Wow. Baltimore police accused of conspiring to help murder a woman.

courthousenews.com

The mother of an abused wife whose husband murdered her outside a courthouse claims he was able to commit the crime because his “friends on the Baltimore City Police Department conspired with him to make certain he remained free despite a warrant for his immediate arrest.”

Cleaven Williams Jr. was convicted of murdering his wife, Veronica, in 2009 and is in prison. He is named as a defendant along with the Baltimore City Police Department and its Officer Daniel Lioi, who was deputy major of the Baltimore Police’s Eastern District at the time of the killing.

“Mr. William would have been easy to serve had any honest effort been made towards this end. He was a public figure well known to police as a community organizer and the president of the Greater Greenmount Community Association.

“Instead of using their prior knowledge of Mr. Williams to aid in his capture and arrest, police, including defendant Lioi, allowed themselves to be improperly influence by the prior relationship with Williams.

“Preferential treatment was afforded to Mr. Williams.

“First, the police, including defendant Lioi, intentionally and negligently failed to follow normal procedures in attempting to serve the warrant. Instead of sending it to a special domestic violence unit, Eastern District officers, who knew Mr. Williams, withheld the warrant so that they could retain control over whether or not it would be served.

“Second, officers, including defendant Lioi, warned Mr. Williams of the warrant and their feigned efforts to serve him, including, but not limited to, by sending him text messages. This allowed Williams to evade capture.

“Third, Mr. Williams contacted the police, including defendant Lioi, on November 14, 2008 and said he would come in, but when he arrived at the Eastern District precinct, the police, including defendant Lioi, purposefully refused to serve or arrest him, falsely claiming instead that the warrant allegedly could not be found. This was an intentional and malicious act, by the same officers who withheld the warrant from the domestic violence unit, for the purpose of allowing Mr. Williams to remain free despite the warrant.”

The Baltimore Sun reported after the killing that a second warrant for Williams was also pending, in connection with a 2003 shooting, and that William’s cousin Carlin Robinson, the lead plaintiff in this case, “said Cleaven Williams cultivated relationships with police and other civic leaders over the years … [and] accused him of using those ties to dissuade his wife from going to authorities for help.”

Veronica had to go into hiding while waiting for her husband to be arrested, but a court date on a protective order against Cleaven “provided a rare window of opportunity for Mr. Williams because he was provided with notice of the hearing and knew where Veronica would be at that time despite the fact that she was otherwise in hiding,” according to the complaint.

On Nov. 17, 2008, a judge granted Veronica her the protective order, but “as Ms. Williams left the courtroom that day, Cleaven Williams attacked and stabbed her repeatedly. The stabbing took place in broad daylight just one block from the Eastside Court on North Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland,” according to the complaint.

If that’s true, that is probably the most fucked-up story I’ve read this year about corruption.