LMPD cop hid info that Taylor's boyfriend was at apartment, had gun permit, government says

In a startling revelation about Breonna Taylor’s death, newly available records show that Detective Sgt. Kyle Meany, who surveilled her apartment just two days before she was fatally shot by police, saw her boyfriend Kenneth Walker’s car parked nearby and discovered he had a concealed carry permit.

But even though that made the search far riskier, Meany never told that to the team of detectives who executed it, nor did he insist it be included in the application for the search warrant.

He also never told fellow Detective Kelly Goodlett, who prosecutors say would have “thrown a fit” if she had known the information was withheld.

The new information about the events leading to Taylor’s death in 2020 emerged in an addendum to Goodlett’s guilty plea filed Aug. 23 in which the government says it would have been important to share the information for “safety reasons, among other reasons.”

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But Goodlett said Meany told her he did not find anything in the surveillance conducted on March 11, 2020.

If the information that there was a “potentially-armed male at the Taylor residence” had been disclosed, it would have raised the “risk matrix” for the search, according to the supplement.

“In short, Det. Goodlett knew from her training, experience, and the typical practices of the LMPD that there is really no circumstance under which the potential presence” of Walker at Taylor’s residence – and the fact he had the permit − “could justifiably have been withheld.”

Taylor was shot and killed by police after Walker, believing the couple was being robbed, fired one shot from the apartment that struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg; Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove returned fire, killing Taylor.

Justice Department lawyers also said in the plea supplement that if Meany had disclosed the sighting of Walker’s vehicle it would have undermined the claims that Taylor was involved in an “ongoing relationship” with drug dealer Jamarcus Glover, “which was a leading basis for searching Taylor’s apartment in the first place. “

It also “demonstrated a different, potentially longstanding relationship between Taylor and another man, who also had an association with her address, likewise undermining the basis to search Taylor’s Apartment,” says the addendum, which Goodlett signed.

Goodlett is one of four Louisville Metro officers who Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Aug. 24 had been indicted for violating Taylor’s civil rights. Garland said if not for those violations, Taylor would be alive today.

Goodlett, who resigned from the department, has agreed to testify against former Detective Joshua Jaynes and Meany. Former Detective Brett Hankison is charged in a separate indictment with violating the civil rights of Taylor, Walker and three neighbors by firing blindly through closed shades into her apartment.

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In another new disclosure in the augmented plea, prosecutors say when Jaynes and Goodlett met in his garage to “get on the same page” after news reports suggested they had falsified the affidavit for the search, he told her “if he went down ... so to speak ... she would go down too.”

The pleading said Jaynes “kept pressuring Det. Goodlett to go along with his false story, and she eventually buckled and agreed to repeat it to others.”

Meany's lawyers, Brian Butler and Michael Denbow, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Goodlett, who resigned from LMPD, is to be sentenced Nov. 22. She faces up to five years in prison for conspiring to falsify the warrant.

The six-page plea document sets out in detail the now familiar story about how Jaynes, Goodlett and Meany swore in an affidavit that a postal inspector had verified Taylor was receiving packages at her apartment and how records show Glover lived there.

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Federal prosecutors say they knew that both assertions were false.

The pleading says Meany surveilled Taylor’s apartment on March 11, 2020, to try to find “fresh information” to add to the affidavit but reported he did not find anything.

It says Goodlett did not know that when Meany was conducting surveillance that day, he saw Walker’s car parked near Taylor’s apartment and saw a “workup” showing Walker had the gun permit and a relationship with Taylor.

The next day, according to the pleading, Goodlett and Jaynes applied to Judge Mary Shaw for five warrants, including the one to search Taylor’s home on Springfield Drive, selecting Shaw because Jaynes had suggested she would not “closely scrutinize” them. Shaw has previously defended her practices of examining warrant applications.

Jaynes is charged with deprivation of rights, conspiracy and falsification of records in an FBI investigation. Meany is charged with deprivation of rights and giving a false statement to federal investigators.

Hankison is charged in a separate indictment with violating the rights of Taylor, Walker and three neighbors by firing blindly into her apartment.

Goodlett pleaded guilty to conspiracy and faces up to five years in prison when she is sentenced.

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According to the supplement to Goodlett’s plea, Jaynes requested a no-knock warrant for Taylor’s apartment because "these drug traffickers have a history of attempting to destroy evidence" and have cameras.

But the pleading says the detective “had absolutely no reason to believe that Taylor was a drug trafficker, or that she had ever tried to destroy evidence or flee from law enforcement.”

The document also says Goodlett falsely stated Jaynes had "verified" from law enforcement databases that Glover used Taylor's apartment as "his current home address.”

Both detectives knew this was "misleading" because he did not live there and hadn't been seen at the apartment since January, the plea says.

Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: LMPD cop hid info about Breonna Taylor's boyfriend, government says