Hundreds of cases in doubt after Raleigh police investigate ‘separated’ officer
An internal investigation into a Raleigh police officer who has since “separated” from the department has jeopardized hundreds of criminal cases in Wake County — but details remain murky.
Former Senior Officer Kyle Epps left the Raleigh Police Department on April 5, spokesperson Lt. David Davis told The News & Observer.
His departure, as first reported by WRAL, followed an apparently months-long investigation, the details of which Davis would not comment on.
A request submitted by The N&O on Tuesday to the city of Raleigh for the details of Epps’ personnel file that are public under state law had not been fulfilled as of Friday morning.
Besides providing Epps’ start date of Oct. 23, 2017, Davis would not answer further questions.
“This is the only information our office is authorized to provide at this time and is being shared consistently with all media outlets,” Davis wrote in an email to The N&O. “There are no criminal charges against Ofc. Epps.”
According to The N&O’s salary database for city employees, as of September 2023, Epps made $62,975 working as an officer in the downtown district, a position he’d held since August 2018. More recent information was not immediately available.
300 pending cases
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told The N&O in a Thursday email that Epps had about 300 pending cases where he was the arresting officer. Her office hasn’t tracked how many it has dismissed because of the investigation, she said.
“Currently we are reviewing cases as they appear in court and as we work through a list of pending cases,” Freeman wrote. “If we believe public safety requires that we move forward in a case then we will notify a defendant’s attorney that there is information from the internal investigation that is subject to disclosure and proceed according to what the law requires.”
In cases where there are victims, Freeman’s office will reach out to them to discuss the future of the case, she said.
“Our office had been aware for a period of months that Mr. Epps was on administrative leave but we were repeatedly informed by the Raleigh Police Department that the focus of the investigation did not trigger duties under Giglio,” Freeman said, referring to the legal principle requiring disclosures that could impeach a police officer’s credibility.
The Police Department notified Freeman’s office in March “that the investigation had been expanded to include matters which could be determined to be subject to disclosure if established to be true,” she said.
“We learned early April that Mr. Epps was no longer with the department and we sought a court order releasing the internal affairs final investigative report to our office for review,” Freeman wrote.
Freeman told The N&O she has not and does not intend to write a Giglio letter, a letter issued by a police department or district attorney’s office questioning an officer’s credibility. Such letters can be career-ending for law enforcement officers.
It’s not clear if Epps resigned from the department or was terminated; his personnel file should specify that.
“Our office has elected to dismiss cases based both on a concern regarding the findings of the internal investigation and based on the logistical challenges of following a disclosure process in district court where the volume of cases is very high and court time is very limited,” Freeman said.
Her office is “committed to following our ethical obligations,” she wrote.
Court records show only two dismissed cases where Epps was the arresting officer. One was a 2023 DWI case involving a driver with an alleged blood alcohol level of 0.15, nearly twice the legal limit, while the other was a 2023 case involving an alleged assault on a police officer.
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