Arthur Bruce Tesler said he didn't object to lies to get a search warrant and helped cover up the crime after an innocent woman was killed, because he feared retribution from Atlanta police if he became a "rat," an FBI agent said Tuesday.
"He said in 2003 he had tried to report an officer who was involved in excessive force," FBI Agent Joe Robuck told the Fulton County jury Tuesday. "All that resulted in his co-workers thinking of him as a rat and Mr. Tesler being transferred to a less desirable position in the Atlanta Police Department."
The prosecution rested at noon in Tesler's trial in Superior Court. where he faces charges including lying in an official investigation and violating his oath of office for his role in the narcotics raid that resulted in the death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston on Nov. 21, 2006.
Tesler's two co-defendants, Gregg Junnier and Jason R. Smith, have already pleaded guilty.
They faced more serious charges, including murder, and agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
They have not yet been sentenced. Junnier testified last week and his sentence of up to 10 years is dependant on his cooperation.
He testified that Tesler, 42, participated in the coverup but he wasn't the main instigator of the illegal warrant or the coverup scheme, which Junnier blamed on Smith. In a surprise, the prosecution did not call Smith to testify.
FBI agent Robuck was the main witness Tuesday morning and he described a coverup that reached above Tesler and his two co-defendants. The three detectives briefed their sergeant, Wilbert Stallings, that they were changing their story about which officers witnessed an informant buying crack cocaine at Johnston's house at 933 Neal Street after Johnston was shot to death by narcotics unit officers.
"Sgt. Stallings was told there had been a change in the story and his comment, according to the investigation was, was 'Just pick one and stick to it," Robuck said.
The FBI agent described a police narcotics division that repeatedly lied to get warrants and planted evidence in investigations. Stallings, 44, was later convicted and is in prison on charges from another drug investigation that was turned up during the FBI investigation of the Neal Street case.
Robuck interviewed Tesler twice in the FBI investigation of police actions in getting a no-knock warrant to search for a reputed large stash of cocaine owned by a drug dealer, named "Sam," whom police believe operated from 933 Neal Street.
They had arrested a low-level dealer earlier that day who they said claimed to have seen a kilo of cocaine – 2.2 pounds — in the house that day, Nov. 21, 2006.
Instead, Johnston was waiting with a gun when officers broke down her door without announcing they were police. She fired one shot and was killed in a massive return fire.
Tesler, who was covering the back of the house and did not fire his pistol, was so shaken by the killing that he couldn't write his report, Robuck said.
Tesler told such a detailed lie about how he and his partners met with informant Alex White in the afternoon of the raid that he came across as very credible, Robuck said.
"His demeanor was very convincing," the FBI agent said.
The story matched the one that had been told by his partners. Smith, who lied to the magistrate to get the warrant, prepared a script for the detectives to go over to get their stories straight in the days following the shootings, Robuck said.
"Did you ever give [Tesler] a chance to come clean and tell the truth?" prosecutor Peter Odom asked Robuck of the first FBI interview with Tesler on Dec. 7, 2006.
"He said he didn't think there was anything he wanted to correct," Robuck said.
But White, the informant, had contacted the FBI to tell them he was being pressured to lie for the officers and Junnier, unknown to Tesler and Smith, soon confessed to the FBI.
On Dec. 21, 2006, Tesler told the FBI he would cooperate and gave them a lengthy interview after the holidays on Jan. 4, 2007.
Tesler said he went along with the cover-up story — that a reliable drug buy had been made at the house earlier this day — because "he was the low man on the totem pole," Robuck said.
"Did he ever express the concern that no one would believe him over a senior member of the team?" asked Tesler's lawyer, William McKenney, who was at the interview.
"He did say that," Robuck said.
Tesler said he knew Smith had lied to get the warrant when it was read to the eight-member narcotics team shortly before it raided the Johnston house.
He blamed Smith for planting marijuana in Johnston's basement to help justify the raid and claimed he had shaken his head "No" and walked out of the basement when Smith showed him the dope.
But he acknowledged going along with Smith's claim that cocaine seized from the low-level dealer earlier that day had been the cocaine bought from the Johnston house.
Tesler also was with Smith when they destroyed the rest of the marijuana seized earlier in the day at a different location because part of it was planted at Johnston's house and the samples could be linked through testing, Robuck said.
"They destroyed evidence," Odom said.
"Correct," Robuck said.
A Wake County
corrections officer who faces charges of voluntary manslaughter in
relation to an incident in which an inmate died defended himself in
court Wednesday.
