Corruption prosecutor comes to aid of police rookie

Officer falsified a report about a brawl among officers on The Block

A rookie Baltimore cop facing termination for writing a false statement found perhaps an unlikely defender at his departmental trial board hearing Tuesday: the prosecutor who heads the police integrity unit for the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office.

The case stemmed from a 2018 disturbance on The Block, Baltimore’s red light district. Officer Anthony Pujols tried to break up a fight, and called for backup. His sergeant, Marlon Koushall, was among those who arrived on scene, and bystanders recorded Koushall punching a woman who was part of the fracas.

The woman turned out to be an off-duty Baltimore Police sergeant.

Pujols had been facing away, trying to control the crowd. When he was asked to write a report about what he saw that night, he handed the report to his supervisor — Koushall — for approval. Pujols, who had been with the department just a few months at that point, said Koushall told him to put information into the report that Pujols had not personally observed.

Koushall would be criminally charged with second-degree assault and misconduct in office, and convicted by a Baltimore judge at a bench trial.

The Police Department later filed departmental charges against Pujols for making intentionally false statements — a charge that would lead to his firing if convicted by a departmental trial board hearing. Assistant State’s Attorney Steven Trostle, who heads the office’s public integrity unit, was called as a defense witness at Tuesday’s hearing and backed Pujols. He said that the officer was immediately up front when questioned by internal affairs about what happened, that he came clean to prosecutors before testifying at a grand jury. Trostle said he was truthful in his representations to the court.

“I would absolutely use him as a witness again,” Trostle said.

At the conclusion of a threehour hearing, the trial board found Pujols not guilty of both charges he faced.

The trial board is one of the first to occur with Baltimore citizens taking up two of the five spots on the panel. The General Assembly passed a law in 2016 allowing citizens to serve on the panels, but it took years to attract applicants, screen and train them. Then COVID-19 hit.

A commander, Maj. Brian Hopkins, led the proceedings against Pujols, with a lieutenant and an officer filling out the board. The panel unanimously agreed to clear Pujols of one of the charges; they split 3-2 on the second, with one of the citizen members voting for conviction and the other against.

Both civilians voted to clear Pujols of one of the charges; they split on the second charge.

The trial board prosecutor, Ashley Moore, told the board that an officer’s integrity is paramount, and that officers who write a false report cannot be trusted by the community.

“Every day you touch others’ lives, you need to know the officers you’re interacting with are going to be truthful,” Moore said.

Michael Davey, an attorney for Pujols, said that in 22 years of defending officers in internal trial boards, he never had a police misconduct prosecutor testify on an officer’s behalf.

The 2018 fight outside Norma Jean’s club on The Block has been a mess for the department. Initially, the off-duty sergeant, Henrietta Middleton, was charged with acting unruly. The incident was recorded and posted to social media, and drew media attention.

Trostle, who at the time was new to the State’s Attorney’s Office, said it was the first case he delved into.

“It didn’t take me more than 20 minutes to see that it was garbage that Middleton was charged” instead of Koushall, Trostle testified Tuesday. “We changed gears very quickly.”

Pujols had his back to Koushall and Middleton as he tried to keep the crowd under control. When he saw Middleton on the ground, he moved to intervene.

“We’re trained to de-escalate,” Pujols testified about why he stopped Koushall.

Pujols testified that he served in the same academy class as former officer Arthur Williams, who was captured on video just weeks before The Block incident repeatedly punching a man, leading to assault charges and a conviction.

Pujols said that he remembered that another officer could be seen on the video who did not intervene. Pujols said he thought to himself: “I can’t be that guy. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“That’s what a good officer does,” Davey told the panel. “That’s what an outstanding officer does.”

The department now teaches a course called EPIC — Ethical Policing is Courageous — that instructs officers to intervene when they see excessive force or misconduct.

Afterward, Pujols wrote up a report. He submitted it to Koushall, his supervisor. Pujols said Koushall told him to add that he saw Middleton charging him, and that she refused verbal commands and was taken down by a leg sweep by Koushall. Pujols wrote it in the first person even though his back was to the scene.

Moore, the internal department prosecutor, said that showed Pujols intentionally misrepresented what happened. But Davey argued that Pujols, in an interview with internal affairs that same day, said he didn’t witness what happened and that his report was inaccurate. He told Trostle the same thing before testifying before the grand jury months later, and again on the witness stand at Koushall’s trial.

Ironically, it was Trostle who referred the case to internal affairs for an investigation following the trial, where Pujols “took a beating” on cross examination over his inaccurate report.

Internal affairs Lt. John Ferinde testified that Pujols’ report was problematic because it made excuses for Koushall.

“All reports that we do have to be accurate. It goes to our integrity,” he testified.

Ferinde noted that officers can be placed on the State’s Attorney’s “do not call” list for integrity issues. Moore also said Pujols would be relegated to desk duty because his reports could not be trusted.

Moore tried to block Trostle from testifying. Davey pointed out that Ferinde’s testimony about the do not call list had opened the door; Trostle has a large say in which officers are prevented from testifying due to integrity issues.

Pujols’ “answers [for why the report contained a false statement] satisfied me,” Trostle testified. “He was 100 percent consistent at all times.”

Koushall is appealing his criminal conviction; he said at sentencing that he felt that he acted in self-defense and without malice. The judge who found him guilty, Lynn Stewart Mays, had strong words for Middleton at Koushall’s sentencing: “We had sworn police officers, most, if not all of them, pretty drunk, stumbling, staggering, slurring, putting themselves in an environment when nothing positive could come. Drinking, fighting, it’s terrible ... it’s clear this situation was seconds from totally erupting.”

Middleton, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit against the Police Department alleging numerous injuries including a concussion, post-traumatic headaches and injuries to her neck and back. She also said she was disparaged by negative media coverage of her arrest, and in a lawsuit is asking for $90 million in damages.