued using the
cell phone to make long-distance phone calls—was exculpatory evidence, but they
decided to take the easy route and frame their teenage suspects.
Detective Finch Coerces False Statement from Carla Sowers
89. Instead of conducting a legitimate investigation resulting in the
apprehension of the true perpetrator—Steve Louis—the Defendants conspired to
frame Plaintiff for crimes she did not commit.
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90. As part of this quest, Defendant Finch spoke with Carl Sowers, Carla’s
father, on December 19, 2005
91. Mr. Sowers told Finch that Carla had nothing to do with the murder.
92. Defendant Finch told Mr. Sowers that he did not think Carla was
involved in the murder, and that he was looking at two other suspects: Steve Louis
and Shawndric Williams.
93. On December 20, 2005, Finch met with Defendant Pitcock and requested
surveillance on the house where Carla Sowers was living so that officers could arrest
her.
94. Pitcock agreed, and Carla Sowers was arrested on a bench warrant for
shoplifting that same day.
95. Carla was just 19 years old at the time.
96. Defendant Finch began interrogating Carla about the homicide around
noon on December 20, 2005.
97. Carla maintained that she knew nothing about the murder.
98. She told Defendant Finch she had been with Shawndric and Sharday
Williams and Whitley Hawkins the night of the murder. At the time, Carla was
dating Shawndric Williams and was living in the Williams’s house at 923 Clarks
Lane.
99. Early in the interrogation, Detective Finch assured Carla that he knew
she didn’t do the murder.
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100. Eventually, Defendant Finch began accusing Carla, Shawndric, and Ms.
Carr of committing the murder.
101. Carla, just a teenager, maintained her innocence for hours on end.
102. But Defendant Finch used coercive interrogation methods.
103. Defendant Finch promised to help Carla if she would just repeat the
false story he wanted her to tell.
104. Defendant Finch knew that this story was false at the time he was
feeding it to Carla.
105. Defendant Finch manufactured a false statement for Carla that
implicated Ms. Carr and Shawdric Williams in the murder.
106. Convinced she had to tell Defendant Finch something, Carla eventually
broke down and repeated the false narrative that Defendant Finch provided to her.
107. After Carla was coerced and promised consideration in exchange for
repeating a false and fabricated statement, Defendant Finch told her he was going to
record her statement.
108. When Finch returned with the recorder, Carla told Defendant Finch
that he had coerced her into repeating a false and fabricated statement, that he had
fed her the whole story, and that she had just gone along with it.
109. Carla maintained the truth was that she knew nothing about the
murder.
110. She told Defendant Finch she didn’t know who did the murder or who
had used her phone to call the victim.
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111. Detective Finch still had no legitimate evidence against Ms. Carr.
112. Finch concluded the interrogation around 11:00 p.m., some 11 hours
after it had begun.
113. Carla Sowers was then arrested for murder.
114. As explained more fully below, Carla Sowers’s fabricated statement was
inconsistent with the physical evidence. First, forensic testing showed there was no
tape residue on the victim’s ankles, so Carla’s statement that Ms. Carr had bound his
feet was false. Second, the cord used to strangle the victim came from a fan in the
bedroom, not from the television. And no DNA testing from the scene of the crime
matched Carla Sowers, Shawndric Williams, or Johnetta Carr.
115. Defendant Finch knew that the statement he fabricated for Carla
Sowers was false but plowed forward with charges anyways.
Plaintiff’s Rock-Solid Alibi
116. Plaintiff had a rock-solid alibi for the time of the murder.
117. On the evening of October 22, 2005, Plaintiff was at the Williams’s
house on 923 Clarks Lane.
118. Cedric Williams lived in the house with his son (Shawndric Williams)
and daughter (Shakedra “Sharday” Williams). Numerous individuals were at the
house the night of October 22, 2005, including Cedric, Sharday, and Shawndric
Williams, Carla Sowers (Shawndric’s girlfriend), and Whitley Hawkins (Sharday’s
friend), “Big Mike,” “Steve”, Cindy (Cedric’s girlfriend), someone named Amy, and
other unknown individuals.
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119. Carla Sowers, Sharday Williams, Whitley Hawkins, and Ms. Carr all
drove around together that evening in Carla’s car.
120. They stopped at a White Castle restaurant around 1 a.m., then returned
to 923 Clarks Lane and went to bed.
121. Ms. Carr slept next to her friend, Whitley Hawkins, that night. They
were sleeping under the same blanket on a couch, and Sharday Williams was sleeping
on the floor in the same room.
122. Carla, Shawndric, Steve, and “Big Mike” slept in the basement.
123. Whitley, Sharday, and Ms. Carr woke up around 9:30 a.m. the next
morning (October 23, 2005), and Ms. Carr left the house around 10:30 a.m. with Roger
Dooley, another man she was dating at the time.
124. As demonstrated, Plaintiff could not have been involved in the murder.
Defendant Lawson Fabricates Statement from Ms. Carr’s Alibi Witness
125. Because Plaintiff’s alibi was solid, the Defendants conspired to
manipulate the alibi witnesses in order to secure her wrongful conviction.
126. As part of the plan to frame Plaintiff, Defendant Lawson interviewed
Whitley Hawkins on January 14, 2006.
127. Defendant Lawson provided Whitley with different theories about
various people who had supposedly committed the murder.
128. In short, Defendant Lawson encouraged Whitley to falsely implicate Ms.
Carr and others in the murder.
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129. Refusing Defendant Lawson’s request, Whitley told Lawson who had
been at 923 Clarks Lane on October 22, 2005; that she and Ms. Carr had driven
around with Carla Sowers and Sharday Williams that evening; and that she had slept
next to Ms. Carr on a couch that night.
130. Whitley specifically told Defendant Lawson that Ms. Carr could not have
done the murder and that she was an alibi witness for her.
131. Ignoring Whitley’s information, Defendant Lawson fabricated a false
report where he documented that Whitley said she was a very sound sleeper, and that
she could not say whether Johnetta left or came back to the house that night.
132. Lawson fabricated this statement.
133. Whitley Hawkins never told Lawson that she was a sound sleeper or
that she did not know whether Plaintiff had left the house that evening. Instead,
Whitley told Lawson that she knew Ms. Carr never had left the house that night and
that she knew Ms. Carr had not committed the murder.
134. To frame Plaintiff, the Defendants fabricated false evidence and even
deliberately manipulated evidence to get around Plaintiff’s alibi.
135. They did this because, as described above, they already fabricated and
coerced a false statement from Carla Sowers implicating Ms. Carr.
Physical Evidence Excludes Ms. Carr and Refutes Defendant

