Federal Appeals Judges Reverse Kidnapping Case Based on Use of Informant

On October 30, 2024By Karl

The 63-year-old man convicted of forcing an Anaheim bank employee to help him in the robbery won a new trial on kidnapping charges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The decision, handed down on Oct. 22, granted the release of Charles Craig Clements for jailhouse informant abuse and cited the jailhouse snitch scandal in Orange County that emerged in the trial of Scott Dekraai, the worst mass murderer in Orange County history. .

Ninth Circuit Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, who wrote the majority opinion, sided with Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, while Judge Patrick J. Bumatay dissented.

Clements accepted prosecutors’ argument that he allowed the informant to falsely testify that he received no special treatment in return for his assistance at trial.

Clements also appealed their convictions based on prosecutorial misconduct in not turning over evidence, known as the Brady violation, and the use of an informant to question another inmate who was already represented by an attorney, called the Massiah violation.

Clements was sentenced in January 2012 to two life terms plus 18 years in prison for two counts of kidnapping with intent to rob and three counts of second-degree robbery.

The new trial on kidnapping charges was granted based on what became known as the Napue breach.

The justices “ruled that the prosecution violated Napue by allowing a jailhouse informant to testify that he was denied parole for his actions and that his motives for coming forward were altruistic, even though prosecutors knew or should have known it was wrong.”

Clements was convicted of pretending to be a package delivery boy on January 27, 2009, in an attempt to kidnap Bank of the West employee Alison Lopez, who was seven-and-a-half months pregnant and off work that day. Kennelly wrote that he pointed a gun at Lopez and told him “not to panic or do anything stupid,” then “put on gloves and pulled a bandana over his face.”

“Clements told Lopez that his 10-year-old son had been kidnapped by a gang who forced him to rob the bank where he worked,” Kennelly wrote.

Kennelly wrote that he told him the gang would kill him, his son and bank employees if he didn’t cooperate.

Kennelly said Clements also “told Lopez that he had to be the one to go to the bank and get the money and that he would kill her if she didn’t cooperate.”

Kennelly said the package he was wearing while posing as a deliveryman included a black trench coat, a black wig, a black laptop bag, zip ties, a black duffel bag and a second gun with a silencer.

They drove to the bank in Lopez’s car, with Clements at the wheel, and when they got there, Lopez called his co-worker, Cindy Chin, outside, the judge wrote. Clements arranged for Chin to stay with him and instructed Lopez to go to the bank vault and get money, according to the opinion.

Lopez stuffed the cash into his duffel bag, returned to his car, and Clements drove to a bowling alley, where he said he was going to trade with his son, but stopped in an alley and told two bank employees to go back to the bank. Kennelly said he waited 10 minutes before calling police as he took the money and ran away.

After being charged with bank robbery, Clements was also charged with soliciting the victims to murder based on allegations made by informant Donald Boeker.

The informant “testified that Clements became obsessed with killing Lopez and wanted her dead so she would not testify against him and not be charged with kidnapping,” according to the decision.

“Boeker told Clements it would cost him, and Clements offered Boeker $10,000, claiming he had money left over from the robbery,” Kennelly wrote. “She testified that Clements also wanted the woman to kill her husband and baby.”

Jurors deadlocked on the murder charge, and the charge was later dismissed.

Clements’ appeals failed in state and federal courts until the Orange County snitch scandal erupted when Boeker filed a legal claim based on his use at trial, Kennelly wrote.

Records show sheriff’s deputies had used Boeker as an informant since the mid-1990s, Kennelly wrote.

“The records also reflect coordination between the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Anaheim Police Department to take Boeker and Clements on a recorded van ride, and that Boeker was handled at various times by officers involved in the snitch scandal,” Kennelly wrote.

Kennelly wrote that there were also records indicating Boeker had “a history of mental health issues that began in 2008-10.”

Deputies wrote that Boeker “needs psychological medication, hears voices,” Kennelly wrote.

“There was a statement that Boeker was ‘fundamentally mental’ and ‘a little bit crazy,'” Kennelly wrote in 2012.

Kennelly wrote that Boeker received a break with a lesser sentence and that investigators in the case worked to help him get a lighter sentence.

“This includes Boeker’s parole agent, who was contacted on at least two separate occasions and later wrote to the parole board, urging them to ‘consider a new parole sentence hearing or a review of (Boeker’s) current sentence for a possible reduction in time.’ Including the pleading lead detective. ‘” Kennelly wrote.

The judge wrote that the prosecutor had warned about these efforts in a note.

“Given the circumstances, the prosecution knew or should have known that Boeker’s testimony was untrue and failed in its duty to correct it,” Kennelly wrote.

The victims were unable to pick Clements in the lineup or identify him at trial, making Boeker’s testimony key to conviction, Kennelly said. Kennelly also notes that during the trial, a juror asked about Boeker’s previous statements to a detective, and the jury asked for his testimony to be repeated twice.

“This strongly suggests that her testimony at least played a role in jurors’ consideration of the aggravated kidnapping charges,” Kennelly wrote.

The justices found that Clements did not meet the standards to prove a Massiah violation because “a reasonable jurist, after setting aside Boeker’s testimony, along with other evidence, including the statements of Lopez and Chin, could have determined that the guns found in Clements’ home were similar .The $36,000 in hundred-dollar bills in the storage locker used during the crime and the DNA evidence recovered from Lopez’s home were sufficient to prove his guilt on all charges that led to his conviction.”