Recently I made a mental list of some of the cops and polygraphers I believe suspected what was going on with the way the investigation into Christopher Busch and Greg Greene was handled in late January 1977. To that list I added private polygrapher Larry Wasser and his good buddy, MSP polygrapher Chester Romatowski. I googled some of them to see if they were still breathing.
Imagine my “surprise” when I came across this:
See also, https://www.wxyz.com/news/region/oakland-county/brothers-to-file-125m-wrongful-imprisonment-lawsuit-against-oakland-county-polygraph-examiner ; https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2022/11/30/what-we-know-about-2-pontiac-brothers-who-were-wrongly-convicted-25-years-ago/ .
The exoneration of Melvin and George DeJesus was covered by the New York Times in March of 2022:
I missed all of the coverage of these two wrongful convictions and the ensuing lawsuit last year. The brothers were wrongfully convicted in 1997 (David Gorcyca, prosector).
There have been other recent exonerations in Oakland County. Gilbert Lee Poole, Jr. was exonerated in 2021 after being wrongfully convicted in 1989 (Richard Thompson, prosecutor).
Juwan Deering was wrongfully convicted on August 1, 2006 (David Gorcyca, prosecutor) and exonerated on September 30, 2021. Anthony Kyles was wrongfully convicted on October 17, 1997 (Gorcyca, prosecutor) and exonerated on October 26, 2022. There are others. https://michigan.law.umich.edu/academics/experiential-learning/clinics/michigan-innocence-clinic-0.
When the legal system fails like this–when arson investigators fuck up (or worse), and there are secret deals with prisoners in exchange for their testimony; when the prosecutor withholds exculpatory evidence knowing they can probably get away with it–the entire system takes a hit. When a polygrapher–the fucking longtime King of Polygraph for the state of Michigan–is alleged to have conspired to falsify a polygraph result to ensure a conviction–I am left feeling a lot less like a conspiracy theorist in the OCCK case. Monkeying around with polygraphs or taking “do-overs” and ditching previous polygraphs doesn’t sound so crazy now, does it?
These goddamn old school Michigan polygraphers–state police and private, with their little secret society bullshit arrangements and their winks and nods have been fucking people over for decades. Read this November 30, 2007 interview of private polygrapher Larry Wasser from the FOIA documents. I have annotated it with remarks that some may find offensive, but I have a very low opinion of this man and one of the interviewers. It was a frustrating read for me the first time. This time was no better.
The transcript is long and there are many bullshit detours long the way, including a discussion about another of Wasser’s good friends, MSP lieutenant Ernie Myatt. Wasser accuses the MSP of putting Myatt through hell.
Although it appears the feds did indeed drop the case, Myatt was indicted in 2002 with a civilian employee of Detroit PD and a retired DPD cop for laundering more than $1 million generated through the sale of cocaine stolen from a property room at DPD. Myatt, a polygrapher, was also indicted for lying to the grand jury. Oh hell, maybe Wasser and Gray are right–Myatt’s a good guy; he was just a business partner with the retired DPD cop; he got screwed over! These poor cops and polygraphers! And I’m sure old Chet is getting the shaft in the wrongful conviction lawsuit, too, right?
Here is the entire maddening transcript:
I guess maybe he should have taken Det. Williams up on his offer to talk about this all off-the-record before Wasser and his attorney decided to do battle, thinking he and the other polygraph kings in Michigan are all untouchable and beyond reproach.
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I’m sure Patterson and Anger were attempting to do the same Jokeland County frame job on Norberg in Wyoming that was done to the DeJesus brothers. Dragović, who is a true & honest public servant, either suspected the frame job or he was wise to it, and would not go along with framing Norberg.
Excellent observations. It would take over a year for the FBI to provide results on the DNA testing of Norberg (November 27, 2000). But Patterson’s objective was achieved–get out ahead of this crazy new DNA business and make it look like he was on it; get some good press. David Gorcyca was the prosecutor during this time; where the hell was he on this? The county executive gets his pal in the waste management “business” to fly everyone out to Wyoming. He got what he wanted–press coverage. The residents of AAA-bond-rated Oakland County just ate it up and shared his “disappointment” when nothing came of it. This fraud always talked up the fact he told cops to pull over every blue Gremlin they saw–a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes. He and his chief deputy didn’t bother to have a cop go check out the blue Vega with a white stripe parked at 3310 Morningview Terrace in Bloomfield Village. Then he pats himself on the back for the DNA boondoggle to Wyoming to dig up a dead guy who I was told was such a filthy drunk no kid would go near him in a parking lot, or anywhere.
When the results of the DNA test are revealed, there is no mention of any results or work done in the 1976 murder of 13-year-old Jane Allen, or the 1979 disappearance of 12-year-old Kimberly King, both cases mentioned in news articles as another basis for wanting to dig this creep up.
Yes, Norberg would have been the perfect fall guy–1. dead; 2. perverted creep; 3. not a resident of Oakland County. And they were willing to close THE ENTIRE OCCK case on this test, even though this was just one hair found on just one of the four victims. How gullible did they think the public was? Answer: Very.
I had to stop after ( CASE FILE ROOM) !!!!! What is this ?
And how about when Wasser takes the discussion into “hypothetical” territory; hey, if I knew this was THE guy I would have dropped the dime and called my pal Chet, an MSP polygrapher. And Chet would do what??? Listen, I don’t care who murdered Chris Busch and it would be a complete waste of taxpayer money to even investigate it at this point. They did society a big favor. Even if this slob was not THE guy, he was raping boys all over Michigan and prosecutors and judges seemed all too willing to distill it all down to probation in every case, rather than view this menace as the predator he really was. They REWARDED him with probation in every case. “No Deals” even nolle prossed two of the counts in the OC Busch CSC case because any sentence on top of probation would just be “repetitive” in the face of other county’s grants of probation. His fucking signature is on that document. “Thank you for playing. May I hold the door for you and your client as you go back out to hit the streets?”
It wasn’t because he had the bang-up legal representation of Jane Burgess. The firm was in its early days of developing its kid raping and child porn defense subspecialty. No, someone was greasing the skids for this animal. A first-year law student could have gotten the same results. Can you imagine Patterson and “No Deals,” from an office that probably violated the Constitution once a week, being cowed by a Jane Burgess?
The Magnum Force death squad approach solved a problem and no doubt saved other kids, but in no way did that approach vindicate the deaths of these four preteens. So don’t pat yourselves on the back for very long. The death squad took out a monster, but it prevented us from ever having any answers and set us up for exactly what happened here. Loose lips sink ships and opens a can of worms that could only revictimize the survivors decades later. And you know as well as I do that part of your mission was to prevent accountability by the county for letting Busch go so he could be involved in murdering my brother a few weeks later. Your corrupt county should have been bankrupted.
“Do ya feel lucky?” The men who killed Busch sure do. “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Patterson had none.
My father would have been around age 50 at the time of this case. He worked with Tom Robinson at OCC. My father was a dead ringer for John “The Art Guy ” McKinney and drove an ORANGE Gremlin with black stripe and was constantly pulled over.
There was a fair amount of ground to try to cover in this post. Every time I reread that despicable interview, I see more red flags. I will break these down in another post.
Every conviction based in any way on polygraph tests conducted by Chet Romatowski is now suspect. Polygraphers like him should be added to the “lying cop” Brady lists. https://giglio-bradylist.com/. Unsurprisingly, Michigan is apparently not in compliance with the nationwide, public-facing, platform of record: The Brady List. https://giglio-bradylist.com/united-states/michigan.