ST. LOUIS • A man acquitted of his wife’s murder in a retrial last year filed a federal civil suit here Tuesday, claiming the Lincoln County prosecutor and police “fabricated evidence, ignored exonerating evidence and failed to investigate the other obvious suspect.â€
The 81-page suit, filed in U.S. District Court, also claims that investigators coached witnesses to make statements that bolstered their theory of the Dec. 27, 2011, fatal stabbing of Elizabeth “Betsy†Faria. It alleges that Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney Leah Askey refused to allow tests on evidence that would have contradicted that theory.
A Lincoln County jury convicted Russell Faria of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in November 2013 and to life plus 30 years in prison.
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The case, and questions about the trial and investigation, were the subject of a in 2014.
Faria, who now lives in St. Charles, was in June of 2015 after the Missouri Court of Appeals a new hearing on the case, and a ºüÀêÊÓƵ judge sitting in Lincoln County then ordered a new trial.
In November, that same ºüÀêÊÓƵ judge, Steven Ohmer, of the charges and called the investigation “rather disturbing†and said it “raised more questions than answers.â€
Faria spent 41 months and 12 days behind bars, the suit says.
He suffered “terror, stress, fear, anxiety, humiliation, embarrassment, and disgrace†as well as loss of reputation, liberty and income, the suit says. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages for a series of constitutional violations.
The lawsuit names Askey as well as Lincoln County sheriff’s detectives Michael Merkel and Patrick Harney, and Ryan McCarrick, a former sergeant there. McCarrick now works for the Florissant Police Department.
Askey said Tuesday night she was not aware of the suit but stands behind the work of the investigators. “We fought for justice for Betsy Faria,†she said. “We did it ethically. I look forward to continuing to do our jobs regardless of any civil suit.â€
The other defendants could not be reached Tuesday.
The suit was filed by and the two lawyers who represented Faria at the trials, and .
Although officials often can claim sovereign immunity from lawsuits for official actions, the suit says that “(f)alsification of evidence and related dishonest practices disqualify police†from such a claim.
Askey can be sued, it reasons, because she acted as an investigator to “develop probable cause†to charge Faria.
ALIBI IGNORED
The suit says phone records indicate that Betsy Faria was alive and with a friend, Pamela Hupp, at the Faria home outside Troy, Mo., at 7:05 p.m., when a voicemail was left for Hupp’s husband. Betsy Faria’s daughter was unable to reach her in a series of callS beginning at 7:21 p.m.
A call by Hupp to Betsy Faria at 7:25 p.m. also went unanswered.
Russell Faria was at a friend’s house at the time and returned home shortly before 9:40 p.m., when he called 911, the suit says. Store surveillance cameras and receipts documented his travel to and from his friend’s house.
Betsy Faria had been dead for at least an hour, the suit says.
The suit says that Askey and investigators ignored their own investigation and interviews, including statements by alibi witnesses that made it impossible for Faria to be the killer.
It claims investigators made up the results of tests that purportedly showed someone had cleaned up blood at the house, in order to provide the only evidence supporting the initial murder charge. When later lab results showed no blood was present, officials allegedly failed to disclose that to Faria’s lawyers, and failed to drop the charges.
The suit says officials ignored a more likely suspect: Hupp. She was the last one known to have seen Betsy Faria alive, and stood to gain $150,000 from a life insurance policy after becoming its beneficiary days before the murder. Hupp allegedly made a series of inconsistent statements about her whereabouts, her finances and memory.
Hupp has repeatedly denied killing Betsy Faria. Prosecutors have insisted that Russell Faria was — and remains — the only suspect.
MISCONDUCT ALLEGED
The suit says that Askey repeatedly violated her obligations to turn over evidence, and investigators committed misconduct to bolster their case.
After Faria was granted a new trial, an officer claimed in “surprise testimony†to have seen water droplets in the shower — evidence that someone washed up after the crime, the suit says. Askey knew about that officer’s statements for months before the retrial but didn’t disclose them, the suit says.
The suit says that prosecutors initially failed to turn over photographs of the area that allegedly had been cleaned of blood, saying the camera malfunctioned. But those photos appeared before the retrial and pictured the area, it says.
Investigators claimed that Faria failed a polygraph, but the suit says investigators never turned over the raw data and never disclosed that the polygraph was faked, which Faria’s lawyers suggest. It says police never had Hupp take a polygraph.
The suit says Askey refused to allow tests of a mark on Betsy Faria’s pants that investigators later claimed was a bloody paw print from the family dog. A negative result for blood would have contradicted a prosecution theory that only Russell Faria could have let the dog in and out. It says Askey found one analyst willing to claim that the mark matched the dog’s paw, but says the comparison had no forensic integrity.
Askey also told the victim’s relatives to encourage Hupp to claim that Betsy Faria said her husband was abusive, the suit says.
McCarrick encouraged Hupp to put the insurance money into a trust for Betsy Faria’s children before the first trial and Hupp did, which the suit says amounted to “a fabrication of evidence.â€
Merkel and Harney “manufactured false evidence to fill the deficiencies in the case†by coaching Hupp into changing her story before the re-trial. She later told police that she had a “recovered memory†of spotting Faria near the house.
Hupp testified at the first trial, but was not called by either side at the second.
Valerie Schremp Hahn and Joel Currier of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.