OMAHA, Neb.—An Omaha-based investigator accused of mishandling blood evidence that resulted in two men being wrongly accused in a double murder is challenging the federal case against him.
Investigator David Kofoed’s lawyer, Steve Lefler, filed several motions in federal court challenging the evidence against Kofoed and questioning the way federal officials handled the case.
Kofoed has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of falsifying records, mail fraud and depriving the rights of Nicholas Sampson and Matthew Livers, who were initially charged in the murders and spent months in jail before they were cleared.
Lefler argues that at least one of the charges—falsifying records—should be dismissed because prosecutors aren’t going after others involved in the case who made mistakes.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Mickle declined to comment on Lefler’s motions Wednesday, and he said prosecutors would reply officially in their own court filings.
Kofoed was indicted in April on four charges stemming from an investigation into the 2006 shotgun killings of Wayne and Sharmon Stock in their Cass County farmhouse near Murdock. Kofoed and other members of the Douglas County crime scene investigations unit he led helped investigate the Stock killings.
A Wisconsin pair, Jessica Reid and Gregory Fester, were eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
The indictment accuses him of impeding the FBI investigation into possible violations of Sampson’s and Livers’ rights by falsifying records. Lefler said in one of his motions that it’s absurd for prosecutors to suggest that the way Kofoed handled evidence in 2006 impeded a federal investigation that didn’t even begin until sometime in 2007.
Lefler said that “smacks of selective prosecution.”
Lefler did not immediately respond to a message left Wednesday, and he said in a court filing on Tuesday that a family emergency had forced him to leave Omaha for a time.
In addition to the federal charges, Kofoed has been charged in Cass County with evidence tampering, and he is a defendant in two lawsuits filed by Livers and Sampson.
Reid and Fester already were in custody in Dodge County, Wis., on car theft and other charges when authorities suspected they might be involved in the murders. Court records said an inscription on a stolen ring found at the murder scene linked them to the case.
According to court documents, Reid said she and Fester drove from Wisconsin to Nebraska and then met Sampson and another man outside a Murdock bar and that they followed the men to a house outside of town. Reid claimed she and Fester intended only to steal money from the home.
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