Ruse snares robbery suspect

Associated Press

SEATTLE — Attorneys for a man accused of robbery are crying foul because a Seattle police detective had the crime victim fake life-threatening injuries to persuade a witness to testify.

Defense lawyers Juanita Holmes and Steven Witchley call it "outrageous governmental misconduct." Police call it brilliant detective work and say such tactics have been upheld repeatedly by the courts.

The case concerns a robbery on Sept. 15, when Jamie Schaefer was mugged as he returned home $4,000 richer from the Drift On Inn casino. Schaefer wasn’t hurt in the robbery, but the robber did put him in a choke-hold briefly.

Detective Mike Magan thought he had a suspect. Surveillance video from the casino showed convicted felon Howard McCord and his girlfriend, Rebecca Angel, following Shaefer around, prosecutors say.

But Magan needed proof. More than a week after the robbery, he had Shaefer pose for photos wearing an oxygen mask and a neck brace. He lay next to a heart monitor on a gurney at Harborview Medical Center.

Armed with the photos, he went to Angel and told her the investigation was starting to look like a murder case. The family, he said, was considering "pulling the plug."

Prosecutors say Angel cried and agreed to cooperate, giving incriminating evidence against McCord and saying that he spent the money on clothes and gifts.

"Detective Magan fabricated false evidence in this case and used it to bolster lies and threats to prospective witnesses," Holmes and Witchley wrote in court documents.

"There is now no way to determine what these witnesses would have said under other, noncoercive circumstances."

They want the charges dropped.

Police say such tactics have been upheld time and again.

"There are ruses like this all the time in law enforcement," police spokesman Duane Fish said. "Whether it’s posing as someone you’re not or outright lying in interrogations — all of these things have been tested and retested all the way to the Supreme Court."

Fish said Magan’s ruse was appropriate and "the tactics involved were brilliant."

"It’s our job to use any legal means available to apprehend violent criminals, period," he said. "That’s precisely what happened in this case."

The case has high stakes for McCord, 31, who has been convicted of at least two other violent felonies: a 1988 assault with a firearm in California and a 1994 robbery of a Renton bowling-alley manager. Being found guilty of robbery could put him away for life under Washington’s "three strikes" law, prosecutors say.