Valentine (Direct)

Question 1

How are you employed?

Answer 1

I am an inspector for the Public Accountability Unit

Question 2

What is the Public Accountability Unit

Answer 2

We investigate public corruption

Question 3

Did you have the opportunity to get involved in a case alleging corruption against the defendant, Sheriff Klein?

Answer 3

I was assigned by the District Attorney’s Office to conduct an investigation into Jaylen Burgess’s claims.

Question 4

Did you obtain records as part of your investigation

Answer 4

Yes. I obtained records through public records requests, through search warrant and subpoenas.

Question 5

Drawing your attention please to exhibits 3, 7, and 17 in your notebook, what are these?

Answer 5

Pursuant to a public records request to the sheriff’s office, i got Ex. 3 is Det. Michael’s incident report, Ex. 7 is interview transcript, and Ex. 17 is Esseph County Sheriff’s Office Internal Memorandum

Question 6

Drawing your attention please to exhibits 18-22, and 24 in your notebook. What are these?

Answer 6

Ex.18 through 22 are call logs and text messages for the defendant, Det. Michaels and Burgess
Ex. 24 are Bank Record Report and Declaration of Michelin Klein

Question 7

Drawing your attention to Ex 23, in your notebook what are these?

Answer 7

Michelin Klein’s Emails, which I issued administrative subpoenas for.

Question 8

And, lastly, please turn to Ex, 28, what is that and how did you get it.

Answer 8

This is a publicly available chart of Sheriff Klein’s approval rating that det. Michaels said the defendant showed to him throughout the relevant time period.

Question 9

I want to move on specifically to your investigation… did it rely on what Burgess’ had to say to some degree

Answer 9

Yes, and that’s why corroboration was important to me

Question 10

Can you give us an example of something Burgess said that you sought to corroborate and how you did that?

Answer 10

A couple of things. There is nothing in Ex. 7, Det. Michaels’ interview of Burgess that was not already in Ex. 3 Det. Michaels’ report. To me, this corroborated Burgess’ statement that the defendant had a document in front of him/her when feeding her/him what to say in the interview room because the defendant had access to Det. Michaels’ report.

Question 11

Anything else?

Answer 11

I also found it corroborating that Burgess said that Klein told Burgess there was no harm in naming Matthew Reese because other witnesses and evidence pointed that way. And the reason this is corroborating is because that’s true, but only law enforcement knew that.

Question 12

We’ll talk more about how you corroborated Burgess for your investigation, but I want to direct your attention to Exhibit 28A. Can you tell us what significance this chart played in your investigation–how did you use it?

Answer 12

This is what the defendant used to track his/her approval rating. This is what it looked like over over time. I looked at the information I received from in my investigation (lift up the exhibit notebook) and compared this information against the chart to see if placing them into that context revealed anything important. And, it did.

Question 13

Can you explain your findings, going chronologically?

Answer 13

Yes, I have an enlarged Ex. 28 and it would be easier to show the jury with this enlargement and I created a timeline supported by the exhibits in this notebook.

Question 14

Ok, going chronologically, what information did you uncover and how did that correlate to what Burgess had to say?

Answer 14

The defendant showed this chart to Det. Michaels at various points during the Larson murder investigation and the jury trial. what we see here is what the defendant saw. You can see here, this January 2012, when the defendant’s approval rating was at its lowest–that’s when the DA rejected the case. His/her approval rating started to plummet continuing to about August 2013.

Question 15

What significance, if any, did you attach to August 2013?

Answer 15

• Lineup was prepared August 15, 2013 not as defendant said on September 13, 2013 at the station.
• This led me to believe Defendant knew someone was going to identify Reese in advance
• Timeline corroborates Burgess’s statement that the Defendant had the line up prepared already when they went into the interview room
• On September 6, Klein texted about meeting “last week” and setting a time to meet on September 13, again corroborating Burgess’s testimony
• Five hours later, Defendant texted Det. Michaels asking if any leads came in since the town hall, which was after the broadcast meaning Sheriff expected that Burgess would come forward by then

Question 16

Anything else in September 2013 that was important?

Answer 16

Yes. On the date of the Burgess’ statement, the defendant withdrew $200. Then the defendant arrived with Burgess to the station where he lied and identified Reese. About 30 minutes later, Det. Michaels texted the defendant stating, “you were right. Burgess gave us everything.” and the defendant responded, “Told you, I knew it.” Clearly, the defendant knew in advance, contrary to their statement that Burgess did not give specifics at the town hall, that Burgess would identify Reese.

Question 17

Looking at Ex. 28, we see here that there was a spike in the Sheriff’s approval rating, what if anything correlates to that moment.

Answer 17

Charges get filed against Reese based on Burgess’ testimony

Question 18

Ok. Let’s jump ahead to the trial, was there anything that stood out to you during that time period?

Answer 18

Yes The trial was set to start on June 20. There were money withdrawls and large payments to Burgess. There were texts messages about money. They spoke from June 14 until the trial everyday, once for an hour. The day before the trial, the defendant withdrew $5,000 and Burgess testified the next day.

Question 19

What was significant about the $5,000 withdrawal

Answer 19

Burgess stated that the defendant gave him/her 3K after (s)he testified.

Question 20

What happened to Klein’s approval ratings as a result of Reese being found guilty?

Answer 20

Klein’s approval rating drastically increased as the trial and its aftermath were widely publicized.