Officers’ Theory of the Case
136. The scientific testing proves Plaintiff’s innocence and Defendants’
egregious misdeeds.
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137. On March 15, 2006, Defendant Finch sent the physical evidence the
Kentucky State Police for examination.
138. Defendant Finch received the forensic testing results on September 29,
2006.
139. The physical evidence excluded Ms. Carr and her co-defendants as
having committed the murder, and was inconsistent with the Defendants’ theory of
the case.
140. DNA from the cord used to strangle the victim was a mixture. Ms. Carr,
Shawndric Williams, and Carla Sowers all were excluded as contributors. The victim
could not be excluded as a contributor to the mixture. This result means there was
more than one DNA profile on the cord and the victim could have contributed one
profile, but none of the three wrongfully convicted individuals could have contributed
it.
141. Defendant Finch believed that the pieces of tape found at the crime
scene had been used to bind the victim’s wrists and ankles. But forensic testing
revealed that there was no adhesive residue on the victim’s ankles. And, forensic
testing showed that a scraping from the victim’s left wrist was inconsistent the tape
found at the crime scene. (The scraping from the victim’s left wrist contained off-
white adhesive that was different than the gray adhesive from the pieces of tape
found at the scene).
142. The DNA found on the artificial fingernail found at the crime scene
contained an insufficient amount of DNA for analysis.
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143. Defendants never recovered the victim’s cell phone, wallet, or the
missing stereo from Mr. Adolphe’s cab.
144. And there was no evidence that Ms. Carr or her codefendants ever had
money from the purported robbery.
145. Officers recovered Mr. Adolphe’s cab the day after the murder.
According to Carla Sowers’s false and fabricated statement (and fabricated
statements from jailhouse informants, described below), Shawndric Williams had
stolen Mr. Adolphe’s car keys and dumped the cab somewhere.
146. But officers found no physical evidence—DNA, latent prints, or
otherwise—connecting Shawndric Williams, Carla Sowers, or Ms. Carr to the cab.
147. There was no evidence explaining why Shawndric Williams would have
taken the cab at all, or why he would have left it in the Jackson Woods apartments
parking lot. Shawdric was unfamiliar with the area, and would have had no way to
return home to Clarks. Plus, two Jackson Woods tenants reported having seen the
cab parked there as early as 10:00 p.m. the night before.
148. No physical evidence from the crime scene, Mr. Adolphe’s cab, or Carla
Sowers’s car linked Ms. Carr, Shawndric Williams, or Carla Sowers to the murder.
149. Although the physical evidence was completely inconsistent with Ms.
Sowers’s false and fabricated statement, the Defendant Officers persisted in their
effort to frame Ms. Carr and her codefendants for the murder.
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Lacking Reliable Evidence, Finch Manufactures Statements from

