AN INCREDIBLY UNUSUAL OUTCOME

By Bob Walsh

Birgit Fladager (left), Frank Carson (right)

 

Very seldom does anybody sue a local D.A. for malicious prosecution.  Very seldom is such a suit successful.  Very, very rarely does the outcome go against the D.A. to the tune of $22.5 million dollars.   That is what happened recently in Stanislaus County, CA.

Frank Carson, now deceased, was as very successful criminal defense attorney in Stanislaus County.  He gave the D.A. a lot of grief.  Back in 2019 Carson and eight other men, his alleged co-conspirators, were acquitted of a complex murder and conspiracy charge.  They were pissed, so they sued for malicious prosecution.   The payout is the largest in the history of the CA court systems.  The county board of supervisors just approved the settlement this week.

Back in August of 2015, after a three year investigation, the D.A. accused the men of murdering Korey Kauffman.  He was a low-life scrap meth freak metal thief and the D.A. claims he was murdered as revenge for stealing metal from Carson's property.  Members of Carson's family, two brothers who owned a liquor store and three members of the California Highway Patrol were accused.  Among the accused was a drugged-out handyman who turned state's evidence in exchange for a deal.  He later recanted his claim that he killed Kauffman, asserting that he was ripped on Meth when he made the claim to impress a girl.

No physical evidence was ever presented to link any of the defendants to the death of Kauffman.  His body was found in the boonies in 2013, 17 months after he disappeared.

Investigators from the D.A.s office focused on Carson based on a tip that said Kauffman had planned to steal scrap metal from Carson's property.  The preliminary hearing ran 17 MONTHS.  The trial took 18 months.  It was the second longest murder trial in CA history.  While it was going on Carson continued to practice criminal law in Stanislaus County.  

DA  investigator Kirk Bunch, who Carson had attacked in court for being "dishonest and unprofessional" allegedly threatened the handyman, Robert Woody, if the backed away from his statement.  The conversation was tape recorded.  Woody told a complex story, that shifted around quite a lot as time went by.  Not one piece of actual physical evidence was ever produced. 

Woody was eventually allowed to plead to manslaughter in the case and got seven years.  The two liquor store owners were found not guilty.  The charges against everybody else were thrown out.  Carson died of a heart attack one year after the cases were tossed.

Carson's widow, Georgia DeFilippo, has asserted that she would like to see former D.A. Birgit Fladager and some of her staff prosecuted in the matter.  She has said that she believes she and her daughter were arrested in the case merely to try to squeeze her late husband. 

The $22.5 million will be split up between the eight plaintiffs with $4 million going to the widow.  Insurance will pay some of it.  The county will be on the hook for the rest.