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Nick J. Brustin* Email: nick@nsbcivilrights.com Anna Benvenutti Hoffmann* Email: anna@nsbcivilrights.com Farhang Heydari* Email: farhang@nsbcivilrights.com NEUFELD SCHECK & BRUSTIN, LLP 99 Hudson Street, 8th Floor New York, NY 10013 Telephone: (212) 965-9081 Facsimile: (212) 965-9084
Attorneys awaiting admission pro hac vice
Michael D. Kimerer (SBN 002492) Email: MDK@Kimerer.com Rhonda Elaine Neff (SBN 029773) Email: rneff@kimerer.com KIMERER & DERRICK, P.C. 1313 E. Osborn Road, Suite 100 Phoenix, Arizona 85014 Telephone: (602) 279-5900 Facsimile: (602) 264-5566 Marvel Eugene “Buddy” Rake, Jr.
(SBN
003452) Email: brake@aztriallaw.com Daniel T. Benchoff
(SBN
021672) Email: dbenchoff@aztriallaw.com RAKE
LAW
GROUP,
P.C. 2701 E. Camelback Road, Suite 160 Phoenix, AZ 85016 Telephone: (602) 264-9081 Facsimile: (602) 265-2628
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
Debra Jean Milke, Plaintiff, vs. City of Phoenix; Maricopa County; Maricopa County Attorney William Montgomery, in his official capacity; and CASE NO.:
COMPLAINT AND JURY TRIAL DEMAND
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Detective Armando Saldate, Jr.; Detective Robert Mills; Detective Jim House; Detective Russell Davis; Detective Charles Masino; Detective Judy Townsend; Detective Harvey Ernie Hamrick; Detective Frank DiModica; Sergeant Silverio Ontiveros; Lieutenant Michael Jahn; Walter E. Birkby; Phillip Wolslagel; and George Bolduc, in their individual capacities, Defendants. Plaintiff DEBRA JEAN MILKE, by and through her attorneys, the law firms of NEUFELD SCHECK & BRUSTIN, LLP, the RAKE LAW GROUP, P.C., and KIMERER & DERRICK, P.C., hereby alleges as follows:
INTRODUCTION
1.
On December 2, 1989, Plaintiff Debra Jean Milke suffered any parent’s worst nightmare. Her four-year-old son, C.M., disappeared. The next day his body was found; he had been shot in the head, his body left in the desert. For Ms. Milke, however, this unspeakable tragedy was only the first tragedy in the story of this case. After spending over thirty hours frantically waiting for any word on her son’s fate, Ms. Milke was brought down to the local police precinct to be interviewed by Detective Armando Saldate, a Phoenix Police Department detective with a long history of lying under oath and coercing confessions. In one breath, Detective Saldate took Ms. Milke’s nightmare from one level to the next—“We found your son. He was murdered. And you’re under arrest.” 2.
In the next thirty minutes, Detective Saldate, through his own egregious misconduct, would set in motion the second tragedy in the story of this case: an innocent,
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mother would spend the next twenty-three years of her life on death row, falsely convicted of the capital murder of her four-year-old child, never allowed to properly mourn his death, and coming within days of her own execution. 3.
Exploiting the shock and horror that this news of C.M.’s death caused, Detective Saldate attempted to use his unwitnessed, unrecorded interrogation to coerce a confession. But there was nothing for Ms. Milke to confess—she had nothing to do with her son’s murder and did not know anything about it. Rather than document Ms. Milke’s actual statement—that she was innocent—Saldate instead fabricated a confession. He falsely reported that Ms. Milke had confessed to arranging for her son’s brutal murder. In reality, Ms. Milke said nothing of the sort; Saldate made up the inculpatory statements out of whole cloth. 4.
Saldate and other detectives from the PPD then manipulated the evidence to “fit” the fabricated confession. They fabricated additional evidence falsely indicating Ms. Milke was cavalier and uninterested about her son’s disappearance, and they used impermissible tactics to cajole witnesses into falsely reporting that Ms. Milke was a bad mother. 5.
In reality, two men—Jim Styers and Roger Scott—were involved in C.M.’s murder, and either one or both of them actually murdered C.M.. Styers and Scott would each eventually make statements implicating themselves and each other; their statements, however, directly contradicted each other regarding how exactly C.M. was murdered and which of the two had been the trigger man. Because of the Phoenix Police Department’s misconduct and inadequate investigation, not only was Debra Milke robbed of 23 years of her life, she and her family also have never learned the truth about what exactly happened to C.M. or why.
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