DOJ recommends one day in jail for ex-cop in Breonna Taylor raid
July 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Justice filed a memo on Thursday recommending one day in jail for former Louisville, Ky., police detective Brett Hankison, who shot into Breonna Taylor's apartment 10 times but didn't injure anyone.
Breonna Taylor, an emergency room technician, was awakened from sleep March 13, 2020, by police with a falsified "no-knock warrant." Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought the officers were intruders and shot at them. The police opened fire, and another officer shot and killed Taylor. Hankison was outside the apartment and shot into the window 10 times. Hankison was convicted of deprivation of rights under color of law in November. He faces up to life in prison.
Prosecutors wrote in the filing they were unaware of another case "in which a police officer has been charged with depriving the rights of another person under the Fourth Amendment for returning fire and not injuring anyone."
A pre-sentence report from the U.S. Probation Office recommended a sentence between 11.25 and 14 years, USA Today reported. The DOJ says that range was incorrectly calculated and "excessive." It recommends the court "grant a significant downward departure."
The memo was signed by Robert J. Keenum, senior counsel for the DOJ's civil rights division, and Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the department. Neither was involved with the case.
The memo prompted a strong response.
"The fact that Donald Trump's DOJ thinks Breonna Taylor's life is worth just a one-day jail sentence is morally reprehensible and deeply insulting. This is a dark day for our entire city," Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., said in a statement. McGarvey represents Louisville.
Former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said the police did knock and announce themselves. But Taylor's neighbors and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said they heard no knock or announcement. Walker has since gotten a $2 million settlement against the city.
Hankison is white, and he was the first convicted in the case. The other officers were not convicted. Hankison was previously acquitted on a state charge.
The memo said that Hankison's suffered enough.
"Here, multiple prosecutions against defendant Hankison were brought, and only one of three juries -- the last one -- found him guilty on these facts, and then only on one charge," the memo says. "The government respects the jury's verdict, which will almost certainly ensure that defendant Hankison never serves as a law enforcement officer again and will also likely ensure that he never legally possesses a firearm again."
But others disagreed with DOJ's request.
Hankison's shots "missed a sleeping baby by about two feet," said former Justice Department Civil Rights Division official Samatha Trepel on LinkedIn. She believes the court will see the request as "transparent, last minute political interference into a case that was tried by non-political, longtime career prosecutors who obtained this conviction in front of an all-white jury of Kentucky citizens before a Trump-appointed judge."
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CNN
16 minutes ago
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Analysis: Trump's Epstein claims keep falling apart
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Epoch Times
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Stefanik, Issa Reintroduce Bill to Ban Handgun Roster Restrictions in States
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30 minutes ago
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How Trump and 'terrific guy' Jeffrey Epstein's party boy friendship ended badly
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One day later, the Wall Street Journal and CNN reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that he was named multiple times in the government's files on Epstein. But long before Epstein's conviction and questions about who might want his secrets buried, he and Trump were charter members of a decadent New York party scene. When Donald met Jeffrey Epstein and Trump met, it's believed, in 1990 when Epstein bought a mansion 2 miles from Trump's Mar-a-Lago club and estate. Born seven years and a borough apart in New York, Epstein was from Brooklyn and Trump from Queens. They partied hard, but neither drank alcohol. Trump was living loud in 1990. He had divorced his first wife, Ivana, with whom he had three children, and was dating model Marla Maples. Epstein was rich and single, a former high school teacher running his own financial advisory firm. Trump was known for hosting parties at the Plaza Hotel, which he owned at the time, that attracted rich men and younger women. 'If they were checking IDs, it was to make sure the girls were young enough,' Gross, who's known Trump for more than 40 years, said jokingly. It wasn't enough to simply invite models to events: Trump started his own agency and Epstein invested in one. Trump launched Trump Models in 1999. It represented Melania Knauss, who would later become his wife, and signed on teen models such as Alexia Palmer. More: Speaker Mike Johnson to shut down House early amid Jeffrey Epstein drama Epstein would later invest in Jean-Luc Brunel's MC2 modeling agency. Brunel had been banned from his former agency in Europe after accusations of abuse. Trump and Epstein were 'representative of a type that has nibbled at the edges of the modeling business. If you're in the market for women as sex toys, a higher echelon of that is models. They are, by definition, beautiful women. They also are beautiful young women,' Gross says. 