Keeping the inconvenient truths from the jury in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial.

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Throughout the course of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case the defendants have contended that the lead investigator from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), Dennis Roadruck has been intimidating, threatening and coercing witnesses to get them to say what he needed.  That kind of behavior from a cop is hardly in keeping with the "we who labor here seek only the truth" signs that we discussed yesterday.  It's always been our opinion when witness testimony is obtained using threats and coercion, the testimony is worthless.  This is no different than torturing an innocent person until they finally break and say whatever you want them to in order to stop the torture or as we discussed months ago, MDPD Detective Jorge Baluja scaring a key witness in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case shitless till she lied and told him exactly what he wanted to hear in order to put his case together.

So here comes FDLE special agent Dennis Roadruck who the defendants accuse of intimidating, threatening and coercing witnesses, shouldn't the jury sitting in judgement of the defendants know that the case was possibly put together with statements and witness testimony that was obtained through these illicit means by the investigator?  Also, what if the investigator has a history of such behavior?  In the Barrera mortgage fraud case we were able to dig up proof that the lead detective, Jorge Baluja, couldn't tell his ass from his elbow (check this article), if the case had ended up going to trial, don't you think the jury would have been entitled to hear about the detective's history of screwing up cases?  I certainly do.  So if there existed some sort of proof of Agent Roadruck threatening and intimidating people, wouldn't it be relevant to his credibility and the credibility of the witness statements that he's produced as result of his interviews throughout his investigation?  Of course it would be relevant, take a look at these statements chronicling special agent Roadruck's history of domestic violence...

Dennis Roadruck domestic violence reports

The report documents several instances of assault, battery, stalking, false imprisonment, kidnapping, etc by Agent Roadruck against his estranged wife.  Considering the accusations made in that report, does it seem far fetched that special agent Roadruck may have crossed the line when interviewing witnesses in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case?  Of course not.  If this is the way you deal with your own family, how can you be expected to deal with total strangers that you're interviewing in a criminal investigation?  Surely the jury should know about this kind of a pattern of behavior by the man who built this case, right?  I don't think anyone with a modicum of common sense could argue that Mr. Roadruck's history of domestic violence isn't relative to his behavior in the Plantation Cop's mortgage fraud case, that is anyone other than the prosecutors prosecuting the case...

Government's Motion in Limine to exclude Dennis Roadruck previous history of domestic violence

According to that motion, the prosecutors don't want the jury to know about Mr. Roadruck's history, they go so far as to say that the claims of domestic violence are "unproved allegations".  Unproven allegations?  Mr. Roadruck's ex wife states she has tape recordings of threats from her husband as well as other police reports documenting the abuse, yet according to the prosecutors the allegations "carry a high and unfair level of prejudice to agent Roadruck and the government"!  NO SHIT!  Of course they do, the prove a long history of what the defendants are alleging, that the investigator who built the case has a history of threatening and intimidating people to get what he wants.  

How couldn't this be important for the jury to hear?!  What happened to that quest to "seek the truth"?  I guess that quest is solely limited to the truths that help the prosecution while anything that helps the defense needs to kept from the jury, truth and justice be damned.