Cali AG Charges Investigator of Filing Dirty

From cbs13.com:  The California Attorney General on Wednesday charged private investigator Kathleen Culhane with filing bogus documents to aid four death row inmate, calling the case one of the largest frauds ever perpetrated on the state's criminal justice system.

Kathleen Culhane was arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Sacramento on 45 felony counts of forgery, filing false documents, and perjury.

"This is fraud at the highest level," Michael Farrell, a senior assistant attorney general, said after the arraignment. "This is someone who is trying to undermine the system."

Among the inmates for whom Culhane allegedly lied was Michael Morales, who was sentenced to death for the 1981 rape and murder of a Central Valley teenager.

Questions about the San Francisco private investigator arose a year ago when Morales petitioned the governor for clemency and prosecutors challenged the authenticity of several documents Culhane submitted on his behalf. His execution eventually was stayed over the state's lethal injection method, a matter unrelated to Culhane.

The attorney general's criminal complaint alleges that between November 2002 and February 2006 Culhane filed at least 23 fraudulent documents designed to aid Morales and three other death row inmates -- Vicente Figueroa Benavides, Christian Monterroso and Jose Guerra. Culhane was working as a staff investigator for the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco in each case except that of Morales, when she was employed by the inmate's attorneys.

"She forged the signatures of those witnesses and jurors. Sometimes she completely made those documents up," Farrell said in court. "Her actions are an affront to the legal system."

Culhane's job was to find jurors and witnesses who may be favorable to the inmates and get them to sign declarations that could be used in their legal defense or requests for clemency. Her paperwork was then turned over to the inmates' attorneys and filed with the courts and the governor.

The counts against Culhane allege that she made up statements from real witnesses and jurors and forged their signatures, including six documents related to the Morales case. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey and tip from Lisa Carr]