I recently received discovery from Multnomah County in my lawsuit against Multnomah County and several county employees including deputy Timothy "Bubba" Barker and his wife CMA Erika Barker. That discovery appears to contain a Brady Violation committed by Assistant United States Attorney Gregory Ralph Nyhus in United States v. Sullivan, case number 3:17-CR-00306-JGZ (District of Oregon 2017). A Brady Violation occurs when the prosecution withholds exculpatory or impeaching information from defense counsel in a criminal case. In this case I had never before seen the email communication between Erika Barker and Tressa Kovachevich dated August 14, 2017 until I was reviewing the initial discovery from the county in my lawsuit. I should have seen this email with the discovery turned over by Nyhus in 2017, but I never did. If this information was not given to my defense team then Nyhus committed a Brady Violation. It is however entirely possible that my defense team received it and did not to share it with me.
Why would this be a Brady Violation? Because the email could be used at trial to impeach the testimony of Timothy and Erika Barker. The impeachment value comes in the form of Timothy Barker handling his wife's business at the jail. In my criminal case I was charged with several counts of assaulting federal officers in the form of Multnomah County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) deputies working at the jail under contract with the United States Marshals (USM). People often ask, how are they federal employees? They are not, but under the law they are protected the same because they are federally funded to assist federal agencies. The incident began with a dispute between myself and Erika Barker in which I was disrespectful and threatened to dox her on this website. The incident ended with Timothy Barker breaking my are intentionally after removing me from the housing unit and placing me in the hole. I always wondered why Barker acted the way he did when all I did to him was throw some chips in his face when he entered the cell before taking me to the hole. When I found out that the he was Erika's husband it all made sense. Timmy a.k.a. Bubba handled her business for her. This email between Erika and Kovachevich establishes a pattern of Timothy Barker handling his wife's business at the jail.
The circumstances leading to the email were strikingly similar to the ones that led to Bubba breaking my arm. They started with me disrespecting Erika. This time I disrespected her by sending her a Medical Request From (MRF) mentioning that when Bubba was on top of me I could not breathe and asking her how she can breathe when he is on top of her. This time instead of assaulting me, Bubba handled her business by writing me an incident report on her behalf even though she really should have been the one to write me up.
The main message that Kovachevich sent to Erika read, "FYI...regarding the attached report and issuance for Sullivan. It would be more appropriate and cleaner as far as procedures go if Tim was not involved in a misconduct that has to do with Erika." Erika responded in part, "Tim and I asked that exact question last night. We asked if it could be done by someone else, but Monahan said that Tim should write it because he was implemented by Sullivan in the MRF and because we had a time restraint as we're on vacation for the following ten days." I later received an incident report written by Tim Barker. Funny thing is that thanks to all their back and forth bickering I was not served with the report in time, so the hearings officer had to throw it out. Had Erika just handled it herself I would have been in trouble.