Jailhouse Informants
150. Because the Defendants were desperate to secure Plaintiff’s wrongful
conviction, they resorted to fabricating false statements for jailhouse informants in
exchange for undisclosed promises of consideration.
151. On November 16, 2006, Detective Finch fabricated a statement for
inmate Lori Deckard.
152. The fabricated false statement manufactured for Deckard stated that
Plaintiff confessed to her that had been mad at the victim, and had used Carla’s cell
phone to call him. Then Plaintiff persuaded Carla to drive her and Shawndric to his
apartment. They started arguing with the victim and then robbed him. Shawndric
told Carla to get the cord while Plaintiff found some tape. Carla and Plaintiff taped
the victim and Shawndric strangled him. Then they grabbed his cell phone and keys
and, inexplicably, dragged him outside. Shawndric took the cab and dumped it
somewhere, and Plaintiff and Carla left in Carla’s car.
153. Defendant Finch forced Ms. Deckard to go along with the false
manufactured statement.
154. By this point, Detective Finch already manufactured false evidence
against Carla Sowers through two other jailhouse snitches—April Sharp and Dana
Lowder.
155. The Defendants obtained statements from Sharp and Lowder on
February 6, 2006 and March 16, 2006 respectively.
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156. The Defendants manufactured the false statements and were aware of
their falsity at the time they were manufactured.
157. Carla Sowers never confessed to either jailhouse informant and their
resulting statements were false, fabricated, and a product of undisclosed promises of
consideration.
158. But there is more. In January of 2007 Defendant Finch fabricated a
false statement from another jailhouse informant, Raymond Jeffries, implicating
Shawndric Williams.
159. By January 2007, the Defendants manufactured four fabricated
statements for jailhouse informants implicating each of their suspects.
160. This pattern was not by chance, but rather, part of a larger pattern of
fabricating false statements for jailhouse informants that existed for decades within
the Louisville Police Department to frame innocent people for crimes they did not
commit.
Ms. Carr’s Wrongful Prosecution
161. On January 6, 2006—two weeks after Carla Sowers’s false and coerced
confession—Ms. Carr was arrested for Mr. Adolphe’s murder.
162. Defendant Finch and Defendant Hellinger interrogated Ms. Carr after
her arrest, and she maintained her innocence.
163. Defendant Finch was aggressive with Ms. Carr—who was a child at the
time—and threatened to put her in jail for life if she did not cooperate. He called her
a murderer, a bitch, and a whore, and refused to let her call her mother.
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164. Ms. Carr maintained her innocence, and stated that she had been at the
Williams’s house at 923 Clarks Lane the night of the murder with Whitley Hawkins
and Sharday Williams.
165. Defendant Finch testified falsely in front of the grand jury. There,
Defendant Finch presented the false and fabricated evidence that he manufactured
early in the investigation. Namely, Defendant Finch presented Carla Sowers’s false
statement and the manufactured statements from the jailhouse informants.
166. A grand jury returned an indictment against Ms. Carr, Carla Sowers,
and Shawndric Williams on April 27, 2006, charging her with one count of murder,
one count of burglary, one count of robbery, and one count of tampering with physical
evidence.
167. Ultimately, Ms. Carr took an Alford plea in April 2008 to second degree
manslaughter, conspiracy to commit robbery, and conspiracy to commit burglary, and
tampering with physical evidence.
168. Ms. Carr maintained her innocence, and took an Alford plea because the
false and fabricated evidence against her seemed insurmountable and the Defendants
conspired to withhold their egregious misconduct, as explained below.
169. The Defendant Officers knew that the witness statements used to
initiate charges against Ms. Carr were false and fabricated through improper tactics.
Still, the Defendant Officers used these statements to initiate charges against Ms.
Carr.
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170. The Defendants never informed the Commonwealth that Carla Sowers’
statement implicating Ms. Carr in the murder was false and coerced; that Ms. Carr
had a solid alibi; that Defendants fabricated a statement from Ms. Carr’s alibi witness
and failed to document that the alibi witness knew Ms. Carr could not have
committed the murder; that the physical evidence and phone records excluded Ms.
Carr as the culprit; and that Defendants had a suspect (Steve Louis) but abandoned
that investigation once they secured a false statement from Carla Sowers.
171. If Defendants had disclosed the extent of their egregious misdeeds, Ms.
Carr would have not taken the Alford plea and instead gone to trial.
The Louisville Defendants’ Pattern and Practice of Misconduct to

Secure Wrongful Prosecutions and Convictions
172. The investigative misconduct that led to Plaintiff’s arrest,
indictment, malicious prosecution, wrongful conviction and imprisonment was not
an anomaly. Rather, it was simply the way Louisville police closed cases.
173. Specifically, before, during, and since the unlawful investigation,
prosecution, and conviction of Plaintiff, the City of Louisville and LMPD (the
“Louisville Defendants”), by and through their final policymakers, with deliberate
indifference, maintained a policy, custom, or pattern and practice of promoting,
facilitating, or condoning improper, illegal, and unconstitutional investigative
techniques by LMPD investigators, including but not limited to the following:
a. fabricating evidence;
b. failing to promptly document and disclose material, exculpatory

and impeachment evidence to prosecutors;
c. destroying evidence;
24
d. failing to investigate known exculpatory evidence and otherwise

failing to conduct constitutionally adequate investigations;
e. disregarding the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of

criminal suspects and defendants; and
f. engaging in the ongoing affirmative concealment and coverup of

police misconduct.
174. Before, during and after the unlawful investigation, prosecution, and
conviction of Plaintiff, the Louisville Defendants, by and through their final
policymakers, with deliberate indifference, maintained a policy, custom, or pattern
and practice of failing to adequately train, supervise, and discipline LMPD
investigators regarding fundamental investigative tasks implicating the
constitutional rights of witnesses and suspects, including but not limited to the
following:
a. conducting witness identification procedures, including photo

arrays and live lineups;
b. maintaining physical evidence and accurately documenting

investigative work;
c. documenting and promptly disclosing exculpatory and

impeachment evidence to prosecutors;
d. conducting constitutionally adequate investigations with

objectivity rather than tunnel vision; and
e. conducting custodial interrogations and witness interviews.
175. Pursuant to these unconstitutional policies, customs, or patterns and
practices, municipal defendants’ final policymakers abdicated and effectively
delegated to detectives, including but not limited to defendants Finch, Huffman,
25
Jones, Lawson, Seabolt, Pitcock, and Hellinger the authority and discretion to
conduct and supervise investigations with deliberate and reckless disregard for
their constitutional duties and the rights of innocent suspects.
176. As a result, detectives, officers, and supervisors, including but not
limited to defendants Finch, Huffman, Jones, Lawson, Seabolt, Pitcock, and
Hellinger routinely and knowingly engaged in investigative misconduct, and
condoned and facilitated the misconduct of subordinates, in a climate of impunity.
177. The unconstitutional municipal policies, customs, and practices of
investigative misconduct and failure to supervise, train and discipline police were
reflected in the multiple acts of misconduct and illegality committed by multiple
Louisville police officers, detectives and supervisors in relation to multiple suspects
and witnesses in the underlying criminal investigation, as described above.
The Louisville Defendants’ Custom and Practice of Fabricating

