Boudin Railroads Officer Cha With More Missing Exculpatory Evidence

Chasing Injustice

In last Thursday’s court proceedings against SFPD Officer Stangel, DA Boudin had Rebecca Young arguing for the prosecution.  Young is a new face in the DA’s office and represents the type of prosecutor Boudin has been hiring: a loyal believer with zero prosecutorial experience, but with the stamp of approval earned by spending most of her career in the SF Public Defender’s Office.  Like Boudin, Young also has similar familial connections to the extremist 70’s experiment.  She is married to Bill Harris who was involved in SLA and the Patty Hearst kidnapping.

Here is how Young—a prosecutor-- portrays herself on Twitter:

On Thursday, the Stangel case was marred in controversy after one of Boudin’s investigators testified that she withheld exculpatory evidence from Officer Stangel’s defense and lied to SFPD investigators.  It would be easy to believe that the DA’s withholding of exculpatory evidence in the Stangel case was inadvertent and an exception.  It’s not.  When it comes withholding evidence, it’s business as usual for Boudin-- similar to how he withholds statistics on whether he has achieved felony convictions for the same crime SFPD booked the person for.

Sean Moore shooting:

On January 6, 2017, SFPD Officers Cha and Patino responded to a noise complaint on the 500 block of Capitol Avenue.  A neighbor had obtained a noise restraining order against Sean Moore and was complaining that at 4 am, Moore was banging on the common walls separating the two homes. 

An altercation ensued between the officers and Moore cumulating with Officer Cha shooting Moore in the leg and abdomen.  Three-years and two-weeks later, Moore died in San Quentin while serving time for a crime unrelated to the 2017 incident

Boudin hires Andrew Koltuniak

Like Rebecca Young, Boudin also recruited Andrew Koltuniak, although he had no law enforcement experience, because he had investigator experience at the SF Public Defender’s office.  Boudin sent Koltuniak to a 22-week police academy where he graduated in June 2021 and achieved “police officer” status.

However, unlike every police jurisdiction in the country that sends all recent academy graduates through competency tests in a field training program, Boudin’s first assignment for the rookie Koltuniak was to have him write an arrest warrant on SFPD veteran Officer Kenneth Cha.  Koltuniak is so green, he apparently posted top-secret, electronic surveillance questions on a social media website.  But once again, Boudin chose Koltuniak’s inexperience and loyalty over the competency of numerous DA investigators with long police careers and extensive experiences in murders and officer-involved-shootings. 

Koltuniak’s arrest warrant omitted exculpatory evidence from his arrest warrant

On November 2, 2021, only 4-months out of a police academy, Koltuniak completed his arrest warrant on Officer Cha.  And exactly like DA Investigator Megan Hayashi, withheld exculpatory evidence in his sworn affidavit—though Hayashi, a single mom, testified under oath that she withheld evidence under the threat of termination by Boudin’s crew.

1)    Section 194 of the California Penal Code, states, “If death occurs beyond the three years and a day, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that the killing was not criminal.”  Moore died two weeks after the Section 194 three-year period had elapsed.  Thus, the presumption is that Cha’s shooting was not criminal.   

In Koltuniak’s sworn affidavit, he opined that Section 194 was rebuttable because the Marin County Coroner ruled that Moore died (exclusively) from the gunshot wound.  In the arrest warrant Koltuniak stated:

 Moore died from bullet wounds inflicted by Cha on January 6, 2017.

                                              and

The Marin County Coroner’s Office concluded Moore died from bullet wounds inflicted by Cha on January 6, 2017. 

Yet the San Francisco Examiner obtained “broader findings” from the same coroner that contradict Koltuniak’s narrative that Moore died exclusively from a bullet.  Per the San Francisco Examiner, the coroner’s autopsy also listed other “significant conditions” that contributed to Moore’s death including, “hypertensive, cardiovascular disease, obesity, slight coronary atherosclerosis, diabetes, mellitus, schizophrenia, and chronic substance abuse.”  With his finger on the scale of prejudice, Koltuniak withheld these exculpatory coroner’s opinions so the judge wouldn’t question why Section 194 wasn’t applicable.

In view of the significance that Moore died after the Section 194 three-year window, one would expect that Koltuniak would also document the due diligence he conducted to dispel that medical records might evidence that Moore complained about stomach pains over the final month of his life.  Such records might indicate the coroner was transferring San Quentin’s negligence onto SFPD and Officer Cha.  But Koltuniak disclosed no such due diligence.

2)    Per the San Francisco Examiner, in 2019, Moore was accused of calling Taraval Station and threatening to kill police personnel on numerous occasions.  Moore was convicted of the felony threats and sent to San Quentin.  Koltuniak knew this, but he didn’t want the judge to know the extent of Moore’s harbored mindset towards violence against police officers.  Why?  This exculpatory evidence might have weakened Koltuniak’s false portrayal of Moore’s compliant, I’m-just-minding-my-own-business attitude on the night of the shooting.

3)    Koltuniak’s arrest warrant states the officers struck Moore with a baton and then, “Moore responded by striking Patino, who fell down the stairs.”  Like the JFK single bullet theory, this is Koltuniak’s portrayal of what a single strike by Moore caused:

Per the San Francisco Examiner, Officer Patino said Moore punched him in the face and broke his nose.  Cha said he was kicked in the face during the altercation.  Koltuniak’s withholding of Moore’s violent actions and the resulting injuries are tantamount to an officer being involved in a shootout and Koltuniak withholding that the suspect even fired at the officer. 

Moore’s large size, his combative demeanor, his physical assaults on the officer, and his ingrained anti-police attitude are mitigating factors in Cha’s defense.  While none of these crucial factors alone justify the use of deadly force, they do create a picture of the totality of fear Officer Cha must have experienced before he made a split-second decision.  And the absence of these factors from Koltuniak’s arrest warrant indicate Boudin’s thumb was weighing heavily on the scale of injustice.

Koltuniak didn’t prepare an arrest warrant, he prepared an editorial

Throughout his arrest warrant, besides omitting significant exculpatory facts, Koltuniak also reverted to a public defenders’ spin and editorializing.  Koltuniak described Moore’s assault on the officers as merely, “kicked out once with his left foot.”  That’s it!  No context on whether the left foot even struck an officer.  

With Moore yelling, Koltuniak demonized Officer Patino for only talking to the neighbor for “9-seconds” and questioned why the officer didn’t suggest within those 9-seconds that the neighbor make a citizen’s arrest of Moore.  In real life (IRL), 99.999% of noise complaints end with an officer asking the offender to turn the music down please?”   But to Koltuniak, with not a day of real-life police experiences, his theories and conjecture trumped the facts.

Boudin: A pattern of chasing injustice

Even someone outside the police profession should be able to ascertain Koltuniak and Boudin were trying to railroad Cha. 

DA George Gascon investigated the Moore shooting and did not file charges over the next three-years.  Enter Boudin in 2020, who jumped at the opportunity to sensationalize the Cha/Moore incident and arrested Cha despite the expiration of the three-year period of Section 194.

Withholding exculpatory evidence is Boudin’s rule, not an exception. 

·      Using the threat of termination, Boudin withheld evidence on Officer Stengal. 

·      Boudin also withheld evidence on Officer Cha’s arrest warrant. 

This is what a DA prejudicial prosecution looks like. 

There is more DA corruption behind the railroading of Officer Cha.  Additional articles on this case forthcoming.

Lou Barberini is a CPA. His writings and author’s with similar views can be found on the website GBTBmedia.com