Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is coming under fire from the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association for charging a Minnesota state trooper with murder, even after a use-of-force expert said no crime was committed.
According to newly-filed documents, the use-of-force expert last fall found State Trooper Ryan Londregan acted reasonably in order to save his partner's life when he shot and killed Ricky Cobb along Interstate-94 last summer. Cobb attempted to drive away while Londregan's partner was leaning into the vehicle.
Twin Cities defense attorney Joe Freidberg who is not affiliated with the case told WCCO's Chad Hartman this could pose a serious issue for Moriarty and the case.
"You can have adverse information and still file the charges, but to not disclose it is a bad, bad problem," says Friedberg who also added Moriarty's office will have an opportunity to respond to those allegations.
Moriarty had said they were able to determine charges were appropriate without the use of an expert. Freidberg says if the allegation is true, it can potentially doom the entire case.
"I think that you are dealing with a potential sanction of dismissal for prosecutorial misconduct," says Friedberg.
The Minnesota Police and Peace Officer's Association said on X that Moriarty’s office is "disregarding trying to hide that truth from the public."
A spokesman for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, Nick Kimball, says it is simply false that the expert engaged by the State came to any "legal conclusion" related to Trooper Londregan’s conduct.
"Once again the defense is abusing the legal process to initiate inaccurate pretrial publicity in this case," Kimball says in a statement. "The defense has selectively quoted a partial sentence of a lengthy document provided to them in the course of the confidential discovery process. The cherry-picked sentence excludes critical facts where the expert acknowledged information he would need to fully analyze the case."
The attorney's office also claims the expert stated that he did not know the new use of force legal standard in Minnesota, or how to interpret it.
"This meeting was ultimately used to help identify additional needed investigation, and the full details of the conversation were provided to the defense in discovery," says Kimball.
Minnesota House Republicans have acted quickly in asking Moriarty to dismiss the case, and even to resign her position as County Attorney. House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, along with Reps. Paul Novotny, Brian Johnson, Jeff Witte, and Matt Grossell, issued the following joint statement:
“Mary Moriarty has coddled criminals and engaged in what can only be described as selective and politically-motivated prosecution of law enforcement. This latest revelation is shocking and shows the extent of Moriarty’s desperation to prosecute and villainize a heroic State Patrol Trooper who acted in a dangerous situation to save the life of his partner. Ignoring and even attempting to persuade a use-of-force expert hired by her office to change his expert opinion to fit her predetermined narrative is a disturbing abuse of power and calls her integrity and the integrity of her office into question. Mary Moriarty cannot be trusted to fairly carry out her duties as Hennepin County Attorney, and must resign.”