Inculpatory Evidence and Failure to Supervise and Discipline Police
Regarding their Obligations not to Fabricate Evidence
178. By 2005, it was a well-established legal principle and a fundamental
tenet of responsible police practices that fabricating evidence against a suspect
violates the suspect’s constitutional rights. Nonetheless, the municipal defendants,
by and through their final policymakers and delegees, failed either to supervise
their police to ensure they did not fabricate evidence, or to discipline police when
they did. These municipal failures created an environment of impunity in which
fabricating evidence was tacitly, and sometimes explicitly, authorized.
179. These systemic municipal lapses and unconstitutional fabrications of
26
evidence were the norm by 2005. For example, in 1992, LMPD officers Steve Clark
and Joe Carroll falsely reported in their investigative notes that rape suspect
William Gregory had volunteered guilty knowledge regarding a rape for which he
had been arrested—a list of the items stolen from a rape victim’s apartment—
falsely claiming that they had not provided this information to Gregory. Officers
Clark and Carroll then testified to these false allegations at Gregory’s trial. As
Gregory was innocent of the rape in question, he could not have and did not
volunteer the nonpublic information regarding the items stolen from the victim’s
apartment. This information was fed to him by LMPD officers Clark and Carroll,
who were aware of the inculpatory value of nonpublic facts originating from a
criminal suspect. The officers thereby fabricated this evidence to create probable
cause to prosecute Gregory.
180. In 1992, in accordance with these unconstitutional customs and
practices, LMPD officers wrongly arrested, deliberately manufactured a case
against, destroyed and ignored exculpatory evidence, maliciously prosecuted and
covered up or withheld exculpatory and impeachment evidence from other innocent
suspects, Jeffrey Clark and Keith Hardin, who were wrongfully convicted of a
crime for which they did not commit. Clark and Hardin experienced many of the
same types of misconduct that led to Plaintiff’s wrongful conviction.
181. Similarly, in accordance with these same municipal customs,
practices, and lapses in training and supervision, in 1993, Det. Handy and other
defendants deliberately fabricated a confession from murder suspect Edwin
27
Chandler. After falsely telling him that he failed a polygraph and engaging in
other coercive misconduct, Det. Handy and others coerced Chandler to confess. To
make the confession sound more believable, they fed Chandler nonpublic facts about
the crime and then misrepresented how his “confession” was elicited in order to
make it appear that Chandler had guilty knowledge of nonpublic facts only the
perpetrator could have known.
182. In 1996, in accordance with the same unconstitutional customs and
practices, LMPD wrongly arrested, deliberately manufactured a case against,
destroyed and ignored exculpatory evidence, maliciously prosecuted, and covered up
or withheld exculpatory and impeachment evidence from another innocent suspect,
Kerry Porter, who was wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit. LMPD
officers manufactured inculpatory statements from jailhouse informants by feeding
them details of the crime. LMPD offices withheld the fact that one of the informants
was a longtime paid informant for the Louisville Police Department who was paid to
provide information on more than one hundred other cases. Porter was only
exonerated after the news media obtained evidence from a subsequent investigation
showing that a different suspect had committed the murder. Despite having this
information, the LMPD cold case squad did nothing to inform Porter or his defense
counsel of it. DNA evidence subsequently proved Porter’s innocence.
183. Here, LMPD Defendants Finch, Huffman, Jones, Lawson, Seabolt,
Pitcock, and Hellinger in accordance with the Louisville Defendants’
unconstitutional policy or practice of manufacturing false evidence and failing to
28
train, supervise, and discipline officers fabricated the evidence that led to Plaintiff’s
indictment and conviction. Specifically:
a. The false statement fabricated by Defendant Finch for Carla

Sowers;
b. The false statement fabricated by Defendants for the jailhouse

informants.
The Louisville Defendants’ Custom and Practice of Suppressing Brady

Evidence and Failure to Train, Supervise and Discipline Officers
Regarding Brady Obligations
184. By 1992, police had a clearly established constitutional duty to disclose
exculpatory and impeachment information to prosecutors under Brady v. Maryland,
Giglio v. United States, and their progeny. Failing to carry out these Brady
disclosure duties posed obvious risks for criminal defendants, yet the Louisville
Defendants utterly failed to supervise or train police in this regard. Specifically, the
Louisville Defendants did nothing to ensure police understood their Brady duties
and carried them out in practice.
185. E. Douglas Hamilton, the LMPD Police Chief in 1992 and 1993, has
testified under oath that in 1992, at the time of the underlying investigation, LMPD
officers were “confused” about their Brady duty to disclose exculpatory information
to prosecutors, but received no ordinary or remedial training on this duty.
186. Despite Hamilton’s admission, the Louisville Defendants took no
action to properly train LMPD officers in how to meet their Brady obligations.
187. As a direct result of the Louisville Defendants’ deliberate indifference
to the obvious risk this endemic Brady confusion posed to criminal defendants—and
29
specifically to innocent suspects like Plaintiff—the confusion persisted throughout
the 1992 investigation and indeed for years thereafter without intervention from
supervisors or policymakers.
188. For example, as noted above, pursuant to this custom and practice,
LPD officers in 1992 arrested, maliciously prosecuted and covered up or withheld
exculpatory and impeachment information—including evidence of their own
misconduct—from another innocent suspect, William Gregory. As a result,
Gregory was wrongly convicted of two rapes he did not commit and endured more
than seven years of imprisonment before he was proven innocent and released.
189. Gregory sued. In that action, Gregory v. City of Louisville, et al., 444
F.3d 725 (6th Cir.), reh’g denied (2006), the Sixth Circuit found that the City of
Louisville had been deliberately indifferent in failing to train LMPD officers on
their Brady and Giglio disclosure obligations.
190. Here, the very same municipal customs, practices and systemic
lapses in training, as well as systemic lapses in supervision and discipline, led
police to arrest, maliciously prosecute, and cover up and withhold exculpatory and
impeachment information from Plaintiff, including:
a. the fact that the LMPD Defendants withheld exculpatory

evidence that Carla Sowers was coerced into giving a false and
fabricated statement;
b. the fact that the LMPD Defendants withheld exculpatory evidence

regarding the fabricated jailhouse informant statements;
c. the fact that the LMPD Defendants withheld exculpatory

evidence implicating alternate suspects in the murder
30
The Louisville Defendants’ Final Policymakers and Delegees Were on

