Cops: Nothing More on Dale Mallory

Kevin Osborne wrote a follow up piece on the Porkoplis blog.

Cops: Nothing More on Dale Mallory

In an interview with Lt. Col. Richard Janke, Janke asserted that the Cincinnati Police do not have any more in their files about Dale Mallory.

Because several West End residents who lodged the complaint against Mallory said police interviewed them in sessions that lasted an hour or longer and that the interviews were recorded, the paper asked whether any transcripts existed.


“There are no transcripts,” Janke said. “Oftentimes, when there was no real dispute over the facts, there are no transcripts made.”

Despite Janke’s remarks, Mallory contested at least one crucial fact during a June 14 interview with CityBeat. He alleged that a copy of a cancelled check for $1,119.19 containing his signature that community council members gave to police was a forgery. The check cleared out the group’s bank account months after Mallory had been impeached as the council’s president and removed from office.

“That thing was counterfeit, forged, faked,” said Mallory, who is brother of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory. “I have no idea where they got that from.”

Janke claims that "there was no real dispute over the facts." In fact it would be hard to dispute the facts in the case. As Kevin Osborne aptly pointed out, Dale Mallory did dispute those facts.

There is no statement from Dale Mallory in the file that contains his version of events. That is a blessing for Dale, because I doubt his version would have read well in light of the facts. A complaint is filed by a community council; police investigated that complaint for 233 days, but did not yield a statement from the one man the complaint was filed against.

Janke replied today that the relevant facts in the case were that the money was taken and most of it — $1,000 — was given to the YMCA for an art project. The YMCA returned the money, and none of the funds were used for Mallory’s personal gain, the assistant chief added. (The remaining money was given to Marquicia Jones-Woods to buy boots for a local drill team and already was spent.)

“There was nothing in contention here,” Janke said. “There’s no doubt that the money ended up with the YMCA and was subsequently returned.”

Once the investigation was launched, police saw that it was a fairly straightforward case, Janke said.

“It’s not a particularly complex matter,” he said. “Criminal culpability was decidedly lacking.”

In Janke’s view, the main thing is that the money was returned (even though it wasn't returned by Dale Mallory). The WECC had to do the legwork to get the money back. That sets quite a disturbing precedent in law enforcement, to say the least.

But if Janke is correct, it doesn't appear that the police have been fair to anyone. If this case is a fairly straightforward, open and shut case where both the facts are not disputed and criminal culpability is decidedly lacking, why in the hell would it take 7 months and all the man-hours to investigate. Janke is basically admitting that they knew right off the bat that this case was going nowhere. What a waste of resources and taxpayer dollars.

Even the Mallory camp can complain about that. Dale was investigated for seven months and in the middle of a political campaign. Now Lt. Col. Richard Janke is coming out saying that they knew the facts early on, they were never in dispute, and there was no criminal culpability. I am sure Dale would have liked to hear that last July.

It isn't fair to the people who filed the complaint either. If Janke is correct in that this case had "no real dispute over the facts", why did it take 233 days? Why did they have policemen doing lengthy interviews? Why did they tell the press and members of the West End Community that the investigation was "complex" and ongoing, with no apparent end in sight? It would have been better off had everyone heard that last July. What a waste of time and money.

Want another waste of time and $$? Why did they give this case to the FBI? Mind you, no documentation really exists that they DID handover the case to the FBI, but they claimed that they did. Why would they do this if they knew the case had no merit?

I continue to support the position that the whole affair was just a slow bleed strategy to let it die on the vine.

Anyone that wanted to talk to the police was allowed to submit to a lengthy interview by two officers on tape. They never did anything with those tapes. It was simply to placate people and buy some time. Those officers told citizens that they were humping on the case, and they had the tape recorders to prove it. What a waste of time, because Janke says it was clear early on their was no case. Those tapes don't even exist today.

The most critical piece of evidence in the case was a court document where Dale Mallory stated that he was dropping his lawsuit. He admitted to the court that he is no longer the WECC President. Weeks later, he cleaned out and closed down the community bank account. That document is the one document that you can't explain away if you want to make this a tale of a "he said, she said" neighborhood political pissing match. Since they couldn't explain that document, they threw it away. It is not in the file of the investigation, even though it was given to the police on more than one occasion. That also means that the CPD didn't forward it on the prosecutors with the case.

I am ignorant of police process, and this question might reflect that: Why was this case even forwarded on to the prosecutors if it was open and shut and police found nothing criminal (as Janke contends)? Do all complaints get forwarded on regardless of merit? And if you are going to forward it on, why not include all of the evidence (like Dale's statement to the court)?

In the end of the June, 2007 (over a year after Dale had shut down the WECC account) Lt. Col. Richard Janke is basically admitting that their never was much of an investigation. Without Osborne following up on the investigation, those facts would have never seen the light of day. Even when Kevin called them after the investigation had already concluded the police told him it was still ongoing, “complex”, and with no end in sight. They were still buying time and lying to the press and the public until the very end (the request for public records).

Now the official record is that it was not complex, never in dispute, and thus never really investigated. I can’t say it makes the CPD look good. It makes them look like deceptive politicians instead of policemen, who say things to comfort and placate people while pursuing a completely different agenda.

You can have timelines, court documents, copies of the checks and witnesses. It doesn’t matter one bit if you are well connected. On the other side you have a liar who sold out his own community. He continues to lie about even writing the checks (which even the police concede is not in doubt). He never even produced the historical records of the WECC to give to the current community administration. Five years of his administration, and not one single financial or historical record to show for it.

They say you can’t beat City Hall, and I say they are right.