(CN) — A trio of lawsuits against Stanislaus County, California, law enforcement officials stemming from the prosecution of a criminal defense attorney in 2015 for the murder of a scrap metal thief may proceed, a federal judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta, a Joe Biden appointee, denied the county's motions to dismiss a number of the claims, including malicious prosecution and intentional inflection of emotional distress, brought by the estate of the late Frank Carson, as well as claims by Carson's wife and stepdaughter and a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been charged as an accessory to murder.
The judge, however, agreed that some of the claims in the three lawsuit were either filed too late or weren't supported by sufficient allegations.
"This is an unusual case. The court is cognizant of the fact that a Superior Court Judge dismissed the underlying criminal charges as to the Plaintiffs in this action, which necessarily lends support to the allegations in the complaint, making them more 'plausible on their face' than they might have otherwise been," Calabretta said. "Whether Plaintiffs will be able to produce sufficient evidence to support those allegations in order to survive summary judgment or prevail at trial is of course a question to be left for another day."
Carson died in 2020 at the age of 66, a year after a jury had acquitted him of murder-for-hire charges brought by the Stanislaus County district attorney's office. Carson's estate alleges the DA's office retaliatied against the combative defense attorney because of a bitter feud stemming from high-profile defeats in cases against Carson's clients.
"Most of the case remains intact," said Jayme Walker, one of the lawyers representing Carson's estate. "We're ready to go to trial once the court sets a trial date."
Lawyers for Stanislaus County didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the rulings.
After the Modesto, California, defense attorney was acquitted of the alleged murder-for-hire plot in the 2012 death of Korey Kauffman, he filed a federal lawsuit against several law enforcement officials, saying they lied to procure an arrest warrant, withheld evidence of his innocence and forced confessions in order to frame him for murder and destroy his reputation.
Carson, ever since his arrest in August 2015, had been vehement in his assertion that the entire case was itself retaliation against him for their frustration at “a series of high-profile courtroom defeats and accusations of corruption."
Shortly after Kauffman’s body was found in the Stanislaus National Forest in 2013, Carson said the Stanislaus County DA's office, including Birgit Fladager, DA Supervisor Marlisa Ferreira, and Chief Deputy DA David Harris, “concocted a fanciful tale.”
That "tale" said Carson had “resorted to murder for hire,” and that antique thefts from his property gave them an opportunity to tie him to Kauffman’s murder, get back at him for their courtroom embarrassments and prevent him from winning an election against Fladager for her DA spot.
Despite the lack of physical evidence linking Carson to the murder, the complaint states, such as “blood, hair, clothing, fibers, fingerprints, spit, sweat, or any such thing,” Cory Brown, a member of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department, went ahead with a 235-page Ramey Warrant, also authored by DA Investigator Kirk Bunch, and arrested Carson.
Carson's wife and stepdaughter had already sued the Stanislaus County prosecutors in 2018. In their lawsuit, Georgia and Christina DeFilippo said there was widespread corruption and conspiracy mongering infecting every level of the county’s criminal justice apparatus, which ultimately led to the mother-daughter pair being falsely accused of murder.
The evidence against them was so paltry that after an 18-month long preliminary hearing — one of the longest in state history — Superior Court Judge Barbara Zuniga dismissed the murder charges against Georgia and the accessory to murder charges against Christina.
Zuniga characterized the decision to toss the case as “not difficult.”
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