Notice of the Systemic Unconstitutional Customs, Practices and Lapses in
Training, Supervision and Discipline
191. The municipal defendants’ unconstitutional policies, customs, or
patterns and practices of investigative misconduct and failure to supervise and train
detectives and officers were reflected in numerous prior cases and investigations of
which the municipal defendants and their final policymakers were on notice before
the underlying murder investigation.
192. For example, the municipal defendants knew and were on actual
notice that Defendant Finch had, in other prior felony investigations, destroyed
evidence that had substantial power to prove suspects’ innocence. Yet, the
municipal defendants never conducted a meaningful internal investigation into his
misconduct, never disciplined him, and did not ensure that he was more closely
supervised despite the obvious risk he posed, leaving him free to act with impunity.
193. Before the wrongful conviction of Keith West, Louisville’s final
policymakers were on actual and/or constructive notice of these unconstitutional
customs and resulting misconduct the Louisville police including Defendants named
herein:
194. Despite their notice of ongoing lapses of constitutional magnitude,
the municipal defendants’ supervisors and final policymakers, acting with
deliberate indifference, failed to train, supervise, discipline, or otherwise remediate
Louisville police officers.
31
Defendant Finch’s Contemporaneous Misconduct
195. In 2009, Defendant Finch pleaded guilty to 112 counts of stalking,
harassment, official misconduct, and perjury.
196. The Commonwealth charged Defendant Finch with one count of stalking
for threatening, intimidating, and harassing his former wife, Pamela Finch, between
2005 and 2008.
197. The conduct underlying this charge was Defendant Finch’s threats to
his former wife with a knife after following her when she was visiting a friend’s home,
and his threats to her while she was traveling out of state.
198. The Commonwealth charged him with 53 counts of harassing
communications for making telephone calls with no legitimate purpose in an effort to
harass and intimidate others between August and September 2008.
199. The Commonwealth charged Defendant Finch with one count of
unlawfully accessing data belonging to his former wife between August and
September 2008.
200. The Commonwealth charged Defendant Finch with 53 counts of official
misconduct for abusing his official position to conduct surveillance and investigation
into his former wife, between August and September 2008.
201. Finally, the Commonwealth charged Defendant Finch with one count of
perjury for making a false statement under oath on September 29, 2008.
202. Defendant Finch used his position as a detective to stalk and harass his
former wife.
32
203. He used to detective credentials to access phone numbers and personal
information about individuals he believed were associating with his former wife.
204. Defendant Finch made repeated harassing phone calls to his former wife
and her friend and used LMPD computers to view web cams of the hotel were his
former wife was staying on vacation.
205. Defendant Finch abused his position to track the whereabouts of his wife
and her associates, and investigated her whereabouts by falsely representing that he
was investigating in his capacity as a detective.
206. A grand jury returned an Indictment charging Defendant Finch with
110 counts of misconduct, described above.
207. Detective Finch’s disturbing conduct occurred at the same time as his
investigation into Ms. Carr.
208. The Commonwealth was on notice of Defendant Finch’s harassing,
intimidating, and threatening behavior, but permitted him to serve as lead
investigator in a murder case.
209. The Commonwealth never disclosed this exculpatory evidence of
Defendant Finch’s official misconduct, abuse of power, and threatening, harassing,
and intimidating behavior toward others.
Ms. Carr’s Exoneration
210. Ms. Carr was arrested January 6, 2006 for Mr. Adolphe’s murder.
33
211. On May 28, 2008, Ms. Carr took an Alford Plea to manslaughter,
conspiracy to commit burglary, conspiracy to commit robbery, and tampering with
physical evidence.
212. On December 6, 2019, Ms. Carr submitted an application for a pardon
to Kentucky Governor Matthew Bevin based on her actual innocence.
213. The application contained a letter from Ms. Carr, and three supporting
letters from individuals familiar with her case.
214. Ms. Carr’s letter explained that she spent more than 12 years in prison
and on parole for a crime she did not commit.
215. Ms. Carr’s letter also explained that the only evidence against her was
a statement from one of her codefendants and a statement from a jailhouse snitch.
Both of these individuals had recanted their statements.
216. The three supporting letters all stressed Ms. Carr’s actual innocence.
217. On December 9, 2019, Governor Bevin pardoned Ms. Carr based on her
actual innocence pardon request.
Plaintiff’s Damages
218. At just 16 years old, Ms. Carr was a child when she was arrested. She
had completed her GED and planned to complete her paralegal certification.
Maliciously arrested and prosecuted for Mr. Adolphe’s death, the Defendants’
misconduct deprived Ms. Carr of the most formative years of her life. She is
traumatized to this day.
34
219. Instead of pursuing her education, Ms. Carr spent the next 12 years
imprisoned and on parole for a crime she did not commit.
220. Ms. Carr was removed from her family and friends and prevented from
pursuing education, job opportunities, and relationships. She missed out on her
teenage and young adult years, and on holidays, birthdays, and family gatherings.
221. Ms. Carr missed out on opportunities to attend school, engage in
meaningful work, to develop her career, and to pursue her interests and passions.
She has been deprived of all the basic pleasures of human experience, from the
simplest to the most important, which all free people enjoy as a matter of right,
including the right to live as an autonomous human being.
Plaintiff’s Claims
Count 1 – 42 U.S.C. § 1983
Unreasonable Prosecutorial Seizure
222. Each of the Paragraphs of this Complaint is incorporated as if restated
fully herein.
223. As described more fully above, all of the Defendant Officers, while acting
individually, jointly, and in conspiracy, as well as under color of law and within the
scope of their employment, deprived Ms. Carr of her constitutional right to be free
from unlawful prosecution and continued detention without probable cause.
224. In the manner described more fully above, the Defendant Officers made,
influenced, and/or participated in the decision to prosecute Ms. Carr for murder, for
which there was no probable cause and which caused Ms. Carr to suffer a deprivation
35
of liberty. Their misconduct included falsifying evidence and withholding exculpatory
and impeachment evidence.
225. As described more fully above, the prosecution was resolved in Ms.
Carr’s favor.
226. The Defendant Officers’ misconduct directly resulted in the unlawful
prosecution and continued deprivation of Ms. Carr’s liberty, violating her
constitutional rights.
227. As a result of this violation of her constitutional rights, Ms. Carr
suffered injuries, including but not limited to bodily harm and emotional distress, as
is more fully alleged above.
228. The Defendant Officers’ misconduct, as described in this Count, was
objectively unreasonable and was undertaken intentionally with malice and willful
indifference to Ms. Carr’s constitutional rights.
229. The misconduct described in this Count was undertaken pursuant to a
routine practice of the LMPD to pursue wrongful prosecutions and wrongful
convictions through reckless and profoundly flawed investigations and coerced
evidence. In this way, the municipal defendants violated Ms. Carr’s rights by
maintaining policies and practices that were the moving force driving the foregoing
constitutional violations.
230. These widespread practices, so well settled as to constitute de facto
policy in the LMPD, were able to exist and thrive because municipal policymakers
36
with authority over the Division of Police exhibited deliberate indifference to the
problem, thereby effectively ratifying it.
231. The widespread practices described in the preceding paragraphs were
allowed to flourish because the municipal defendants declined to implement sufficient
training and/or enforce legitimate oversight and punishment.
Count II – 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Due Process
232. Each of the paragraphs in this Complaint is incorporated as if restated
fully herein.
233. As described more fully above, all of the Defendants, while acting
individually, jointly, and in conspiracy, as well as under color of law and within the
scope of their employment, caused Ms. Carr to enter a constitutionally invalid guilty
plea.
234. In the manner described more fully above, the Defendants conducted a
reckless investigation, deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence, and fabricated
false reports, false testimony, and other evidence. Absent this misconduct, the
prosecution of Ms. Carr could not and would not have been pursued.
235. The Defendants’ misconduct also directly resulted in the unjust criminal
conviction of Ms. Carr, denying her the constitutional right to a fair trial in violation
of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution.
236. As a result of this violation of her constitutional right to a fair trial, Ms.
Carr suffered injuries including emotional distress, as is more fully alleged above.
37
237. The misconduct described in this Count was objectively unreasonable
and was undertaken intentionally and with willful indifference to Ms. Carr’s
constitutional rights.
238. The misconduct described in this Count was undertaken consistent with
a routine practice of LMPD to pursue wrongful convictions through reckless and
profoundly flawed investigations and coerced evidence. In this way, the municipal
defendants violated Ms. Carr’s rights by maintaining policies and practices that drove
the foregoing constitutional violations.
239. These widespread practices described in the preceding paragraphs were
allowed to flourish because the municipal defendants declined to implement sufficient
training and/or enforce legitimate oversight and punishment.
Count III – 42 U.S.C. § 1983 – Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments

