Camden County prosecutor alleges misconduct, including false evidence, by sheriff’s deputies; sheriff defends his office and its work
Olivia Hayes
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
An extensive backlog, a lack of support and concerning behavior by personnel from the sheriff’s office were just some of the accusations laid out by the Camden County prosecutor to commissioners at their meeting Tuesday.
Prosecutor Richelle Grosvenor spoke at the end of the Camden County Commission meeting.
“When we showed up in January of ’23, one of the worst examples was that there was still somebody in custody from 2019, but charges that were pending,” Grosvenor said.
Grosvenor explained that there had not been a lead prosecutor in the county who had completed their term in office in nearly a decade when she took over.
“I was advised when I won the election that with the backlog and the particular set of circumstances that I was coming into, to expect six years,” Grosvenor said.
In February 2023, Grosvenor told Camden County commissioners that she received a call from a defense attorney about a video that showed what she described as “alarming behavior” by a Camden County deputy. She then detailed more troubling pieces to the puzzle that her office started to notice.
“We were noticing that sometimes the probable cause statements did not match the evidence that we were receiving,” Grosvenor said. “As time went on, we started getting calls from victims who were angry at us, claiming that we weren’t doing our job. We wanted to know their names, we looked in the file, we didn’t even have anything.”
Camden County Sheriff Chris Edgar called Grosvenor’s public statements “completely inappropriate” in a statement to ABC 17 News.
Grosvenor said her office was told by some victims that the Camden County Sheriff’s Office was claiming the prosecutor’s office wasn’t doing anything, but she said the sheriff’s office was not providing the necessary referrals.
Edgar said cases being dropped or not pursued are at the prosecutor’s discretion. He said his office has been contacted by unhappy victims and their families as well.
“What she chooses to do with those cases is her decision,” Edgar wrote. “I would encourage the families of crime victims who have made their disappointment known to me and my staff after their cases were dropped by the prosecutor to not be shy about sharing that information.”
Grosvenor then directly named Detective Cody McGuire, an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigator with the sheriff’s office.
“Kid cases, death cases, property crimes, cases that obviously really matter to Camden County,” Grosvenor said. “If we’re not getting what we need from the sheriff’s office and this particular individual, then we have to figure out how to move forward.”
Grosvenor described instances of lost or mismanaged evidence in cases handled by McGuire. The prosecutor said her office has stopped filing charges referred by McGuire due to his believed misconduct.
“When those things are coming to light, and I’m realizing I could have potential credibility issues with a witness,” Grosvenor said.
Edgar referred to one specific case that he believed many of Grosvenor’s issues centered around. He said the mishandling of evidence she mentioned is in regard to a cell phone seized after he said detectives had already made their case.
“The case my office submitted had nothing to do with the evidence she has questions about,” Edgar wrote. “The evidence could have easily been suppressed at her or the defense’s request and the case still would have been solid.”
She said the falling out point happened recently when Grosvenor claimed McGuire created evidence that did not exist in a case, and he later recanted.
Grosvenor said that a meeting between McGuire and her office was set up, that he allegedly recorded without her knowledge. In a phone call Wednesday with an ABC 17 News reporter, Grosvenor further clarified that the meeting was for her to have the chance to speak with McGuire about how his alleged misconduct could make him an unreliable witness in court.
“If he had understood a basic criminal procedure, he would have understood that he is a witness in the case and he’s making a recorded statement,” Grosvenor said. “He never told me he was recording.”
Edgar disagreed with Grosvenor’s determination of McGuire or any of his employees being “unreliable witnesses”
“Her description of any of them being unreliable witnesses on the stand is her opinion that I believe may be based on the agency disagreeing with her dismissal of the previously described case concerning the cellphone,” Edgar said.
She claimed it also happened again, days later, to one of her office employees.
“It wasn’t until days later in the sheriff’s office, when they were making another recording of my employees secretly, that the question was asked are you recording?” Grosvenor said. “There was an honest answer, yes.”
Grosvenor said McGuire then admitted to her assistant prosecutor that he had recorded his conversation with Grosvenor in her office days before.
“Can you even imagine being a kid victim and finding out that a detective recorded a conversation with a prosecutor, including trial strategy and how to move forward, that now has to go to the defense attorney,” Grosvenor said.
She went on to tell the commissioner that the situation hasn’t just risked her office’s credibility and ability to properly prosecute cases, it’s also strained the trust between the two departments.
“It’s a sheriff’s office policy violation, but he [the sheriff] had nothing to assure me there was going to be any disciplinary action taken on anybody who was secretly recording,” Grosvenor said.
Edgar said it’s not against policy or state law to record conversations with witnesses, victims, suspects or other law enforcement agencies.
“I don’t blame the detective for doing so in a conversation that he has with Mrs. Grosvenor about an investigation,” Edgar said. “Law enforcement officers regularly review their recordings as part of their notes when conducting investigations and this is no different.”
Edgar said any concerns raised about McGuire have been handled internally and the sheriff’s office will be keeping him as a detective.
The prosecutor asked commissioners to consider rekeying her office or implementing other security measures. Commissioners said they would evaluate different security measures and would get back with her by the end of the week.