Monongalia County Sheriff’s Deputy Lance Kuretza was indicted by the Feds as a result of this never-before-seen bodycam footage showing him suddenly confronting and arresting an innocent man, who was sleeping in a hotel room. I tried to get the footage over two years ago. Since then, he was acquitted by a federal jury in his criminal prosecution. Now he’s back to work as a deputy. But should he have a badge in light of this footage, showing what really happened that night?
The hatemail that jogged my memory about the incident:
Viral Twitter post about the indictment that first got people talking about it:
The US Attorney’s statement about the incident, from a radio show appearance (IIRC):
Here’s the press release by the DOJ about the indictment of Deputy Kuretza:
Photo taken by the police during arrest processing:
My blog post from when he was indicted: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2022/08/24/wv-deputy-arrested-indicted-by-feds-county-refused-my-foia-for-body-cam/
My first video from over 2 years ago: https://youtu.be/sY_zGpZ5iJg?si=Odt1ydME95-X3r0U
Police report with injury photos:
Here’s the Indictment:
Memorandum Order denying the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss:
Excerpt of Jury Trial Transcript:
Jury Instructions from the criminal jury trial:
Jury Verdict Form:
An absolutely insane screenshot:
Monongalia County Sheriff’s Quote (recently retired now) about the trial result, commenting that he was “glad” the jurors came to the same conclusion he/his department had:
A media report about the trial, revealing shocking testimony from an EMT an unnamed deputy lied to her about the cause of Mr. Graciano’s injuries:
EMS was eventually called to the department and the jury heard from one of the emergency medical technicians (EMT) who responded to the call.
Camden Boggs, who worked as an EMT with Star City at the time, said a deputy in a black shirt told him Graziano “was drunk downtown starting fights and got beat up.” He could not say whether that deputy was Kuretza.
Boggs said a fight made sense because he initially saw blunt force trauma and at minimum a fracture to the nose or eye and at maximum a traumatic brain injury. He testified that Graziano’s right eye was so swollen, EMTs could not pry it open to evaluate his pupils for brain injuries.
Initially, Boggs said Graziano wanted to go to the hospital, but after being told by an unidentified deputy that by not going to the hospital he could see the magistrate sooner and go home sooner, Graziano then refused to go with the EMTs.
Fourth Circuit caselaw I referred to in the video regarding the 4th Amendment rights of hotel tenants is here. This is based on the US Supreme Court opinion from Stoner v. California.
The RAW footage, showing that not only did I not edit in a misleading way, I substantially censored the footage in order to comply with Youtube’s guidelines. The raw footage is much worse. Here is the full, unedited, footage from Lance Kuretza’s bodycam from January 18, 2018:
The full, unedited, uncensored, footage from Isaac Coe’s bodycam from January 18, 2018:
The full, unedited, uncensored, footage from Lance Kuretza’s bodycam during the arrest processing portion of January 20, 2018:
The full, unedited, uncensored, footage from Sgt. J.D. Alexander’s bodycam from January 20, 2018:
Here’s the full complaint from the civil lawsuit that was settled for $175,000:
Here’s a clip of Deputy Ethan Mongold encouraging Deputy Kuretza to give Mr. Graciano “the solution.”
Here’s the portion of the trial transcript (from above) that features Deputy Ethan Mongold testifying under oath to the jury that he admits that is indeed his voice that can be heard encouraging Kuretza to “give him the solution,” but unfortunately doesn’t remember saying it, and doesn’t remember why he would have said it – and also doesn’t know what “the solution” was.