Fabrication of False Evidence
240. Each paragraph of this Complaint is incorporated as if restated fully
herein.
241. In the manner described more fully above, the Defendant Officers,
individually, jointly, and in conspiracy with each other, fabricated evidence, including
without limitation, false police reports, fabricated statements attributed to witnesses,
and fabricated testimony offered to the grand jury and other pretrial proceedings.
The Defendant Officers knowingly fabricated this evidence and a reasonable
likelihood exists that the false evidence affected the decision of the grand jurors, Ms.
Carr’s decision to take an Alford plea, and courts considered this false evidence when
38
deciding whether probable cause existed and whether to accept Ms. Carr’s Alford
plea.
242. The Defendant Officers were acting under color of law and within their
scope of employment when they took these actions.
243. The Defendant Officers’ misconduct directly resulted in the unjust
incarceration of Plaintiff, thereby denying her from her constitutional right to due
process and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Absent this misconduct, there
would have been no probable cause for Plaintiff’s continued detention, and the
prosecution of Plaintiff could not and would not have been pursued.
244. As a direct and proximate result of the Defendant Officers’ actions,
Plaintiff’s constitutional rights were violated and she suffered from injuries and
damages, including loss of liberty, physical sickness and injury, emotional pain and
suffering, and other grievous and continuing injuries as set forth above.
Count IV – 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Supervisory Liability
245. Each paragraph of this Complaint is incorporated as if restated fully
herein.
246. The continued wrongful detention of Plaintiff was caused by the
deliberate indifference and recklessness of supervisory defendants, including
Defendant Sergeants Pitcock and Hellinger, when he failed to adequately train and
supervise the individual defendant officers.
247. Specifically, this supervisory defendant was personally involved in the
case against Plaintiff and knew or, in the absence of their deliberate indifference and
39
recklessness, should have known of their subordinates’ unconstitutional actions and
related misconduct in the case.
248. Furthermore, these supervisory defendants failed to supervise the
Defendant Officers in constitutionally adequate law enforcement practices,
particularly those which concerned interviews of suspects and the production of
exculpatory evidence, thereby encouraging and/or permitting these employees and
other defendants to engage in a reckless investigation, to coerce and fabricate false
inculpatory evidence and to withhold exculpatory and impeachment evidence, which
caused the constitutional deprivations suffered by Plaintiff.
249. These interview techniques, failures in producing exculpatory evidence,
fabrications and other investigative procedures were contrary to accepted methods
used by law enforcement agencies. The fact that the defendant supervisors failed to
train and supervise their subordinates to ensure that they employed proper
investigation procedures demonstrates deliberate indifference and reckless disregard
for Plaintiff’s constitutional rights.
250. The personal involvement of the defendant supervisors, through their
actions and omissions, proximately and directly caused the constitutional
deprivations and grievous personal injuries suffered by Plaintiff, including the above-
mentioned injuries and damages.
251. The misconduct described in this Count was objectively unreasonable,
and was undertaken intentionally, with malice, willfulness, and deliberate
indifference to Plaintiff’s clearly established constitutional rights.
40
Count V - 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Failure to Intervene
fully herein.
253. In the manner described above, during the constitutional violations
described above, one or more of the Defendant Officers stood by without intervening
to prevent the misconduct, despite having a reasonable opportunity to do so.
254. As a result of the Defendant Officers failure to intervene to prevent the
violation of Ms. Carr’s constitutional rights, Ms. Carr suffered pain and injury, as
well as emotional distress.
255. The misconduct described in this Count was objectively unreasonable
and was undertaken intentionally and with willful indifference to Ms. Carr’s rights.
256. The misconduct described in this Count was undertaken pursuant to the
policy and practice of the LMPD in the manner described more fully in preceding
paragraphs 173–185, and was tacitly ratified by policymakers for the municipal
defendants with final policymaking authority.
Count VI – 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Conspiracy to Deprive Constitutional Rights
fully herein.
258. After Mr. Adolphe was murdered, the Defendant Officers reached an
agreement amongst themselves to frame Ms. Carr for the crimes, and to thereby
41
deprive Ms. Carr of her constitutional rights and his liberty to be continuously taken
away from her, all as described in the various Paragraphs of this Complaint.
259. In this manner, the Defendant Officers, acting in concert with other
unknown co-conspirators, conspired by concerted action to accomplish an unlawful
purpose by unlawful means.
260. In furtherance of the conspiracy, each of the co-conspirators committed
overt acts and was an otherwise willful participant in joint activity.
261. As a direct and proximate result of the illicit prior agreement referenced
above, Ms. Carr’s rights were violated, and she suffered financial damages, as well as
severe emotional distress and anguish, as is more fully alleged above.
262. The misconduct described in this Count was undertaken with malice,
willfulness, and reckless indifference to the rights of others.
263. The misconduct described in this Count was undertaken pursuant to the
policy and practice of the LMPD in the manner described more fully in above, and
was tacitly ratified by policymakers for the municipal defendants with final
policymaking authority.
Count VII - 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Monell Claim Against Defendant Louisville Jefferson County Metro
Government
fully herein.
265. The actions of LMPD officers in withholding material exculpatory
information from Ms. Carr and her counsel were undertaken pursuant to the policies
42
and practices of the LMPD, described above, which were ratified by policymakers for
the Louisville Jefferson County Metro Government with final policymaking
authority. These policies and practices included the failure to adequately train,
supervise, and discipline officers on the requirements concerning the prompt
disclosure of newly discovered evidence that exonerates a defendant following his
arrest or conviction.
266. The policies and practices described in this Count were maintained and
implemented by the Louisville Jefferson County Metro Government with deliberate
indifference to Plaintiff’s constitutional rights.
267. As a direct and proximate result of the Metro Government’s actions,
Plaintiff’s constitutional rights were violated and he suffered injuries and damages,
as set forth in this Complaint.
268. The Louisville Jefferson County Metro Government is therefore liable
for the misconduct committed by its officers.
Count VIII – State Law Claim

