DENVER—A grand jury has indicted a Fort Collins police officer accused of lying in the investigation and trial of Timothy Masters, whose 1999 murder conviction was later overturned by DNA evidence.
A Larimer County grand jury indicted Lt. James Broderick on eight counts of first-degree perjury Wednesday.
Broderick and a lawyer who represented him in a lawsuit Masters filed alleging police and prosecutors botched the case did not return telephone messages at their offices.
Masters said in an e-mail that when he was convicted, one of his trial prosecutors pumped her fist in the air in front of his family.
“I refuse to act like that,” he wrote. “I’m not going to celebrate. But I am pleased to see a glimmer of hope that the man most directly responsible for my wrongful incarceration might be held accountable for his actions to some extent.”
Broderick was a detective who investigated the 1987 stabbing death of 37-year-old Peggy Hettrick, whose body was found not far from Masters’ home.
Masters, who was 15 when Hettrick died, had walked by her body but didn’t immediately tell police. He was convicted in 1999 of killing her despite a lack of physical evidence, with prosecutors presenting testimony from a forensic psychologist Broderick had consulted. Masters’ conviction was overturned and he was released from prison in 2008 after tests using advanced technology showed that DNA collected at the scene didn’t belong to him.
Fort Collins and Larimer County have agreed to pay Masters a total of $10 million to settle lawsuits alleging officials ignored, withheld or destroyed evidence pointing to his innocence. City Manager Darin Atteberry has said the city is convinced Broderick and others worked in good faith but that settling the case was a business decision.
An internal police investigation cleared Broderick of violating department policies, and District Attorney Ken Buck from neighboring Weld County declined to file charges against Broderick and prosecutors, despite finding flaws in how the case was handled. Buck reopened his investigation into Broderick after work during Masters’ lawsuits turned up new information.
The grand jury indictment alleges Broderick lied about evidence in applications for arrest warrants for Masters and in trial proceedings, and that he lied at trial when he said that after interviewing Masters in 1987, his next involvement in the case was in 1992.
One of Masters’ attorneys, Maria Liu, alleges that an e-mail from Broderick showed he helped plan a stakeout of Masters in 1989.
“If you’re a professional liar, it eventually catches up to you,” Liu said. “Jim Broderick lied and manufactured evidence to convict an innocent man. The citizens of Larimer County indicted him, and he’s going to be held accountable for his criminal conduct.”
Another of Masters’ attorneys, David Lane, said he believes Broderick committed perjury.
“It is my hope that he has a good lawyer, that he gets a very fair trial, that his due process rights are respected, and that at the end of it all, justice prevails—all things that he deprived Tim Masters of,” Lane said.
Each perjury count is punishable by two to six years in prison and up to a $500,000 fine.
“I am anxious to see if the leadership in Fort Collins will finally publicly admit my incarceration was a mistake or if they will continue this charade that their people did nothing wrong,” Masters said in his e-mail.
