An ex-police officer connected to the Breonna Taylor shooting is set to plead guilty to working with others to lie in an affidavit to obtain a search warrant for her apartment on the night of her death in March 2020. After the announcement was made about her choice to admit wrongdoing, a judge asked her to give up her passport and cease all conversation with her co-defendants.
On Friday, Aug. 12, representatives for former Louisville Metro Police Detective Kelly Hannah Goodlett said in court that the disgraced officer will enter her plea on Monday, Aug. 22.
Her attorney Brandon Marshall and Mike Songer, an attorney representing the Justice Department, shared the news of the plea agreement with Magistrate Judge Regina S. Edwards in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Kentucky during an online hearing. The Aug. 22 hearing will be in-person.
Goodlett will stand before U.S. District Judge David Hall and admit to conspiring to violate Taylor’s civil rights by assisting in falsifying documents connected to the botched raid of her apartment, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
Two years ago, according to the charging documents, Goodlett lied and said a postal inspector verified to law enforcement that Taylor was receiving packages for her ex-boyfriend, convicted drug dealer Jamarcus Glover.
This was the foundation of the raid that cost the young 26-year-old her life.
The former detective is also charged with knowingly conspiring with Jaynes and others to falsify the search warrant affidavit.
As a result of her deciding to take the deal, Magistrate Judge Regina Edwards told the 35-year-old she must surrender her passport and stop communicating with Sgt. Kyle Meany and former detectives Joshua Jaynes and Brett Hankison, her co-defendants.
Goodlett was also ordered to relinquish all firearms from her home and sent back to her domicile after meeting her $10,000 bond.
The Washington Post reported as Edwards was laying down her terms, Marshall submitted that Goodlett’s husband is in law enforcement too and that he needs to have access to his weapons.
The compromise is that Goodlett’s husband will keep his service firearms in a secured safe, with a new combination that his wife does not know.
It is believed that Goodlett will testify against both officers since she was charged by information and not indicted. Her sentencing for her participation in the crime will not exceed five years in prison or $250,000 in fines.
Goodlett also lied to the investigators with the Kentucky attorney general’s office, telling them Sgt. John Mattingly “in passing,” told her and Jaynes Taylor had been receiving mail or Amazon packages at her apartment for three months before the fatal shooting.
According to the indictment, she and Jaynes met in his garage to “get on the same page” about a postal inspector story after local TV station WDRB raised questions about their account and the USPS officer disputed their claim, saying he never told them Glover was getting packages as his ex’s apartment.
In addition to Goodlett, Jaynes and Meany are fighting civil rights charges regarding the illegal search. Hankison is facing multiple charges, including the civil rights of Taylor; her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker; and three of Taylor’s neighbors.
Hankison is on the hook for shooting blindly into the neighbor’s apartment and endangering those inside, including a small child.
Goodlett resigned from the force during the first week of August after she and her three co-defendants were hit with federal charges related to Taylor’s death. Her co-defendants have pleaded not guilty on all charges.
Attorney Ben Crump, the lawyer representing Taylor’s family, tweeted, “The truth prevails!”
Taylor’s life was taken during an ill-planned police raid on her Louisville apartment. Taylor and Walker, her boyfriend, responded to noises from the front door and thought an intruder was breaking in.
He fired one shot that hit Mattingly in the leg as the officers breached the apartment. Officers Mattingly, Hankison and Myles Cosgrove returned fire, killing Taylor.
Her death set off demonstrations for months in Louisville and was one of three names most associated with the 2020 summer of unrest. The other two were Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd.