Malicious Prosecution
fully herein.
270. Through their actions as described above, the Defendant Officers caused
Ms. Carr to be improperly subjected to a prosecution for which there was no probable
cause. These judicial proceedings were instituted and continued maliciously,
resulting in injury, and all such proceedings were ultimately terminated in Ms. Carr’s
favor.
43
271. The Defendant Officers accused Ms. Carr of criminal activities knowing
those accusations to be without genuine probable cause; fabricated evidence and
withheld the manner in which that evidence was fabricated; and made statements
and reports to the police and/or prosecutors with the intent of exerting influence to
institute and continue the judicial proceedings.
bad faith, and in a wanton and reckless manner, and was undertaken by the
Defendant Officers within the scope of their employment and/or official
responsibilities.
273. As a result of this misconduct, Ms. Carr suffered injuries, including
bodily harm and emotional pain and suffering as more fully alleged above.
Count IX – State Law Claim

Negligent Supervision
fully herein.
275. The municipal defendants, as well as the supervisory defendant Pitcock
had a duty to properly train and supervise officers, detectives, and supervisor
employees of the LMPD, and to provide adequate policies to prevent the above
conduct, including fabricating evidence, fabricating witness statements, and
concealing material impeachment evidence.
276. The municipal defendants and the supervisory defendants were grossly
negligent and negligent in the training, supervision and discipline of the Defendant
44
Officers, resulting in Ms. Carr being deprived of his right to due process, and his right
to be free from false arrest, false imprisonment, and wrongful conviction.
277. As a result of this misconduct, Ms. Carr suffered injuries, including
bodily harm and emotional pain and suffering as more fully alleged above.
Count X – State Law Claim

