Former detective stands by CPD’s Ryan Ferguson investigation

One of the six detectives that implicated Ryan Ferguson in the murder of Kent Heitholt stood by his and the Columbia Police Department’s investigation.

“They’re all fine people, and they did great work,” Jeff Westbrook said of his colleagues. “Without exception, they did nothing wrong. And it’s being implied that they did.”

Westbrook, along with John Short, Jeff Liebhart, Jeff Nichols, Lloyd Simons and Latisha Stroer, settled a lawsuit over that investigation on Monday in federal court. Ferguson sued after spending nearly ten years in both jail and prison for Heitholt’s murder. The Western District Court of Appeals vacated his sentence in 2013 after prosecutors failed to disclose a piece of evidence.

Judge Nanette Laughrey awarded Ferguson $10 million in damages, along with $1,004,000 in legal fees.

The lawsuit claimed the detectives fabricated evidence, including witness statements, that framed Ferguson as the culprit in Heitholt’s killing in 2001. The settlement agreement details that the officers accept no wrongdoing in the investigation, but ultimately, the court entered that they were liable for constitutional violations in their work.

“We’ve got admitted liability,” Ferguson’s attorney Kathleen Zellner said after the hearing on Monday. “That’s what the judge made crystal clear.”

Westbrook retired from the department in 2010, after more than 20 years at CPD. He said he was confident their investigation would stand up in court. While he did not want to discuss the specifics of the case, or “re-hash” the investigation, Westbrook denied what Ferguson and his attorney, Kathleen Zellner, claimed in the lawsuit.

“What I don’t go along with is when there’s implications or direct aspersions to me and people that I work with that we did inappropriate things, that we did shoddy investigations, that we manipulated evidence, withheld evidence, because that absolutely did not happen.”

Westbrook said he was hesitant to sign a settlement in the case. However, he and the other officers feared that a jury might award damages in excess of what any liability insurance would be able to cover. Westbrook also cited fears of an unfavorable judge and anti-police sentiment in the country that may complicate a trial based on claims of police misconduct.

“Would we get a jury that would listen to the evidence and see that we did nothing wrong and they would rule that way?” Westbrook said. “Or would maybe some of those jurors say, ‘Ah, these police these days.’ So it scared us.”

The city of Columbia will pay $2.75 million as part of the settlement, according to the agreement. Ferguson and his attorneys will be able to recoup the rest from the insurance firm The Travelers Companies. The settlement agreement said Travelers had “wrongfully” denied the city coverage in April 2014, despite representing the city during the time of Ferguson’s incarceration.

The agreement also protects the officers’ assets from being taken as part of the settlement.