'You can go from there.' Brunel was suspected of transporting girls or young women for Epstein. In 2022, less than three years after Epstein's death, he died by suicide in a French jail. 'Rhythm is a Dancer' In July 2019, after Epstein's arrest on federal sex trafficking charges, Trump said in the Oval Office that he was 'not a fan' of the financier. But it wasn't always that way. In 1992, Epstein joined Trump for a party at Mar-a-Lago, where a video shows Trump chatting and laughing next to Epstein. Trump sways to the Eurodance hit 'Rhythm is a Dancer,' as the pair hang with cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. Later that year, Trump and Epstein would again meet at Mar-a-Lago, at an invite-only event for a 'calendar girl' competition organized by George Houraney, according to The New York Times. The Florida businessman had created the event at Trump's request. "At the very first party,' Houraney told the Times, 'I said, 'Who's coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming.' It was him and Epstein.' Epstein moved into one of the largest private homes in Manhattan in 1995, a townhouse previously owned by billionaire Victoria's Secret owner Les Wexner. Trump was 1 mile away in a penthouse at Trump Tower. 'Terrific guy,' he famously told New York magazine in 2002 for a story that called Epstein an "international money man of mystery." 'He's a lot of fun to be with," Trump said. "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." 'I sort of get away with things' When his modeling agency never quite took off, Trump turned to beauty pageants. In October 1996, he bought Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA. In a 2005 interview with Howard Stern, Trump bragged about his access to contestants, some of whom were as young as 14. 'I'll go backstage before a show and everyone's getting dressed and ready and everything else and no men are anywhere …. I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it,' Trump told Stern. 'The girls are standing there with no clothes on, and so I sort of get away with things like that,' he said. Tasha Dixon was competing in the Miss USA pageant in 2001 in Gary, Indiana, when she, a former Miss Arizona, met Trump. He walked in, she told CNN, as contestants changed into their bikinis. The theme that year was empowering women. "Who do you complain to? He owns the pageant,' she said. As Trump approached his third marriage − and alleged affairs, which he denies, with an adult film star and a former Playboy playmate − court testimony shows his friend Epstein was abusing teenagers. Sometime in the summer of 2000, a 16-year-old Mar-a-Lago locker room assistant was recruited into Epstein's circle by Epstein's procuror and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. She would later accuse Epstein and Maxwell of years of sexual abuse. Virginia Giuffre died by suicide last April at the age of 41. A lenient 2008 plea deal Epstein received from state and federal prosecutors in Florida included restitution to 36 victims. A 2019 federal indictment cited "dozens" of victims. The breakup In 2003, The Wall Street Journal reported, Epstein received a leather-bound volume of tributes from friends for his 50th birthday. A lewd message in the book was attributed to Trump, the paper reported. It ended: 'Happy Birthday − and may every day be another wonderful secret.' (Trump denied writing the letter and has sued The Wall Street Journal over the report.) A year after Epstein turned 50, Trump, in his book "Trump ‒ How to Get Rich," described a call from a person he called "the mysterious Jeffrey." "As mysterious as Jeffrey is, he's one of the few people I know who can get by on just a first name," Trump wrote. "My staff never asks for a last name in his case, which in a way puts him up there with Elvis." But that year, Epstein and Trump fell out over an oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach called Maison de l'Amitie − the House of Friendship. Trump outbid Epstein for the estate, paying $41 million, and in 2008 flipped it for $95 million to a Russian billionaire. Other reports say they broke after Ghislaine Maxwell solicited the daughter of a Mar-a-Lago member and her father complained to Trump. 'The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep," said White House Communications Director Steven Cheung. Maxwell is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking a minor to Epstein for sexual abuse. After her 2020 arrest, when asked if Maxwell might cut a deal with prosecutors, Trump said: "I just wish her well." On July 24, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as a criminal defense lawyer for Trump, flew to Florida to meet Maxwell at a women's prison. 'Boring stuff' Trump and Epstein appear to have not spoken for 15 years before his death. As Epstein continues to dog his presidency, Trump says he's bewildered by the attention. 'I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody," he told reporters. "It's pretty boring stuff.' Laura Trujillo is a national columnist focusing on health and wellness. She is the author of "Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter's Search for Truth and Renewal," and can be reached at ltrujillo@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Inside the rise (and ugly fall) of the Trump-Epstein friendship
