More Gresham: Part III

In our latest installment on the complicated life of Captain Melvin Gresham, we dip back into the complaint he filed in late June as part of his civil suit against the D.C. Police Department and other top officials.

[Wanna play catch up on this exhaustive blog series: go here, here, and here.]

I ended the last installment with a rundown over Gresham detailing a sexual harassment case brought by Lt. Rhonda Nunnally. In his complaint, Gresham had claimed to have stood up for her when she was allegedly physically assaulted by a “Lt. Delgado.” Gresham claims in the complaint that he was barred from arresting Delgado.

The complaint goes on to allege:

*Gresham’s help was sought in covering up for Nunnally’s attacker Phillip Graham. Delgado, the complaint states, leaped over Gresham on the org. chart going from an Lt. to an Inspector. “Cpt. Gresham was then assigned to Lt. Delgado in what can only be a retaliatory act,” the complaint states.

*In October 2007, two lawyers from the Office of the Attorney General met with Gresham. At this meeting, they allegedly offer him a promotion and a “prestigious assignment in Police Headquarters if he changed his testimony and DENIED that ‘he had been instructed to target Lt. Nunnally and drive her from the workplace.’ Gresham immediately ratted out these two lawyers to Nunnally’s counsel. Superior Court Judge Natalie Combs-Green refused to permit Capt. Gresham from testifying about this incident.

Green stated, according to the complaint’s transcript:

“I thought it appropriate to have a hearing, if for no other reason to permit the parties an opportunity in open court to briefly express themselves and to give the Court, quite frankly, the opportunity to express my disappointment at this type of filing.”

“Particularly, I guess, the type of language that was used in the filing and upon closer examination, the sort of, and I will make specific reference, careless throwing around of names in the pleadings, which could be injurious to the professional stature of all the attorneys involved, and which I think diminishes our system for all of us of justice.”

It gets better.

Judge Combs-Green goes on to state:

“So, in courtroom 217 on February 27, 2008, at this moment, I would say, as a preliminary matter, I finds this very sad moment in the practice of law and in our judicial system. And I am hopeful that by the end of the proceedings we will come to a more hopeful and decent place in time…. I actually have seen a pleading like this where a lawyer put it about me, and there was these kinds of things made. And I can tell you, it did not feel good.”

Tomorrow: Gresham addresses the allegations against him. And Lt. Mike Smith tells his side of the story.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Cathy Lanier, Cops, Crime, Crushed Dreams, Customer Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.