Louisville Courier Journal: The Mathew (Jack's Bother) Conway Coverup. Where Is The FBI On This One?
To tell the truth
The remarkable memory lapse of Jefferson County Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel about his actions in dealing with an assistant who lied under oath calls into serious question Mr. Stengel's integrity, or his competence.
In interviews with The Courier-Journal earlier this fall, Mr. Stengel claimed to have taken no disciplinary action against Matt Conway, an assistant commonwealth's attorney who admitted to lying to investigators who were quizzing him about interactions with police detectives.
Mr. Conway, who earlier had served as an assistant county attorney and worked in private practice, was twice tipped off by narcotics detectives in the last two years that he was being investigated for possible drug use or trafficking. When word of the leaks reached authorities, all three men were questioned. One detective lied at first by saying he hadn't tipped off Mr. Conway. He later recanted.
Mr. Conway lied at first by saying that he had not been tipped off, but he changed his story.
After this newspaper pieced together the story from open records requests, Mr. Stengel, to whom Mr. Conway reports, blew the whole thing off. He said that since Mr. Conway had immediately corrected the untruth, he didn't think it was that big a deal. (Actually, it took Mr. Conway four days to recant.)
Now, after obtaining a copy of Mr. Conway's personnel file under the state open records act, The Courier-Journal reports that the assistant prosecutor was indeed disciplined. He was placed on probation for 12 months and subjected to periodic drug tests.
When reporter R. G. Dunlop asked Mr. Stengel why he had not mentioned that probation in October, he replied that he considered “all internal discipline was confidential. I didn't really realize it was subject to open records. If I blabbed it, then it wouldn't be confidential.”
Then, in a Clintonian contortion of the English language, Mr. Stengel suggested that he didn't consider probation to be a disciplinary step. “I mean, if you want to split hairs, I guess you can (consider it discipline), but I didn't.”
Most people with a general understanding of right and wrong must be shaking their heads over all of this. Meanwhile, one of the officers who tipped off Mr. Conway and lied to investigators about it has been fired by Metro Police Chief Robert White for lying and for leaking information. Another has been reprimanded for talking about the case in public, and a third detective was reprimanded Tuesday.
It was after the latter episode that Mr. Conway's brother, Attorney General Jack Conway, then the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, got a tip from an eavesdropper. He met with his brother and advised him to get a lawyer.
This entire episode is a reminder of the perils of lying: Inevitably, one lie begets another, and the original issue becomes dwarfed by cover-ups.
Mr. Stengel says he's not running again for commonwealth's attorney in 2012. That seems like a wise decision.
The remarkable memory lapse of Jefferson County Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel about his actions in dealing with an assistant who lied under oath calls into serious question Mr. Stengel's integrity, or his competence.
In interviews with The Courier-Journal earlier this fall, Mr. Stengel claimed to have taken no disciplinary action against Matt Conway, an assistant commonwealth's attorney who admitted to lying to investigators who were quizzing him about interactions with police detectives.
Mr. Conway, who earlier had served as an assistant county attorney and worked in private practice, was twice tipped off by narcotics detectives in the last two years that he was being investigated for possible drug use or trafficking. When word of the leaks reached authorities, all three men were questioned. One detective lied at first by saying he hadn't tipped off Mr. Conway. He later recanted.
Mr. Conway lied at first by saying that he had not been tipped off, but he changed his story.
After this newspaper pieced together the story from open records requests, Mr. Stengel, to whom Mr. Conway reports, blew the whole thing off. He said that since Mr. Conway had immediately corrected the untruth, he didn't think it was that big a deal. (Actually, it took Mr. Conway four days to recant.)
Now, after obtaining a copy of Mr. Conway's personnel file under the state open records act, The Courier-Journal reports that the assistant prosecutor was indeed disciplined. He was placed on probation for 12 months and subjected to periodic drug tests.
When reporter R. G. Dunlop asked Mr. Stengel why he had not mentioned that probation in October, he replied that he considered “all internal discipline was confidential. I didn't really realize it was subject to open records. If I blabbed it, then it wouldn't be confidential.”
Then, in a Clintonian contortion of the English language, Mr. Stengel suggested that he didn't consider probation to be a disciplinary step. “I mean, if you want to split hairs, I guess you can (consider it discipline), but I didn't.”
Most people with a general understanding of right and wrong must be shaking their heads over all of this. Meanwhile, one of the officers who tipped off Mr. Conway and lied to investigators about it has been fired by Metro Police Chief Robert White for lying and for leaking information. Another has been reprimanded for talking about the case in public, and a third detective was reprimanded Tuesday.
It was after the latter episode that Mr. Conway's brother, Attorney General Jack Conway, then the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, got a tip from an eavesdropper. He met with his brother and advised him to get a lawyer.
This entire episode is a reminder of the perils of lying: Inevitably, one lie begets another, and the original issue becomes dwarfed by cover-ups.
Mr. Stengel says he's not running again for commonwealth's attorney in 2012. That seems like a wise decision.
Labels: Crime, jack CONway, Keeping them honest, Punishment
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 10:10 AM
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