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
fully herein.
279. As described more fully in the preceding paragraphs, by framing Ms.
Carr for a murder she did not commit, the Defendant Officers intended to cause
emotional distress, or knew or should have known that their actions would result in
serious emotional distress.
280. In doing so, the Defendant Officers’ conduct was extreme and
outrageous, going beyond all possible bounds of decency such that it can be considered
completely intolerable in a civilized society, and this conduct caused Carr to suffer
serious emotional distress of the nature no reasonable person could be expected to
endure.
bad faith, and in a wanton and reckless manner, and was undertaken by the
Defendant Officers within the scope of their employment.
282. As a result of this misconduct, Ms. Carr sustained injuries, including
emotional pain and suffering, as is more fully alleged above.
45
Count XI
Respondeat Superior
fully herein.
284. In committing the acts alleged in the preceding paragraphs, the
Defendant Officers were members and agents of the LMPD, acting at all relevant
times within the scope of their employment.
285. Defendants City of Louisville and Metro Government as successor to the
City of Louisville are liable as principals for all state law torts committed by their
agents.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff, Johnetta Carr, respectfully requests that this Court
enter judgment in her favor and against Defendants CITY OF LOUISVILLE,
Kentucky; Louisville Police Officers TONY FINCH, JAMES HELLINGER, GARY
HUFFMAN, TERRY JONES, JIM LAWSON, TROY PITCOCK, & SHAWN
SEABOLT, in their individual capacities, and other unknown officers from the
Louisville Police Department; awarding compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees and
costs against each Defendant, and punitive damages against each of the individual
defendants, as well as any other relief this Court deems appropriate.
46
JURY DEMAND
Plaintiff, JOHNETTA CARR hereby demands a trial by jury under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 38(b) on all issues so triable.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/_Amy Robinson Staples

One of Plaintiff’s Attorneys
Michael Kanovitz
Elliot Slosar*
Amy Robinson Staples
Margaret E. Campbell*
LOEVY & LOEVY
311 N. Aberdeen, 3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 243-5900
Fax: (312) 243-5902
* Pro Hac Vice Motion Forthcoming
47

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Case 3:20-mc-99999 Document 1064 Filed 12/08/20 Page 1 of 47 PageID #: 40876

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

LOEVY, and complaining of Defendants CITY OF LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY;

LAWSON, SHAWN SEABOLT, and Sergeants TROY PITCOCK and JAMES

their individual capacities, and alleges as follows:

dead in front of his apartment building in Louisville, Kentucky.

2. Plaintiff, Johnetta Carr, had nothing to do with Mr. Adolphe’s death.

4. DNA testing on physical evidence recovered from the crime scene

excluded Ms. Carr as a contributor.

from Ms. Carr’s codefendant, Carla Sowers, and jailhouse informants.

January 5, 2006 for Mr. Adolphe’s murder.

7. Based on the fabricated false evidence and the withheld exculpatory

robbery, burglary, and tampering with physical evidence.

8. The Defendants also initiated charges against two other innocent

individuals: Shawndric Williams and Carla Sowers.

Carr took an Alford plea to second degree manslaughter, conspiracy to commit

was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.

and on parole for a crime she did not commit.

11. On December 9, 2019, Kentucky Governor Matthew Bevin pardoned Ms.

Carr because of her actual innocence.

Jurisdiction and Venue

Commonwealth of Kentucky and lived in the Western District of Kentucky, Louisville

17. Defendant Louisville Jefferson County Metro Government (“Metro

Louisville merged. The Metro Government is a municipality that is a political

subdivision of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and is a municipality of Jefferson

Department, and the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD).

19. Defendant City of Louisville, until January 6, 2003, was a political

subdivision of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. At all times relevant to this

Louisville’s successor is Metro Government. The City of Louisville is responsible for

under color of law and within the scope of their employment.

Police Department, or its successor LMPD, and employed by Defendant City of

successor LMPD, and employed by Defendant City of Louisville and Metro

at 142 East Kingston Avenue in Louisville.

dominoes at his apartment.

pocket of Mr. Adolphe’s pants.

Louisville Metro Police Department to report someone laying in front of the

Americana apartment building.

a black male—soon identified as Mr. Adolphe—lying face-up on the ground in front

Gary Huffman, Terry Jones, and Tony Finch responded.

35. Finch was lead investigator.

36. Sergeant Troy Pitcock was Finch’s supervisor.

37. According to Defendant Finch’s report, Mr. Adolphe had an electrical

cord around his neck.

been placed around the victim’s wrists and ankles.

green 1999 Ford Crown Victoria—were missing.

acquaintances of Mr. Adolphe.

42. Jacquelin Louissaint told Defendant Huffman that he had heard

someone had been assaulted, so he came to see if he knew the person.

44. Another individual, Maxone Desgranges, informed Defendant Huffman

46. Another individual, Kenold Decius, reported to Defendant Huffman

hands, he said, with more money owed to Mr. Adolphe on delivery.

what could be done to secure the truck.

48. Defendant Shawn Seabolt interviewed several individuals at the

49. None of the witnesses mentioned or implicated Johnetta Carr, Carla

Sowers, or Shawndric Williams.

her co-defendants, Carla Sowers or Shawndric Williams.

54. Two Jackson Woods Apartments tenants—Shameca Beals and Naisha

Despite the Evidence Against Him, Officers Fail to Meaningfully

evening before the murder.

he knew who committed the murder.